Multicultural Communication Essay

Language is typically viewed as the verbal communication between people; words used with convention and within structure. This definition is frequently extended to the expression of external features and communication of thoughts developed both independently of their verbalizations and accompanying them. One often overlooked aspect of language, however, is culture. The ways in which one’s native language personally relates to the rest of their role and position within a community, as well as how it relates to sub-groups within that community, changes how the language is perceived.

Culture refers to the aspects of human life as determined or modified by relationship in a society. The fact that people eat or drink is not cultural by itself; eating

One way of closing gaps between cultures is to make a habit of researching the new culture before reading the piece, so as to give the reader greater familiarity with the subject and cultural context. One way to begin the foundation of multicultural familiarity in children is through school language programs. In teaching language in school, be it introducing a second-language or focusing instead on the student’s first language, students are primed for a greater understanding of cultures outside of their own communities These programs mainly focus on the study of reading, writing, literature, grammar, and grammatical convention which may not cooperate with the regional or social dialects of the students. I have experienced this when a foreign exchange student from Mexico attended my high school Spanish class. In the class, she had to alter her diction to match the style that was being taught, despite her fluency in a different dialect. She changed the way she spoke because although

This competence however, can be a hindrance. Individuals will model the style based off of their native language, causing a miscommunication between people with different cultural backgrounds. According to this theory, the way to minimize the miscommunication is to conform to English standards. Unfortunately, this viewpoint disregards the validity of the native language and the culture of the speaker, compromising their