Intercultural communication Source: Clingendael 2013
Reflection exercise: Briefly discuss how context affects our understanding of a message and then discuss an example of how people read contexts differently…
Each and every individual has the right to interpret context differently whether within a social or professional context. The way we each individually interpret a conversation is unique, as our behaviors, morals, values and thoughts are shaped by the environmental factors that have contributed to the context provided to you at the time of the message delivery. Culture also shapes a unique way we govern our thoughts and actions, sometimes an accent is all it takes to misinterpret or cloud judgement within a given situation. When you are with people who are similar to yourself, your values and actions and how you operate become common sense. But as it happens the world is becoming smaller, and we are encouraged to interact with different cultures everyday, whilst modern technologies has made this increasingly easier, we still make mistakes on how to deal with people from cultures other than your own. This term is called intercultural communication, and a great example of a cross-cultural misunderstanding can be seen below:
According to Bennett (1998, p.1) intercultural communication is communication between people with different backgrounds, that cannot allow the easy assumptions of similarity thus given our history, similarities generally allow people to exchange communication/messages given that the responses are predictable due to some basic and shared assumptions, generalizations or beliefs about the nature of the context/message. The above example of taking a simple “fork” as a “f**k” can be a very common misunderstanding, but whom is in the wrong?
To further develop an understanding of intercultural communication the following video below by Pellegrino Riccardi (2014) illustrates to us that it is about understanding the different perceptions of what is accepted and familiar within our cultural norms of society:
As explained by Eunson (2012, p.487) the context of the communication strongly depends on the exceptions and rules of each culture and generation and perhaps that is why communication is complicated when it comes to people with different cultures. In conclusion, it is always beneficial to analyse the intercultural situations (Eunson, 2012) as there are unspoken rules and boundaries when operating with people from different backgrounds. As it is best to seek help or further assistance then to judge and misinterpret the situation further.
Communication in Professional Contexts: 
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