The Main Barriers to Communication Across Different Cultures and Languages

Communication has been defined in many ways by different scholars. It is defined as a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behaviour (Webster, 1828). It can as well be said to be in form of codes or secrete languages. When two parties are unable to receive and understand the messages which has been sent through different mediums, either by means of information, ideas and thoughts, these are referred to as communication barriers. Barriers to communication can mostly be caused by cross-cultural differences. Today the world we live in is a global village where no nation, group or culture can remain anonymous (Samovar and Porter, 1997). Different cultures have difficulties understanding one another’s views either at work or business places. It can as well be defined as cultured manners; that is the entireness of a person's learned, accrued experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behaviour through group learning. Culture is the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group (Webster, 1828). In this essay, we will discuss the main barriers to communication across different cultures and languages. These barriers include language, signs and symbols, behaviour and nature, stereotypes and prejudices, Ethnocentrism religions, individual space as well as food.

To successfully communicate to individuals or colleagues in an organisation or in a team, there is need for us to understand the communication environment and to know the barriers which prevent our messages being sent and received successfully. We understand the different ways of communicating in many different was. When we look at language barriers, this occurs when people do not speak the same language or having different level of gift in a language. Barriers can as well occur when people are speaking the same language. This can be through the use of slang or inappropriate level of language. Many of us hesitate to communicate with a foreigner because we are unable to understand his language or accent. For example, An Asian may not feel comfortable talking to an Australian, owing to his/her heavy English accent (Rampur, 2018). In verbal, written and non - verbal communication, language differences occur and can be substantial barriers to effective intercultural communication.

Distinct talked dialects are undeniable obstructions to convincing verbal exchange in multilateral businesses. Be that as it may, attending to be familiar in a leading-edge dialect can take more time. Indeed a long term, of seriously ponder and maximum institutions do not have the time or property to empower people to transport forward their dialect skills. Issues can emerge whilst a man or woman ought to depend on their facts of any other language in arrange to feature in another nation or work with a person from another country. On the off threat that their dialect aptitudes are marginally unaccustomed or they are no longer as acquainted as they ought to be, real problems in know-how can increase. For example, inside the U.S., eye contact is regularly portrayed as a form of honesty and vigilance. However, in Hispanic cultures, eye contact is frequently avoided as a sign of understanding for a person in a characteristic of authority. In most commercial enterprise situations it's far beneficial to use an interpreter in place of a translator because an interpreter offers with spoken words while a translator offers with written words. An interpreter and a translator each conveys the meaning of one language to another.

Written communication is usually a proper writing through circulars letters, critiques, memos, announcements, or telegrams. When we look at written communication, these are documents that can be taken into consideration, appropriate in a single manner of lifestyles or culture and might not be suitable for someone in another kind of culture. The substance and fashion of composed authoritative communications may also contrast between societies. In a few societies, a coordinate approach is desired. In others, the most message is gone before through respectful phrases which have small or not anything to do with the maximum motive of the message. The message may additionally at that point be taken after via courteous phrases that bear small or no relationship to the reason of the communication.

It is important to know that nonverbal communication is one the most important ways of communicating across cultures. To understand it, there is need to become familiar with “High-context and Low-context” cultures. When we talk about context; this is ‘the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood (Oxford Living Dictionary, n.d)’. It is therefore, knowing the circumstances that form the setting for an event or ideas in these cultures. High-context” societies rely profoundly on nonverbal communication, utilizing necessities in union with the closeness in their interaction, strict social orders and profound social records to speak, in differentiate, and “Low-context” societies rely typically on words themselves. For example, according to the Korea Times, waving the hand vertically with the palm facing outward means 'goodbye' in the United States, but can be misinterpreted as meaning 'come here' to someone from Korea.

Stereotype is a manner of creating or developing a picture of an entire culture or overgeneralizing all of the humans belonging to the equal culture as having the identical dispositions and categorizing them accordingly. Samovar & Porter (1991) defines stereotypes are over generalized, second hand beliefs that provide conceptual bases from which we “make sense” out of what goes around us, whether or not they are accurate or fit the circumstances. This is a belief of a certain group of people about something and is usually awful. Stereotype may be completed at the idea of many things which incorporates race, nationality, gender, faith, ethnicity, and age. As an instance, in faith, Muslims are termed to be violent humans in society and in Zambia, Bembas are regarded to be crooks in society. Negative stereotyping produces prejudice because it provokes judgemental mind-set with specific cultures. Human beings will begin searching on the way of life as being evil and begin treating those people in the equal way of life badly or in an awful manner.

Media performs a characteristic in societies as they are available and promote prejudices among amazing organizations of those cultures because of stereotyping which result in boundaries to verbal exchange. Being from delicate religions or backgrounds can act as a boundary to speak to someone. Now and then a person also can furthermore revel in being stubborn speaker with humans from excellent religions. Typically in most cases, due to the evaluation inside the convictions they have got an impact at the manner one considers them.

Different societies and cultures follow different religions in the world. Ethnocentrism and stereotype relates to religion background. A group of a particular religion will depict other religions as bad and that the people following that religion are not doing the right thing society. This causes stereotyping and prejudices with the cultures because such people will be judged based on their religion. Such behaviour in societies causes people to group themselves as “Us” and “Them” which brings about ethnocentrism. Religion is an intercultural barrier, since people group themselves and they would not want to understand what the other group or religion want to talk about to the extent of hate dragging it down to the next generations. It is clear that people of a same religion start creating a general picture which becomes stereotype and generalising the whole opposite groups to be bad which now becomes judgemental. For example, in Pakistan, the Christians have to speak up for their rights as the majority is of Islam and the Christians are classified.

Intercultural barriers have a negative face in societies. This brings about divisions, miscommunication, hate and people tend to fail to communicate since the groups involved cannot deal with one another. Ethnocentrism is one of the major barriers to communication. This is simply because people tend to group themselves depending on their culture and religion utmost. When people group themselves as “Us” meaning they are more superior to the friends whom they term as “them”. The inferior group is termed as evil and undesirably not wealthy in society. For instance, if the group “culture” has the same similarities then it is good but if it is not similar, then it becomes bad. Ethnocentrism affect the way messages or information is received by the persons in the group which is termed as bad. People’s messages which is received with hate will be distorted making it a barrier to communication.

Personal space conflicts is also one of the major barriers to communication, different people in different geographical positions of the world view personal space differently. Barrier to cross cultural communication can appear owing to conflict in personal space (Ravichandran, n.d). We have places which are highly populated and some are less populated. In most highly populated areas such as china and India for example, because high population density, people do not mind about the close proximity to one another. They move and get on trains and buses which are very full to capacity and for them life goes on, while if you look at the other countries such as USA and Canada which are less populated, people value personal space so much. American value personal space as such, close proximity with stranger to them is negative. This therefore, should always be checked to avoid intercultural barriers when dealing with people from different regions of the world.

References

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