Multicultural Communications

Personne ne peut rйpondre а la question "quel est le sens de la vie?" Do you know what this says? If not, you are feeling how a lot of people feel everyday when they are going to work, school, or just out doing their everyday errands, lost. No matter how you look at it, multicultural communication is everywhere. One of the most crucial aspects that deal with multicultural communication is marketing. Whether it is international, within a town, city, state, country that you reside in, and whether it’s a single household or a household with many people living in it. Depending on which situation you will fall under, you have to be communicated in a distinct way for you to understand the product being exposed to you. By the end of this essay you will have a better understanding of multicultural communications in a general perspective as well as a better understanding of some basic marketing concepts and diverse ways companies deal with multicultural communication when dealing with local consumers and consumers from all over the world.

The way people communicate varies widely between cultures and even within that same culture. One characteristic of communication is language usage. Across cultures, some words and phrases are used in different ways. For example, even in countries that share the English language, the meaning of yes varies; it may signify maybe, definitely, or maybe even no, but in a slightly different manner. Another major characteristic of communication style is the degree of importance given to non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication includes not only facial expressions and gestures; it also involves seating arrangements, personal distance, and sense of time. In addition, different norms regarding the appropriate degree of assertiveness in communicating can add to cultural misunderstandings. “For example, some white Americans typically consider raised voices to be a sign that a fight has begun, while some black, Jewish, and Italian Americans often feel that an increase in your voice is a sign of an exciting conversation among friends.”(Speech Communication Made Simple: A Multicultural Perspective, January 2000) Thus, some white Americans may react with greater alarm to a loud discussion than would members of some American ethnic or non-white racial groups.

Now that we have an understanding of a few different ways that multicultural communication is sometimes confusing, I am going to discuss with you some marketing concepts that involve multicultural communications.

When marketing to a direct group of individuals you have to be careful. In many countries, business is discussed in a social atmosphere. People are grouped together with a high and low context association. People in a high-context culture focus on relationships first and on closing deals after those relationships are established. This might be frustrating to the task-oriented American who does not realize that it might take several meetings before the client is ready to talk about a project. The American might think the client is uninterested, which is not necessarily the case. In a high-context culture, people are concerned with establishing a context for the communication; they rely more on nonverbal cues than verbal. Bovee and Thill (Business Communication

Today, 2000) mention South Korea, Taiwan, and China as high-context cultures: “The Chinese speaker is likely to expect the receiver to discover the meaning in a message that uses indirectness and metaphor”. This could be impossible for the person who did not grow up in the Chinese culture or who has not studied it. “A series of exchanges appearing to say one thing on the surface might say quite another thing just beneath it”. In a low-context culture, expectations are usually made known with explicit instructions. For example, “Please wait until I’m finished,” or “You’re welcome to browse.” (Business Communication

Today, 2000) Using this way helps the receiver of the message to know what is expected and can respond appropriately. The United States and Germany are classified as low-context cultures. Another important concept to be mentioned is latent and manifest motives. Manifest motives can be easily determined in consumers by asking the direct question “why do you purchase certain merchandise,” because those reasons are obvious and direct purchase motives. Unlike manifest motives, latent motives are hard to determine because people do not admit or do not know of those motives. (Consumer Behavior 2004) Think about an article of clothing purchased from Hollister or Tommy Hilfiger; you might have secret reasons for why you purchased it: Maybe it’s because all your friends wear that brand of clothing, maybe it shows that you have enough money to afford it, or maybe it makes you look like you care about style. Whatever the reason may be, it’s more than likely a latent motive.