Intercultural Communication: Towards Better Understanding and Learning Term Paper

Intercultural Communication: Towards Better Understanding and Learning

In humanity's pursuit for learning, it is inevitable that we will encounter diversity, or differences in people in the way they think, act, and behave. Most often, people whom we perceive as different are no more different than us -- that is, we may perceive them as different, but they also presumably assume us as different from the people they have been familiarized and acquainted with. This move towards crossing cultural boundaries in pursuit of learning is called intercultural communication, often defined as the "process that occurs when members of two or more cultures exchange messages in a manner that is influenced by their different cultural perceptions and symbol systems" (Adler, 1998:40).

How does intercultural communication relates to the development of understanding and learning? It is essential for any academic students to be acquainted with different cultures, within or outside the country, in order to develop critical thinking, communication skills, and relational skills with other people.Through intercultural communication, we are able to develop critical thinking, mainly because being introduced with another culture or 'social world' entails tolerance for diversity or ambiguity -- that is, tolerance for a world or culture that we do not usually encounter or experience. Being tolerant also paves the way for open-mindedness, where issues, individuals, and events are interpreted through various perspectives, and the student/observer is not limited to his/her culture's perspective only. Being open-minded also helps eliminate prejudice, bias, and ethnocentrism within an individual.

With objectivity or at least acknowledgment that there exist numerous cultures in the world, the individual also develops his/her knowledge and skills in communicating and relating with people (64). These knowledge….....