Inter - cultural communication

Understanding communication

Strangeness  and  familiarity  make  up  a  continuum.  As  for  William 

Gudykunst and  Young Yun Kim the term “stranger” is to refer to those 

people at the most unfamiliar  end of continuum.1 Thus anyone could be 

considered  a  stranger,  given  a  sufficiently  foreign  context.  A  stranger 

has  limited  knowledge  of  their  new  environment  –  of  its  norms  and 

values. And in turn, the locals have little knowledge of the stranger –  of 

their  beliefs,  interests  and  habits.  Generally  speaking,  communication 

with another involves  predicting or anticipating their responses. When 

communicating with someone familiar  we