Cross Cultural Communication A Foreign Language Perspective

To be aware of issues in cross-cultural communication is becoming increasingly important. Any of us may travel or meet travellers. We may work with members of other cultural groups. We may learn a foreign language. Such situations inevitably bring us into contact with other ways of speaking, other modes of behaviour and other views of life. In this article we examine how communication across cultures can be affected by participants’ interpretations, assumptions and expectations which largely derive from their own cultural background. We consider some ways in which cross-cultural communication functions at the various levels of words, grammar, pronunciation and at the less obvious levels of discourse patterns, sociolinguistic uses of language and levels involving cultural presuppositions.