Culture Shock

Culture Shock- Communication

According to Mallow’s hierarchy of needs, to communicate with others is the third most important aspect in human´s life after the physiological and security needs, which is very true. Each day we spent most of the time talking to others, using our language in different situations or in an informal or formal way, but what happen when we travel abroad and it is hard to communicate to others? Culture Shock is experienced in this way too.

Being that language is related to culture; we can understand that it varies from one country to another or even in the same country from one place to other depending on the different cultures that exist. Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., Courtesy of American Management Association, in her article “Communicating across cultures” explains that Communication is challenging because each culture has their own set of rules that everybody acquire very early. Even when nobody is aware of them, these rules are already part of us. This is why what is normal for us to say or the way we make some gestures is not common for people from a different culture or may mean something different from what we use them for.

Beginning with verbal communication, language implies grammar, pronunciation and the use of meaningful words to transmit a message. Nevertheless, as each culture has different issues that modify the language, even when there were two persons from two same language speaker countries, the meaning or pronunciation of some words or phrases could be distinct. For example, Costa Rica and Spain, two Spanish speaker countries, but without the same pronunciation of letters like the “z” sound or phrases like vale. We don´t use it, we just say ok and that´s it.

So if the language and the way to communicate change a lot from one country to other with the same language, imagine how much more complex or difficult may be for people from very different languages to communicate between them. For example, a Chinese and an American, even when we see their cultures are almost the opposite. The words an American will use may have different meaning for the Chinese or it may even be that the Chinese will hear words from the American that he or she had never heard before and vice versa. In fact, A study carried out by the University of Colorado, USA about the causes of problems in communication found out that a high percentage of them are misunderstandings because of cultural backgrounds that varies from one place to other. In addition, It states that Language is so much more than words; it is also a way of thinking and seeing and defining the world. Depending, off course, on the culture.

In the other hand, it is the non-verbal communication in which people communicates without talking; just gestures. We can make gestures with facial expressions or body language. “Everybody smiles in the same language,” said by an Unknown author, but it

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