Clear Communication
Timoteo Chown
Communicated by: Dr. Rebecca Brittenham
Department of English
abstract
This paper studies intercultural communication aspects that should be understood in order to establish eective
communication. Besides the spoken language, appropriate posture, gestures, and expressions are also discussed
and exemplied. The paper suggests some procedures that could be used by companies in order to improve the
performance of employees who have to conduct business in foreign countries.
The rst written episode describing the problem of a lack of
communication is the well-known Bible story of the Tower of
Babel. People of the world have been involved in situations
where the understanding of languages and cultures are fundamental for mutual comprehension since early in History.
Communication skills have never been as important as they
are in the globalized world in which we live today. This is
mainly true in the business area. Global companies look for
employees who are able to establish eective communication
with multinational customers and suppliers.
When we talk about communication, the rst thing that
comes to our minds is the variety of languages. The starting point for people who want to understand each other
is to speak the same language. However, \human understanding is by no means guaranteed because conversants
share the same dictionary" (Barnlund 63). An example
is regionalism. Regionalism is peculiar forms of a determined language belonging to identiable geographic areas
that have phonetic and/or structural dierences from the
standard language. This can be observed in large countries
like the USA, China, Brazil, and Russia. The result is that,
although the language is the same, when people from different regions of the same country are talking to each other
a complete understanding is sometimes not possible. In the
business area, the issues that are raised because of inadequate inter/intracultural communication are easily noticed.
Besides developing skills related to intercultural communication, business and technical communication students are
encouraged to develop their skills in intracultural communication because of the increasingly multicultural environments of corporations within the United States (Corbett
411). The educational level of the conversants also plays
a major role in both intercultural and intracultural communication. When people from dierent educational backgrounds are dialoguing, the vocabulary must be chosen in a
way that they can understand each other without jargons.
Going beyond words, it is really fascinating to study nonverbal behaviors in dierent cultures, and how they can cause
even greater problems than the ones related to language differences. Barnlund declares that it is \dierences in meaning, far more then mere dierences in vocabulary, that isolate cultures, and that cause them to regard each other as
strange or even barbaric," and that \The issue is more con-
ceptual than linguistic" (65). Expressions, gestures, and behaviors complement languages in communication. However,
they may also have dierent meanings in dierent places. A
simple example is that we are used to expressing the number
one by showing the index nger. In France this means four
since they start counting from the little nger. In Japan
it means two because they start counting with the thumb.
Another example is the sales people of a company who were
in a meeting in a foreign country. After winning a big business contract they started laughing and talking in their own
language in such a way that the customer began to think
they were not reliable. The customer halted the negotiations
and the business contract was lost. \There is no appropriate
response to a bow or a hand-shake, a shout or a whisper,
until it is interpreted" (Barnlund 66). It would probably not
have been necessary to change the business decision if the
way of celebration was understood as normal in another culture. Before sending employees to conduct business abroad,
companies should prepare them for situations that are liable
to happen. Also, basic information on cultural dierences
should be given. In the May/June93 edition of Business
Horizons there are some more interesting and useful examples of gestures that are normal in one culture, but strange,
rude, or insulting in another.
Notions of appropriate posture, gestures, eye contact, facial
expression, touching, pitch, volume, and rate dier across
cultures. As a simple but potentially disastrous example,
nodding the head up and down in Bulgaria means \no," not
\yes." Successful executives must avoid using any gestures
considered rude or insulting. For instance, in Budhist cultures, the head is considered sacred, so you must never touch
anyone's head; in Muslim cultures, the left hand is considered unclean, so never touch, pass, receive, or eat with the
left hand. Pointing with the index nger is rude in cultures
ranging from Sudan to Venezuela to Sri Lanka. The American circular \A-OK" gesture carries a vulgar meaning in
Brazil, Paraguay, Singapore, and Russia. Crossing your ankle over your knee is rude in such places as Indonesia, Thailand, and Syria. Pointing your index nger toward yourself
insults the other person in Germany, the Netherlands, and
Switzerland. Avoid placing an open hand over a closed st
in France, saying \tsk tsk" in Kenya, and whistling in India
(76).
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Another aspect of nonverbal communication relates to norms
regarding the space around the conversants. Some cultures
prefer closer personal and social space than others and might
consider it rude if you back away. If a person is talking with
a friend, the space where he/she feels comfortable might be
dierent than if the same person is talking with a stranger.
The concept of touch is also important to be understood. In
a study of touching behaviors, \researchers observed people
seated in outdoor cafes in each of four countries, and counted
the number of touches during one hour of conversation. The
results were: San Juan, 180 touches per hour; Paris, 110 per
hour; Gainesville, Florida, 1 per hour; and London, 0 per
hour"(Business Horizons 77).
The adequate use of language, gestures, and expressions for
ecient communication must take into account the receivers
point of view. This means that the emitter must always
remember that the message must be clear to the receiver.
This rule seems to be very logical and simple. However, a
lot of misunderstandings still happen because people tend
to speak for themselves, not for others. It is important
to consider what the message is supposed to communicate
within a particular culture, who is the target public, which
are the ways of transmitting the message, and when is the
adequate time for the communication. An example is a
beer commercial that showed situations of a baseball game.
If this commercial was supposed to be aired in Brazil, it
would not be eective, even if translated into Portuguese,
because the target public would not be familiar with baseball and its peculiarities. Considering that the target public
was the American people, this commercial reached its objectives, because all the receivers could understand the whole
message. In the business area, \managers should delineate
consciously and specically what it is they want their audience to do as a result of the communication: sign a contract,
provide information, approve recommendations, or come up
with a solution. A realistic goal in one culture may not be
so in another" (Business Horizons 69 ). To achieve the goal,
the communication style must be carefully chosen, together
with the adequate language and nonverbal behaviors that
were previously discussed.
Barnlund begins his essay by saying that \tomorrow we can
expect to spend most of our lives in the company of neighbors who will speak in a dierent tongue, seek dierent values, move at a dierent pace, and interact according to a
dierent script"(61). Even small American cities have many
people from dierent countries, increasing the probability
of having a foreign neighbor, classmate, or co-worker. It is
necessary to be ready to deal with this kind of situation.
The person who is coming from another country (or the foreigner) must understand that the American way of living
can be very dierent from the one in his/her native country. Many characteristics of the American way of being will
be better than the person was used to, while others will be
worse. Better or worse, the foreigner must accept the rules
of the new country instead of trying to change them. In a
very respectful way, the foreigner can even give suggestions
for the local culture, but never impose them. On the other
hand, the native inhabitants must also be aware that the differences can be signicant and the transition is neither easy
nor fast. They need to help the newcomer to feel condent,
respected, and comfortable, while putting aside attitudes
that could evidence signals of preconception. According to
T. Chown
Barnlund:
What seems most critical is to nd ways of gaining entrance into the assumptive world of another culture, to identify the norms that govern face-to-face relations, and to equip people
to function within a social system that is foreign but no longer incomprehensible. Without
this kind of insight people are condemned to remain outsiders no matter how long they live in
another country. (63)
The important step of gaining entrance into the new culture
will only happen if the newcomer gets involved and exposes
himself/herself to this new culture. However, most of the
time what can be observed is that people start looking for
other people from their same country. This results in groups
that will not merge with the local culture, who will continue
to be considered outsiders for a long time.
In order to be able to merge with the local culture, outsiders
should assimilate everything that is new to them, proving
their competence and demonstrating their membership in
a new cultural community. Assimilating the dierences in
vocabulary, in meaning, in behavior, and in the overall new
culture where a person can be, means that this person is
able to be part of a new group. According to what is convenient, he or she can also go back to their former community.
This can be linked to Barnlund's quote: \This, of course,
converts many human encounters into rituals of ratication,
each person looking to the other only to obtain endorsement
and applause for his own beliefs. It is, however, what is often
meant by interpersonal understanding" (68). What really
matters for us when exposed to a new group or culture is
to prove to ourselves and for everybody else that we can assimilate the circumstances and be accepted among the new
community. We can understand and respect dierent ways
of living, as well as choose what can be good or adequate
for our own situation.
Although challenging, there are ways of getting around the
problems that arise with intercultural communication. One
of them is to research the similarities and dierences between countries that are trading partners. A study to analyze negotiation behaviors among current and future business professionals in the United States and Brazil has been
conducted (Volkema 1999). The study involved two hundred seventy-one individuals from MBA, graduate business,
and executive business courses from Brazilian and American
universities who answered a two-page questionnaire used to
gather information on eighteen diverse negotiation behaviors. The categories of behavior that were analyzed were
traditional competitive bargaining, misrepresentation of information, blung, information collection, and inuencing
an opponent's network. It is not the scope of this paper to
discuss the development of the analysis, or its results. The
main point is there is precious information available for people involved in business between Brazil and the USA, highlighting similarities and dierences that should be noted for
eective communication. Similar studies involving major
trading partners would be useful as reference material for
professionals involved in international business.
Situations in which Chinese professionals moved to other
countries to work for joint ventures have been described
(Beamer 1998). After describing some problems that have
Clear Communication
occured, the article gives some tips for successful communication.
Attempting to change either the Chinese or Western partners' thinking about how to achieve a solution may not be
realistic, but at least the two sides can try to understand
each other. Partners in a joint venture in China can start
o on the right foot by selecting personnel who are sensitive
to, and knowledgeable about, cultural dierences. Partners
should include not only initial, but continued cross-cultural
training on their list of management priorities. Ongoing education programs would consist of several days of intensive
awareness training and many hours of discussion about specic situations that can spark conicts and problems. Other
topics to cover might include attitudes toward communication styles, time management, conict resolution, productivity, and cooperation. A rm might consider employing a
culture interpreter who can mediate when conicts require
negotiation and to whom employees can look for explanation of misunderstandings. Though these measures will not
close all cultural gaps in joint ventures, they should help
make joint venture managers more sensitive to the role such
dierences play in the day-to-day operation of their companies. These procedures would certainly minimize the problems that Barnlund foresees in his essay.
Similarly to Beamer, Business Horizons also recommends
cross-cultural training programs, and describes characteristics they should have in order to be eective: 1) They should
be considered a necessity, not a luxury. Training costs are
small compared to the potential costs of early returns or
business losses due to the lack of cross-cultural competency.
2) They should be a family aair to counteract spouse and
family adjustment problems. 3) They must be experiential,
participative, and behavioral B using teaching methods such
as simulations, eld trips, and role plays and avoiding \dog
and pony" shows (79).
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These recommendations are based on the fact that more
than 70 percent of U.S. expatriates and 90 percent of their
families are sent overseas without any kind of cross-cultural
training. This results in poor performance or inability to
adjust to the new culture. Researchers show that up to
40 percent of the expatriates return before they are supposed to, and the direct costs of the failed assignments for
American corporations are estimated to exceed two billion
dollars a year (Business Horizons 69-79 ). The numbers are
impressive and they help to demonstrate the relevance of
intercultural communication.
In conclusion, for successful communication we always need
to understand the language and its variations as well as to
have cultural knowledge related to the ones we are involved
with in the communication process. Worse than not being able to understand one another is misunderstanding the
intended message.
references
Corbett, Jan. \From Dialog to Praxis: Crossing Cultural Borders
in the Business and Technical Communication Classroom".
Technical Communication Quarterly, 5.4 (Fall96): 411-425.
Beamer, Linda. \Bridging Business Cultures". The China Business Review, 25.3 (May/Jun98): 54-58.
Volkema, Roger J. \Ethicality in Negotiations: An Analysis
of Perceptual Similarities and Dierences Between Brazil
and the United States". Journal of Business Research, 45.1
(May99): 59-67.
Business Horizons, 36.3 (May/Jun93): 69-79.
Barnlund, Dean. \A Communication in a Global Village". Literacies: Reading, Writing,Interpretation. New York: Norton,
1997. 61-75.
Timoteo was transferred from Brazil by Bosch Braking Systems where he works in the Design Engineering Department.
He expects to receive his MBA in the summer of 2002. His paper was written for W131, Elementary Composition. \I
have always considered intercultural communication an important topic. My father is a British translator working in
Brazil, and I frequently interact with customers from dierent cultures."