An Integrated Approach to Intercultural Communication

This book explores communication, culture, and intercultural communication. The emphasis is on promoting understanding of and appreciation for the rich and varied perspectives encountered in intercultural communication opportunities. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book focuses on the need to develop self-understanding as a first step to intercultural understanding, and highlights the need for the intercultural state of mind to match our multicultural world, the difficulties inherent in the quest of such objective, the excitement of challenges on the way and the rewards of the success that are sputtering with new energy and yet waiting to be discovered. Furthermore, the book represents an initial step in the process of building competencies which may facilitate effective communication in all types of cross-cultural settings. It gives a unique outlook of how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. The book grows out of the philosophy that developing better interpersonal, intercultural communication skills will profoundly benefit the five-and-a-half billion people who share this planet and who increasingly interact with each other by producing some guidelines with which people can successfully cope with the realities of cultural diversity, the challenges of living in a multicultural world, the need to transcend the unpredictability of intercultural interactions, the accompanying fears that such interactions often encompass, and the feeling of joy and comfort in the discovery of cultural diversity.