Communication Systems 1: Components and Representation

Bonjour~!

For this week’s seminar, we are discussing on components and representation. It is actually about the concepts for intercultural communication, be it in personal communication or business communication. I would say that different cultures would definitely lead to different forms of inter-personal communication. Today’s seminar have been really enriching as we examined how the different cultural traits and values that people hold may influence their behavioural patterns. At the same time, it allows me to better understand the various interaction styles across different cultures.

Take for example, I always had the impression that the people in China place a lot of emphasis on one’s status in society, thus reflecting on the importance of hierarchies and power distribution among the people. While initially I do attribute such a phenomenon to that being part of a “China’s culture”, Hofstede’s dimension of Power Distance seem to provide a better explanation.

In this case, we may regard China to be a high power distance culture where the Chinese people recognise a hierarchy system in the society in which they consciously or subconsciously adhere to. In this regard, different people may enjoy varying levels of power or authority in which those higher up in status are able to openly assert their power. For instance, I have a Taiwanese friend and what she told me was that even among the school mates, junior students seldom address the senior students by name. Instead, they will address the older students as “seniors” or “学长”, reflecting on how the people show great respect for authority and seniority.

On the other hand, a low power distance culture such as Australia may offer a different scenerio. In Australia, the people place minimum emphasis on social status and power structure. They treat everyone as equal and their behavioural and interaction styles does not differ much when communicating with people from all backgrounds. For example, in schools, students are allowed to question the teachers when in doubt and they may also address their teachers by their first name. Similarly, children also tend to call their older siblings or even their parents by their name.

Therefore, we can see how Hofstede’s dimensions of cultural variability and Hall’s high & low context cultures offer us a scholarly explanation on how people may communicate across different cultural settings. This is especially useful when there may be opportunities for us to interact with people from other cultures, both in school and work in the future. Thus, being able to understand why and how people behave in a communication setting would help us to interact better with others and avoid misunderstandings.