Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Communication - Book Report/Review Example

Communication Aspects Observations and Conclusions Communication is a topic that has garnered a lot of attention in the recent past. While there are many perspectives of communication, the cross-cultural communication perspective has become more important as cultural integration becomes a common phenomenon in a globalized world. Ajit Mohanty is one of the scholars who have paid particular attention to the way communication is used to relay messages in different cultures. The views communication as the channel that human beings use to pass messages and the meaning of such messages are important to those who receive them. However, there is evidence that different languages express different messages differently and this results to variation in meaning when the same words are used. Therefore, the thesis of the author is that communication does not entail ability to construct grammatical messages, but the ability to relay the actual meaning intended for the recipient. Mohanty (2003, P. 79) observes there is a difference between communication competence and the understanding of grammatical rules. Grammatical rules helps people to construct sentences that make meanings while communication competence allows people to make pass intending meaning to the respondents. He notes that within different cultures, the same sentences may make meaning but the meanings may vary and may even be unrelated. Therefore, a sentence translated from one language to another by only considering the grammatical construction may have a completely different from one that intends to be sent to the other party. Secondly, the author observes that there are cultural rules that govern communication (Pp. 80-81). Right from the way the message is constructed to the intonation varies from one language to another. Therefore, the meaning that decoder obtains is influenced by the cultural rules and language attitudes that are characteristic of that language. Therefore, the author concludes that multi-linguism is essential for communication across different cultures. Those who are competent in two languages find it easier to understand the varied meaning of sentences and hence can pass the message more precisely. For one to be competent in more than one language, it becomes crucial to understand the different cultures and how they construct messages in their own language. The coding and decoding rules are very crucial. In countries such as India, the statement such as “No” may mean “Yes” depending on the way they nod to the particular question. Therefore, a bilingual who claims to understand the Indian language must be able to decode such messages the cultural rules that govern communication within this population (Mohanty, 2003, P. 83-87). Also, he suggests that translators should be more concerned with the construction of meaning rather than grammar as meaning is the primary element of communication. While living in the modern environment, multilinguism is essential as people interact more closely with people from different cultures. Evidently, the author presents credible arguments about variation in message conveyance within different cultures. Mohanty is a credible author who has participated in authentic documentation of communication texts. He is a PhD holder from the university of Alberta and ICSSR national fellow. He became a professor at an age of 37 after which he became a professor of psychology in Zakir Hussain Centre for Educational studies. Before his retire in 2011, he authored about 120 publications, of which 7 are books featuring in the topic of psycholinguistics and multilingual education. The author commands a lot of respect in communication psychology after serving as an international senior fellow within various language departments (AjitMohanty.com, 2015). The academic background of the author gives him a good base to contribute in the topic of communication. As a result, his idea regarding cross-cultural communications has become important works of scholarship in the contemporary language education within learning institutions. The idea of Mohanty that the semantic aspect of communication is more crucial in interpersonal communication is an idea that has received a wide range of support. Scholars such as Samovar, Porter and McDaniels (2012, P. 381) have supported the idea citing the way cultural symbols of communication impact meaning within communication. Both verbal and non-verbal communications vary from one language to the other, and hence the meaning is altered as sentences are interpreted from one language to another. Therefore, this idea is credible and a major consideration in language competence. In addition, it is acceptable that competence in more than one language is essential in communication competence. Application A wide range of theories have focused on the cross-cultural concept of communication to illuminate the important parameters that come into play when people from different languages communication. The translation theory of communication holds that successful translation is one in which meaning, rather than the words are interpreted into the next language. The implication of this theory is that meaning is more crucial that the sentences. Therefore, translators must bear the meaning in mind before translating each sentence to ensure that they pass the exact meaning. This theory auger well with Mohanty’s idea of communication as mechanism for transmitting meaning and one that goes beyond the grammatical correctness (Gudykunst, 2003). Secondly, the cultural functional theories state that social aspects of culture dictate the way person communicate, and hence affect the meaning of communication. Since each culture upholds certain symbols and expressions, they will tend to communicate differently as sign of interaction with these symbols. From a critical perspective, this theory provides that cultural difference impact the meaning of each word and hence the meaning of each sentence. This argument is much more similar to Mohanty’s idea of cultural rules that affect communication. From such a view point, the ideas of Mohanty are embedded in the theories of communication and support the concepts that underlie competent communication. Therefore, the work of this author can be termed as credible and an important contribution to the topic of cross-cultural communication. From an experiential perspective, real life communication is influenced by the cultural attributes. In my personal learning environment, I have observed the challenges when non-native students begin their classes and learn the English language. The learning process starts with introduction to various grammatical rules that are used within languages. Therefore, the learners become familiar with the sentence and paragraph construction in the first stage of their learning. However, they are less concerned with the meaning that the sentence has as the grammatical rules provide a semantic construction. When it comes to oral communication, majority of non-native learners experience a big challenge while expressing themselves at the first stage of the learning process. Evidently, they translate their languages into English and they construct grammatical sentences. While such sentences may be meaningful, many a times they express unintended meaning to their listener and this becomes a barrier to communication. The theory of translation explains the need for translating the meaning and having a cultural understanding while communicating (Bandura, 2002). Therefore, such learners will become efficient in communication in later stages after they have learnt to understand how the native students interpret the English language. The same way, in writing, such students will face a challenge while passing messages in the English language. This explains why non-native learners have their work market less strictly at their early years of education. This is in line with the theories that suggest that each culture has its own rules that influence the way messages are decoded. From Mohanty’s work, there are a number of important lessons that underpin language competence. First, the cultural perspective of education influences the meaning of messages with communities. In this regard, understanding the culture of a community is paramount if one has to communicate efficiently. Therefore, one needs to take pay attention, as much as possible, to the cultural attributes that influence the meaning construction within different communities. Therefore, as I strive to work within a culturally diverse environment, I have a challenge to consider the cultural symbols that may impact communication. This will not only help me to understand other people but also to express myself in a way that they can understand me. Secondly, there is value in understanding more than one language in the contemporary world (Turunen & Hakulinen, 2000). Evidently, cultural integration is inevitable in modern society and language competence is becoming a more important issue. Therefore, competence in more than one language is crucial to ensure that one is ready to interact actively within the society and to work with different people. For instance, students of marketing must be competent in communication if they have to market their product internationally. Failure to understand cultural rules that influence communication may hinder the interpersonal communication. In conclusion, Mohanty’s work on the cultural perspective of communication is educative and focuses of a relevant area for modern society. As language competence becomes an increasing important topic, it important that the students of language become competent in transferring meaning from one language to another. Besides grammatical correctness, one must understand the variation of meaning from one culture to another. Therefore, this is a challenge for every person to acquire multilingual skills that will enhance them to construct meaningful statements while communication with people from different cultures. References AjitMohanty.com, (2015). About Ajit Mohanty. Retrieved from:< http://ajitmohanty.org/about/ > Bandura, A. (2002). Social cognitive theory of mass communication. Media effects: Advances in theory and research, 2, 121-153. Gudykunst, W. B. (2003). Cross-cultural and intercultural communication. Thousand Oaks [u.a.: Sage Publ. Mohanty, A., (2003). Message Sensitivity in Multilingual Communication in Krishnan, L., Patnaik, B. N., Sharma, N. K., & Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. Aspects of human communication. New Delhi, India: Mittal Publications. Samovar, L., Porter, R., & McDaniel, E. (2009). Communication between cultures. Cengage Learning. Turunen, M., & Hakulinen, J. (2000). Jaspis-a framework for multilingual adaptive speech applications. In INTERSPEECH (pp. 719-722). Read More