2。 Intercultural Communication

2。1 Culture and Intercultural communication

Culture is like an iceberg。 Only a small part of culture is visible。 Such as food, dress, paintings etc are apparent to the eyes。 But the more influential and fundamental part of culture is hidden under the water, such as values, viewpoints, love and hatred, and so on。 They are out of our awareness。 This makes it possible to know and understand cultural differences and Intercultural communication。 Values plays a very important role in the culture, when talking about value, Hofstede’s four famous cultural dimensions have to be mentioned, which includes inpidualism & collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance index，Masculinity & Femininity。

Intercultural communication is a form of communication that aims to share information across different cultures and social groups。 It is used to describe the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of inpiduals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds。 In a sense it seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate and perceive the world around them。 Many people in intercultural business communication argue that culture determines how inpiduals encode messages, what medium they choose for transmitting them, and the way messages are interpreted。

Through coaching and training in cross-cultural communication, cross-cultural negotiation, multicultural conflict resolution, customer service, business and organizational communication, cross-cultural business communication is very helpful in building cultural intelligence。 Cross-cultural understanding is not just for incoming expats。 Cross-cultural understanding begins with those responsible for the project and reaches those delivering the service or content。 The ability to communicate, negotiate and effectively work with people from other cultures is vital to international business。

In International business activities, communication with people of different cultural backgrounds not only involves language, but also inevitably involves culture。 In order to achieve the success of communication, to avoid conflicts and misunderstandings, we need to have intercultural awareness。 Intercultural awareness relates to different cultural backgrounds, living customs, beliefs, values and their emotions and feelings of everyday things。 It expresses not only by words, but also by nonverbal means, such as clothing, gestures, posture, facial expressions and movements。 Intercultural communication is a kind of phenomenon that have existed for a long time, but it presents in a way different from former intercultural communication。 In ancient times, due to the lack of cultural knowledge, communication between people of different cultural backgrounds was often chaotic and hostile。 Nowadays, intercultural communication is becoming increasingly frequent and important on account of the uses of new technologies and information systems, changes in the world population, and the transfer of the world economy。 

2。2 Importance of International communication文献综述

With the globalization of the world economy and wide use of the internet, intercultural communication has become part of our daily life。 As a result, understanding other culture is inindispensable。 It means that the intercultural knowledge and skills become essential  in our society。 

First of all, we can increase our cultural awareness by studying intercultural communication。 Because awareness is the first step to intercultural communication competence。 Simply, intercultural awareness can be viewed as a cognitive process of understanding others’ values, attitudes, beliefs and outlooks。