Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication: Selected Readings

Rating:
Summary: A very mixed bag of articles to read with eyes wide open
Review: "Basic Communications of Intercultural Communication" is a collection of thirteen essays on a variety of cross-cultural topics, mostly those affecting people of different nationalities or speaking different languages. The quality of the articles is very uneven.

Dean Barnlund has contributed a finely crafted piece on the difficulties our increasingly international society will face, when we already struggle so mightily with cultural differences within our own communities. Barnlund suggests reasons from his own research that explain why individuals easily empathize with some cultures and respond in a hostile way to others.

Sheila Ramsey has written an excellent primer for American and Japanese business people who have to be effective in each other's very different societies. She is clearly entirely at home with her subject and her explanations are clear and detailed.

A couple of writers have presented refreshingly down-to-earth articles on the differences beween American black and anglo culture. Thomas Kochman repeats the results of Carol Koogler's observation of two different teachers dealing with the same class of mixed black and anglo children and how they get different results according to their empathy with each group's cultural assumptions.

Unfortunately I was looking for a book that I could recommend to American business people visiting European offices. The chapters about socio-linguistics were the least satisfactory. Benjamin Lee Whorf trots out that hoary old myth about Eskimos having more words for snow than other North Americans. Dr Bennett himself offers the theory that Americans are more egalitarian than Europeans in part because English has only one word for 'you', unlike most European languages that usually have two or three. He doesn't resolve the anomaly that the most egalitarian countries in the world (Norway, Denmark and Sweden) are all in Europe and all speak languages with multiple forms of the word 'you'. Nor does he resolve the paradox that the same language that he says makes Americans so "democratic" has also made the English themselves "haughty", "oppressive of the Scots", and prone to advertise "their place of education".

In short, this isn't a book I would want to put in the hands of an innocent monolingual American business person heading abroad for the first time. Nor would I recommend it to the students and 'newcomers to the field' for whom it was written.

Rating:
Summary: A fundamental reference I return to again and again.
Review: This book was my initial introduction to the field of intercultural communication and I seem to return to it often as a reference point in thinking about new intercultural works that I wish to more deeply understand. The chapter on marginality by Janet Bennett is particularly thought provoking and helpful around personal identification issues related to biculturality. I strongly suggest this book to anyone seeking to better understand intercultural relations. I can't seem to keep it off my desk and get it back on the shelf.

Rating:
Summary: Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication
Review: This is a must read book, especially for those dealing with intercultural communication, both in the areas of foreign language learning and business management. I read some of the articles twice even three times and found the them very inspiring for my teachings as they provided a strong foundation on cross cultural understanding; moreover they have helped me a lot in highlighting the sensitive matters in intercultural communication to my class. I assume anyone dealing with people from different cultural background need to know the arts of intercultural communication, as misunderstanding might result in losing the business. I am quite positive that this book will also be of great help for managers, business people who have to deal with their foreign partners.