Articulos De Chaney

Capitulos de Chaney

Chapter 5. Language

In order to successfully communicate with someone, both parties need to understand and express fluently in a common language. As for number of native speakers Chinese is the most spoken language, but English is the international business language for importance in business activity. Even though several countries speak English as native language, there are differences between those countries that could mislead a proper communication.

High and Low context language is a concept that differentiates the communication of messages in different cultures, in high context languages as for example the Japanese, the spoken message is not clearly understood if you don’t take into account the context where it´s said, there are other important non verbal messages that need to be understood to properly communicate.

In the other hand, the cultures that speak in a low context language as Americans or German, the spoken message is direct and concise.

Vocabulary equivalence refers to different meanings of a word that are given in different context or cultures for example the word “love” in a language could mean a strong preference for an object, whether in a second language it could only mean the strong feeling of love for a person.

In order to properly open communication channels in between global business partners, it is important to understand which subjects are appropriate and which are taboos that shouldn’t be brought to the table, a general guideline would suggest to avoid politics or religion, personal questions, avoid criticism or sarcasm, and avoid ethnic jokes.

The Saphir-Whorf hypothesis main idea is that words used in a language developed to describe the real world, for example, there are some tribes that wouldn’t have a word for a technological gadget as a memory stick, so in their language there would not be any vocabulary equivalence to translate, this is a rough example but this problem could cause important messages to be lost in translation.

The Bernstein hypothesis explain how the cultural aspects of the language could develop a different code depending the social interaction taking place, for example a restricted code is the form to build a message that someone would use with a close friend, with common words, situations, experiences and argot. An elaborated code is used with strangers, the message needs to be properly understood without any context or reference into it.

Chapter 6. Oral and Nonverbal communication patterns.

Nonverbal communication refers to unspoken messages as gestures, facial expressions, interpersonal distance, eye contact, silence, touch, etc.

In different cultures the use of tone, volume, rate and pitch of the speech is known as paralanguage, it could indicate emotions or attitudes depending on the culture, for example: Arabs normally speak loudly as it indicates strength

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