Cultural barriers to communication

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Cultural barriers to communication

Religion

People find it difficult to talk to people who follow different religions. Religious views influence how people think about others. It creates differences in opinions.

It may happen that a person devout to his religion does not accept the way of thinking of other people of other religions and therefore refuses to engage in dialogue with that person and prefers to avoid him.

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the process of dividing cultures as “us” and “them”. The people of someone’s own culture are categorized as in-group and the other culture is out-group. There is always greater preference to in-group. There is an illusion of out-groups as evil and inferior. This evaluation is mostly negative.

Nazi extermination Based on an ethnocentric view of privileging the Aryan race and Germanic peoples above all others, the German Nazis imposed cruel life restrictions on Jewish citizens under their rule, which reached its climax in the extermination camps where the "inferior races" were mass executed.

Behavior and Beliefs

Cultural differences cause behavior and personality differences like body language, thinking, communication, manners, norms, etc. which leads to miscommunication. Culture also sets specific norms which dictates behavior as they have guidelines for accepted behavior. It explains what is right and wrong.

In the case of the Adventists, they cannot exercise any activity on Saturdays because their religion prevents them from doing so because this is their rest day and for example they have problems getting jobs because their workdays usually include Saturdays.

Signs and Symbols

Non-verbal communication cannot be relied upon in communication between people from different cultures as that is also different like language

It may happen that a person tries to communicate through facial expressions or with his hands and the message he gives is totally different depending on the country or culture he is in.

Language

Different cultures have developed their own language as a part of their heritage. People are comfortable communicating in their own language whereas they have to work hard to learn new languages.

A concrete case can be the indigenous people who communicate with each other in their native language but are forced to learn another language to be able to communicate.

Stereotypes and Prejudices

Stereotyping is the process of creating a picture of a whole culture, overgeneralizing all people belonging to the same culture as having similar characteristics and categorizing people accordingly. It is a belief about a certain group and is mostly negative. Stereotyping can be done on the basis of many things like nationality, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, age, etc.

Example: All "costeños" people speak in a vulgar way.