The risk of cultural issues in written communications Essay

The risk of cultural issues in written communications - Essay Example A good example is given by Tannen & Saville-Troika (1982, p. 41), about an Egyptian pilot called a traffic controller of Greek origin, asking if it was safe for the plane to land in Cyprus. The controller responded with a silence to mean refusal but the Egyptian interpreted that as acceptance and proceeded with the trip to Cyprus, only to be fired at by the Greeks in Cyprus while approaching the run way. Another cause is the complete language barrier between non related languages such as Russian and English, unlike the case between French and English whereby many words and closely related in spelling and pronunciation. Most of the Russians do not understand or speak English at all (Gudykunst 2003, p. 62). Likewise, Many English speakers do not understand Russian. In such a scenario, if a speech is presented in Russian, an English man will lose some important points. As mentioned before, in a miscommunication and misunderstanding in cross-cultural interaction, people lose the exact meaning of the communication and may respond in undesired ways. In cross cultural conversation, participants may decide to deliberately mislead the hearers, and convince them with false information. For example, Reynolds (2004, p. 38) argues that a participant may masquerade as being of greater social status than his or her true position in the society is. In a written communication, this can be more misleading because apart from just hearing wrongly, the reading itself may be wrong from the onset. Once a misunderstanding has occurred from cross-cultural communication, there should be a quick way to resolve and clarify on the specific errors. For example, it is a good practice to apologize and make possible clarification as suggested by Pride (1985, p. 62). With apology, the hearer’s may not be able to take offence. Where possible, the communication between different cultures ought to

Comparitive politics Democracy Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Comparitive politics Democracy - Assignment Example This is during the cold war era that was a conflict between the US and the Soviet Union. The economy of Soviet Union was closed, and it was not democratic. Statistics reveals that in the periods of 1950s, in every four countries, one was a democracy (Peter Mair, 80). However, with the passage of time, most countries began to adopt democratic styles of governance. An example is Portugal, when it sought to introduce democracy in the year 1974. The period beginning 1974 is referred to as the Third Wave democracy. This period saw an increase in democratic transitions in Latin America, Europe, and the Asian Pacific countries like Taiwan and South Korea. Eastern European countries also began to introduce democracy and this is after Soviet Union collapsed. By the period of 1990s, there were approximately 100 democratic countries in the world. This brings us to the query, what is democracy? Democracy refers to a form of government whereby all eligible citizens of a state, are allowed to participate in its political process (Peter Mair, 82). The participation of citizens in this political process could either be direct or indirect. Most democratic states in the world have an indirect participation of their citizens. This involves a situation where their citizens elect a representative to either the parliament, or an institution of governance. This system is popular in Europe, with countries such as United Kingdom and France having a parliament, comprising of elected officials. The United States also has this type of system, with its senate and congress comprising of elected officials. Democracy is therefore a term used to denote a concept referred to as the rule of the people (Peter Mair, 82). Theoretically, democracy is a term that refers to the majority rule, in practice, this notion is false. An example is the Athenian traditional society, whereby only a selected group of people could participate in the political process. This is while