10.2: Outline

10.1: Intercultural Communication Competence

1. People who have developed good communication skills are described as having communication competence.
2. To have communication competence means that “we have knowledge of effective and appropriate communication patterns and the ability to use and adapt that knowledge in various contexts”
3. The National Communication Association (NCA) has developed guidelines for what it means to be a competent communicator (1999). They include:
   1. State ideas clearly.
   2. Communicate ethically.
   3. Recognize when it is appropriate to communicate.
   4. Identify their communication goals.
   5. Select the most appropriate and effective medium for communicating.
   6. Demonstrate credibility.
   7. Identify and manage misunderstandings.
   8. Manage conflict.
   9. Be open-minded about another’s point of view.
   10. Listen attentively.
4. Intercultural communication competence is the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in various cultural contexts.
   1. Unconscious incompetence is the “be yourself” approach. This person may not have a strong knowledge of cultural differences and does not see any need to accommodate differences in communication styles or culture.
   2. Once people learn more about culture and communication, they may become conscious incompetent. This is where they have the vocabulary to identify the concepts, and know what they should be doing, but realize they are not communicating as well as they could.
   3. As communication skills increase, and the focus is on cultural concepts and communication styles, you become a conscious competent communicator.
   4. Unconscious competence means that you can communicate successfully without straining to be competent.
5. Cultivating Intercultural Communication Competence
   1. Building intercultural communication competence often requires us to take more risks. Some of these risks require us to leave our comfort zones and adapt to new and uncertain situations.
   2. Motivation refers to the root of a person’s desire to foster intercultural relationships.

1. Intrinsic motivation occurs when a person has a healthy curiosity that drives him or her toward intercultural encounters in order to learn more about self and others, then there is a foundation from which to build additional competence-relevant attitudes and skills.

2. Extrinsic motivation is driven by the desire for an outside reward like money, power, or recognition.

3. Tolerance for uncertainty refers to an individual’s attitude about and level of comfort in uncertain situations.

5. 3. Members of dominant groups are often less motivated, intrinsically and extrinsically, toward intercultural communication than members of nondominant groups, because they don’t see the incentives for doing so.
   4. Knowledge includes self- and other-awareness, mindfulness, and cognitive flexibility.

1. Building knowledge of our own cultures, identities, and communication patterns takes more than passive experience. Developing cultural self-awareness often requires us to get out of our comfort zones.

2. The most effective way to develop other-awareness is by direct and thoughtful encounters with other cultures.

3. Developing knowledge through self- and other-awareness is an ongoing process that will continue to adapt and grow as we encounter new experiences.

4. Mindfulness is a state of self- and other-monitoring that informs later reflection on communication interactions.

a) One tool to increase mindfulness involves learning more about our cognitive style, or how we learn. Our cognitive style consists of our preferred patterns for “gathering information, constructing meaning, and organizing and applying knowledge.”

b) This awareness can lead to cognitive flexibility, which refers to the ability to continually supplement and revise existing knowledge to create new categories rather than forcing new knowledge into old categories.

5. 5. Skills

1. Contact with culturally different others alone does not increase intercultural skills; there must be more deliberate measures taken to fully capitalize on those encounters.

2. Research shows that intercultural contact does decrease prejudices, it is not enough to become interculturally competent.

3. The ability to empathize and manage anxiety enhances prejudice reduction, and these two skills have been shown to enhance the overall impact of intercultural contact even more than acquiring cultural knowledge.

4. Reflective practices can also help us process through rewards and challenges associated with developing intercultural communication competence.

5. 6. Intercultural learning is a lifelong process.