Analysis Of Laray Barna's'stumbling Blocks In Intercultural Communication '

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When interacting with a person from a different culture, there are many obstacles that one may, and probably will, face during the time spent together. Laray Barna, author of Stumbling Blocks in Intercultural Communication, refers to these obstacles as “Stumbling Blocks” and states the six main ones in her article. These main stumbling blocks faced are the following: assumption of similarity, language difference, nonverbal misinterpretation, preconceptions and stereotypes, tendency to evaluate, and high anxiety. Every one of these blocks create feelings of unease when faced, specifically the feelings of misunderstanding and frustration. Learning to overcome these blocks is the key to having successful interaction with different cultures.
The …show more content…

Spoken language is just one aspect of communication- the nonverbal conversations that happen are just as important, if not more so, in understanding what’s happening around us. Depending on the culture that a person is raised in, they will have different associations to various nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions, hand symbols, and head movements. Without grasping the different meanings, it is impossible to completely know what is happening in the conversation, therefore leading to a misunderstanding, which in turn leads to frustration. When one doesn’t know what a person means, they are bound to become aggravated. A time in my life when this related to me was when I traveled to California compared to when I visited Hawai’i. In California, smiling at strangers wasn’t too common, other than at commercialized places. In Hawai’i, however, the people were very friendly and welcoming. When a person didn’t smile back in Hawai’i, they seemed a little uptight, whereas in California, not smiling was the norm. Even though I was within the U.S. both times, the culture varied with …show more content…

This means that a person tries to make actions in another culture fit his/her own culture’s meanings. This can create confusion and an obvious misunderstanding if a person doesn’t even attempt to learn what another means. This can also cause frustration between the people involved because there isn’t clear communication between the two groups. The closest I’ve come to having an experience that relates to this happened while in Hawai’i. We visited a Polynesian Cultural Center where we learned about different cultures and how different actions and things had different associations. One example was entering through the chief’s door in different tribes; in one tribe, it was extremely disrespectful and resulted in death, while in others it wasn’t a big

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