1. Understanding Intercultural
Communication Second Edition
Chapter 2
What is Intercultural Communication
Flexibility?
Stella Ting-Toomey & Leeva C. Chung
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
PowerPoint Slides Designed by Alex Flecky and Noorie Baig
2. TODAY’S MENU
I. Defining Intercultural Communication:
A Process Model
II. Practicing Intercultural
Communication Flexibility
III. Developing Intercultural
Communication
Flexibility
IV. Deepening Intercultural Process
3. I. Defining ICC: A Process Model
Intercultural communication:
• symbolic exchange (digital, analogic)
• process (transactional, irreversible)
• cultural community
• negotiate shared meanings (content, relational,
identity meaning)
• interactive situation (relational, psychological,
physical)
• embedded societal system (multilayered
context)
4. I. Defining ICC: A Process Model
Person Person B’s
A’s cultural
cultural frame of
frame of reference
reference
5. II. Practicing Intercultural
Communication Flexibility
Introduction Section:
1. Flexible and inflexible intercultural
communication
2. Ethnocentric and ethnorelative
mindset
6. II. Practicing ICC Flexibility
Ethnocentric mindset…
- Stuck in own cultural worldviews, using our
own cultural values as standards to evaluate
others’ behaviors.
- Viewing our cultural way of living as “natural”
and what’s going on in other cultures as
“unnatural.”
- Evaluating the communication norms of our
own cultural group as more “proper.”
- Acting in a conscious or unconscious manner
in favor of the ingroup standard to the
7. II. Practicing ICC Flexibility
Ethnorelative mindset…
- Understanding behavior from the other
person’s cultural frame of reference.
- Suspending ethnocentric, reactive
judgments and engaging in a systematic
cross-cultural comparative analysis.
- Promoting a respectful, inclusive climate via
competent communication skills practice.
8. II. Practicing ICC Flexibility
A. Three Content Components:
Knowledge, Attitude, and Skills
B. Three Criteria:
Appropriateness, Effectiveness,
and
Adaptability
9. III. Developing Intercultural Communication
Flexibility
A. Staircase Model: Four Stages of Flexible
Intercultural Communication
1. Unconscious incompetence: blissfully
ignorant
2. *Conscious incompetence: semi-
awareness
3. Conscious competence: “full mindfulness”
4. Unconscious competence: “mindlessly
mindful”
11. III. Developing ICC Flexibility
Movie Analysis: Outsourced film clip
Questions to think about:
Which stage of the staircase model is Aunty-ji
operating from? How did Todd react to Aunty-ji’s
comments?
Did you find Aunty-ji’s questions too intrusive?
What culture-sensitive information can you use to
justify her questioning?
At what point in the clip did Todd switch from
unconscious incompetence to conscious
incompetence?
Apply the three content components (knowledge,
attitude, and skills) from your chapter to help Todd
and Puro reach the conscious competency stage.
12. III. Developing ICC Flexibility
B. A Mindful Perspective: Flexible
Communicators:
• Attune to their own internal assumptions,
values, and expectations.
• Attend to alternative assumptions, values,
and expectations of the cultural strangers.
• Learn to understand unfamiliar behaviors
from multiple cultural angles.
• Are committed to shift communication styles
when appropriate to the persons, goals, and
cultural context = ICC Flexibility.
13. NACIREMA Application
Exercise
Instructions:
-- Need 3 - 5 volunteers to take a walk outside
and be
prepared to visit a new culture.
-- Inside the classroom: Get ready to play. Will
give you the Nacireman cultural values and
rules.
-- Enjoy! Play out and dramatize your new roles.
14. IV. Deepening Intercultural Process
Thinking
Realize that ICC often involves these
principles:
• Mismatched expectations stem from group
differences.
• Involves degrees of biased intergroup perceptions,
overgeneralizations, stereotypes.
• Simultaneous decoding and encoding of
verbal/nonverbal messages.
• Multiple goal transactions: content, relational,
identity.
• Calls for understanding of diverse communication
approaches and styles.
• Often involves well-meaning culture bumps or