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1、The Major Features of Intercultural CommunicationCommunication is the process of understanding and sharing meaning. It occurs whenever information is exchanged between a sender and a receiver. Sending signals of one kind or another is inevitable. And the process of sending and receiving message is c
2、omplex. What a signal means to the sender is not always what it means to the receiver. Therefore, the trick is to transmit appropriate information to appropriate receivers at appropriate times. Communication is a symbolic behavior. And the most important mode of communication is verbal. Language is
3、a highly developed symbolic system of human communication. As a most basic element of culture, language is the means, by which culture is transmitted from generation to generation and a persons language greatly influences how he or she perceives the world. The major features of communication incloud
4、s:1. Communication is symbolicHuman communication is symbolic. We employ symbols as a way of sharing our internal states. The ability to produce and use symbols enables human beings to share their internal status and infer what another human being is experiencing, thus distinguishing human beings wi
5、th other animals. Symbols are at the core of communication, but no symbol means the same thing to everyone, because different cultures often employ different symbols and usually assign special meaning to them. For example, dragon has been taken as totem by Chinese for thousands of years, it represen
6、ts a kind of powerful and propitious animal, although it may never really exist. However, in western cultures, dragon is a kind of fierce and evil animal.Therefore, many people insist that we should not translate “龙” into “dragon”, since the two symbols represents totally different things.2.Communic
7、ation can be intentional and unintentional behaviorCommunication takes place whenever people attach meaning to messages, even if the sender of the message does not expect his or her actions to be considered part of the communication event. Just like the Chinese phrase “言者无心，听者有意”, so being aware tha
8、t your actions convey many potential messages is very important when engaging in intercultural communication.3.Communication has a consequenceCommunication influences other people whether we intend it to be or not. This feature of communicationcommunication has a consequence means that when we recei
9、ve a message, something happens to us. It also means that all of our messages, in one degree or another, do something to someone else. We cannot send message without influencing other people.4. Communication is dynamicCommunication is a behavioral process. It is not static. Communication is dynamic
10、like a motion picture, not a single snapshot. What is said can not be unsaid and what is done cannot be undone. Communication is irreversible and unrepeatable. It is very important to realize that communication is dynamic. And when we send signals to others, wed better think thrice before we act in
11、order not to cause any trouble that can not be made up.5. Communication is contextual and governed by rulesContext is a key element in both communication and culture. Communication is contextual. Messages exchange always takes place in specific and definable location, not in a vacuum. Different cont
12、ext call for different modes of behavior. The regulations for each context are culturally based. Since communication is contextual and governed by rules, we should never imagine everyone behaves in the same way as we do. And when the context or culture changes, the mode of our behavior must change a
13、t the same time. That is what is called “When in Rome do as the Romans do.”As for culture, it is a complex, abstract, and pervasive matrix of social elements that functions as an all encompassing form or pattern for living by laying out a predictable world in which all individual is firmly oriented.
14、 It enables us to make sense of our surroundings, aiding the transition from the womb to this new life. There are three aspects of culture: material life such as material things, essential for human survival; social life such as lifestyles, social organizations, and political and economic relations;
15、 and spiritual life such as religion, philosophy, value system, science and art.The major features of culture are as follows:1. Culture is not innate, but learned. As animals, all of us must eat, drink, sleep, find shelter, give and receive affection, and meet all of the other biologic requirements
16、that flesh is heir to. But what we eat when we eat and how we eat are all behaviors we have learned from the groups in which we have grown up. Not only the language we speak and the way we think, but even what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell are conditioned by the culture in which we have been raised. It is not difficult to find that culture is not innate but learned. When we leave our hometown or any certain culture that we have been v
