Communication Barrier? What is It?

In this fast-paced era of globalization, it is very easy for people to interact with other people in various parts of the world, either in person or online. Interacting in the context of friends or professionals must happen in it. With interactions that may involve cultural and time differences, it can clearly cause problems, such as miscommunication or lack of ability to adjust to cultural habits that exist in each person. As it is known that intercultural communication occurs anywhere and to anyone, which affects the way we interact with other people, as well as how we absorb existing social values. Therefore, there is a need for adjustments in intercultural communication, especially in professional contexts such as business, health, and education, which are now an important pillar in the world of work.

In communicating, not only between cultures, but there are also rules where we have to respect the people we are talking to, especially if they have different cultural backgrounds, later there will be conflicts within themselves where there are differences in social values they have. Then, we must know the 'rules of the game' to communicate with the other person, because each person has a different way of communicating. And what is certain is that the use of language in communicating really needs to be considered, where not all the words you say can be well received by the other person. All these things have been regulated in three Samovar (p. 340) assumptions in the context of communicating, namely Communication is governed by norms, different rules apply in different cultures, and the context determines the most appropriate rules.

These disparities do not imply that they are a barrier to development. People in these organizations are obviously from different countries and cultures, as we can observe, for instance, in the world of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). They also plainly have distinct personalities. Depending on a person's nationality or place of origin, there are disparities in the degree of power distance, individualism, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance. As with people from western nations like Europe and America, they prefer to start a conversation with small talk in order to establish rapport with others, however people from East Asian nations are more direct when discussing a topic. Additionally, there are aspects that form barriers to communication between them, including knowledge, attitude, appropriateness, efficacy, and communication adaptation where everyone obviously has different communication styles.

Therefore, it can be said that communication barriers are caused by both internal and external factors. Examples of the latter include difficulties with language comprehension, incompatibilities with reading body language or facial expressions, and variations in how each person assimilates social values from their respective cultures. As a result, in this age of globalization, humans must fully comprehend the significance of understanding these distinctions if they find themselves in a setting that differs from their own culture (Samovar, 2017, p. 342). We also need to be aware of everyone, and we need to be able to handle their challenges in a professional manner.

References

Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., McDaniel, E. R., & Roy, C. S. (2017). Communication Between Cultures. Cengage Learning.