Communicating Across Cultures

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Communicating Across Cultures

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From high-level business negotiations to casual conversations among friends, every interpersonal interaction is shaped by cultural norms and expectations. Seldom is this more clearly brought to light than in encounters between people from different cultural backgrounds, when dissimilar communication practices may lead to frustration and misunderstanding. This thought-provoking text presents a new framework for understanding the impact of culture on communication and for helping students build intercultural communication competence. With illustrative examples from around the globe, the book shows that verbal and nonverbal communication involves much more than transmitting a particular message–it also reflects each participant's self-image, group identifications and values, and privacy and relational needs. Readers learn to move effectively and appropriately through a wide range of transcultural situations by combining culture-specific knowledge with mindful listening and communication skills. Throughout, helpful tables and charts and easy-to-follow guidelines for putting concepts into practice enhance the book's utility for students.
Review
"Several formatting choices show the care that has been taken to facilitate the learning process for undergraduates and graduate students using it as a text, including visual representations of theories, concise chapter summaries, and highlighting of key concepts. The writing is clear and precise, and the examples are well chosen. No doubt generations of students will be grateful to Ting-Toomey for the thoughtfulness that went into planning this book. Communicating Across Cultures is a useful introduction to the literature of intercultural communication at an advanced level, and it presents a much-needed theory of identity negotiation, a theory certain to stimulate important research." –Journal of Communication –

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Communicating Across Cultures

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