In what ways do you feel challenged or privileged as a communicator across cultures and languages?
As an international student, the language itself becomes a challenging factor when I have to face a new situation, especially when it involves a new environment. The English dominance and well-discussed “authority” is still a struggle that I encounter on a daily basis in both the academic and business fields.
On the other hand, I feel privileged to have the opportunity to face the challenges from a different perspective, due to my prior educational and professional background. That allows me to understand my possible issues with language, learning and working as part of a much broader and complex cultural framework.
Based on your readings for this week (communicating across borders), what strategies do you find useful and supportive when communicating with people across borders?
What I found the most interesting part was that we have to understand that there is no “right” or “wrong” ideas, just different cultural settings. So the one thing that I am sure that will serve for my entire life from now is to always try to analyze it first by how do I perceive one situation, according to my background, in order to understand the other people’s opinion/action. Also, that I am constantly shaping and being shaped by this cross-cultural lifetime experience.
Further, I believe that perceiving the language with the concept as a cultural component available to who may need or want to use this as a way of communication and connection, instead of an “object” of possession of a native speaker, will help me in the everyday struggle with English or any other foreign language that I might use.