Cultural Differences & Communicative Practices

Scope & Purpose of this course

Participants will emerge with a fuller understanding of the paradox that cultural differences may evidence themselves only in subtle, almost imperceptible ways, but these ways can have a profound, often negative, impact upon communication. Miscommunication creates missed opportunities, unnecessary complications, wasted time, and bad feelings.

Who Should Attend

• Culturally diverse companies
• Managers of diverse workforces
• Speakers to non-native or non-mainstream audiences
• Anyone who deals with internationals
• Internationals working in U.S.
• Human Relations Departments
• Recruiters
• Global marketers
• Marketing communications professionals
• Field sales organizations

Topics Covered in this Course

• The relationship between language and culture
• The importance of understanding cultural difference
• Various non-spoken components of language
• Various models of communication (“information transfer,” “transactional process,” “strategic control,” “balance of creativity and constraint”)
• The concept of appropriate language for the cultural context (“communicative competence”)
• The notion that language habits predispose certain ways of thinking (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis)
• “Difference” and “deficit” as theories relative to diversity
• Sociologically descriptive national categories of thinking (Hofstede’s “variables”)
• The concept that phrases are used as embodiments of values (“cultural constructs”)
• Miscommunications which can occur related to ethnic, racial, gender, religious, and sexual orientation differences in communication