Writing for Business Success/Introduction to Business Communication/Inter-cultural communication

All communication is more or less cross-cultural. We learn to use language as we grow up, and growing up in different parts of the country, having different ethnic, religious, or class backgrounds, even just being male or female - all result in different ways of talking.

We've already learned that thinking about our audience is one important aspect of communication. When our audience is a person or group of people from a different culture, there are even more things to consider. Inter-cultural communication is a huge topic on its own, and something many people enjoy learning about. In this course, we're encouraging you to start thinking about this aspect of communication, so that it is something you are aware of.

Communicating across different cultural and/or social groups can be challenging. Even if you come from the same cultural group as your audience, or speak the same language as them, think about times when you have tried to communicate with people much older or much younger than you, for example, or people with a completely different professional background to you. You may have found that they use different words for the same thing, or maybe use a lot of informal or colloquial language.

Non-verbal communication, including things like body language and gestures, can also mean different things to different people. Did you know, for example, that in some countries the 'thumbs-up' gesture can mean that everything is good, but in other countries it can represent the number one, the number five, or it can also be an insult? Similarly, pointing at something with your finger is perfectly acceptable in some cultures, but extremely bad manners in others. One element of preparation, then, when you are communicating with people from different cultural or social groups to yours, is to think about how you can avoid this type of misunderstanding.