INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION: ONE ASPECT

Martha Camargo

Publicado en Capital Letter No. 4

Noviembre de 2003

   Intercultural communication refers to the processes underlying communication between people from different cultures. These processes are the ones in which cultures are based, or those that distinguish one cultural group from another. It is well known that all cultures are different. However, there are some general features that are found in all cultures.

   They are called Cultural Universals, which means, general features that can help people from a cultural group distinguish between cultures. These features are taken as the basic elements for comparing all cultures because they highlight potential areas of cultural variation. For example, all cultures tend to satisfy certain needs, such as eating and drinking. But, as all cultures depend on the available resources they have, as well as on the environment in which they exist, they satisfy these needs in different ways.

   There are two types of needs that individuals from different cultures try to fulfill. They are physiological or biological, and psychological needs. The former, also known as primary needs are innate and universal, things like eating, and drinking; perpetuation of kind; fatigue; accumulation and elimination of waste; and pain avoidance. The latter, secondary needs are learned and therefore culturally determined. According to Klopf¹ there are ten types of Secondary needs. He classifies them as follows:

Acquisition that has to do with achievement.

Conservance has to do with the way people gather, fix, remove dirt and preserve things.

Order or the way people organize and classify things.

Retention which refers to the way people collect, store and hold things.

Achievement or the way people feel rewarded and satisfied.

Exhibition or the way people behave in front of others.

Dominance or the way people exercise power and authority.

Deference that refers to the way people show respect, warmth, admiration and approval.

Abasement that refers to the way people give up, obey and agree to others.

Affiliation that is the way people relate to others.

   Another classification that has been used a lot for comparing cultures in intercultural training is the one written by Hall², which includes the following cultural universals:

Interaction

Association

Subsistence

Sex

Space

Time

Learning

Recreation

Protection

Exploitation

   Individuals from one culture should be aware of the fact that differences in the ways cultures handle these needs may be a source of misunderstanding when dealing with members of the other culture. Therefore, if the members of a cultural group have information about the ways in which the other culture fulfills primary and secondary needs they will be able to interact well in it because they will know what to expect and how to perform successfully in that culture.

1. Klopf, Donald. Intercultural Encounters. Colorado: Morton Publishing Company, 1995.

2. Hall, Edward. Beyond Culture. New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1977.