Cultural barriers to communication are elements of national, regional or company culture that interfere with communication between individuals. Different cultures have different norms, beliefs, and expectations in and around communication, and this can make it harder to communicate across and between cultures. These differences can also provide plenty of potential for causing offence or being offended.

As companies and societies become more multicultural, it is worth understanding a little more about these cultural barriers to communication, including where and how they may arise. This page discusses some of these potential barriers, and explains how you can overcome them by developing better cultural awareness and competence.

Defining Culture and Cultural Barriers to Communication

Cultural barriers to communication are any elements of culture that interfere with the effective transmission of messages between individuals or groups.

However, what do we mean by culture in this context? Our page on Cultural Competence explains that culture is a complex phenomenon, with many different elements. That page uses Merriam-Webster's dictionary to define culture as:

"The customary beliefs, social forms and material traits of a racial, religious or social group: the characteristic features of everyday life shared by people in a place or time."

The 'groups' may be defined by geography, shared interests, family links or indeed any other connection. Organisations have a culture, as do families, clubs and other social groups. Culture is also linked to language and beliefs, which may create their own barriers to communication (and for more about this, see our pages on Language Barriers and Attitudinal Barriers to Communication).

Types of Cultural Barrier to Communication

Given the complexity of culture as a concept, it is unsurprising that there are many different types of cultural barrier to communication. These barriers include:

Language

Setting aside the issue of speaking different languages—which causes its own issues with communication—there may be barriers associated with culture among those who share a common language. For example:

• People within a social group or culture may have particular forms of 'shorthand' that they use to communicate. This jargon may be nearly incomprehensible to 'outsiders', which can make communication more difficult. It can also create a 'them and us' situation, which interferes with communication.

• Sometimes there are national or regional differences in how a word is used or understood that may affect communication. For example, some words that are perfectly 'normal' in US English may have rude or offensive connotations in the UK, and vice versa. Using the wrong word can therefore cause offence.

Attitudes and beliefs

Various attitudes and beliefs are often associated with different cultures.

Our page on Attitudinal Barriers to Communication makes clear that beliefs and attitudes can often cause problems with communication.

For example, in the United States and other Western countries, it is considered reasonable to ask questions of your manager at work. You can express concerns about a proposed piece of work or policy, even in quite a challenging way. In Asian cultures, however, this is often not considered appropriate. There is a belief there that managers should be respected and not challenged. This may cause difficulties in multinational companies, especially where there are expatriate managers who have very different expectations from the people they are managing.

Members of different cultures may also have stereotypical and often inaccurate views of people from other cultures. On a relatively small scale, for example, the supporters of different football clubs, especially within the same town, often have very little respect for each other, and may even end up fighting on match days.

On a larger scale, cultural attitudes may affect how people describe and interpret their own actions and those of others (see box).

The reports suggest that Hempleman-Adams' claim was taken by the Inuit people to be an example of ethnocentrism. This is defined as a belief that one's culture is superior to another, or having a sense of 'us and them'. Her own words suggest that this was not intentional, but also that this aspect of the situation had never occurred to her. This may be an example of "the road to hell being paved with good intentions"—but it is certainly a major faux pas created by poor cultural awareness.

Non-verbal communication and signs

A large part of communication is non-verbal. Some estimates suggest that up to 75% or even 80% of communication does not involve words. Instead, it is in tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language, including proximity and posture.

The use of non-verbal communication is universal. Unfortunately, how it is used is not.

Some cultures are far more expressive than others, for example. The same gesture can mean different things in different places—and our page on Non-Verbal Communication provides some examples of this. This means that a gesture that is routinely used to signify agreement in one place may be offensive elsewhere.

Norms and behaviours

Every culture also has its own norms and expected behaviours, some of which may influence communication.

For example, in some cultures, a handshake is normal when meeting and greeting someone. In others, touch is not expected, and bowing is the expectation. Failure to understand this on meeting can get both sides of a conversation off to a bad start, with both feeling offended at the 'wrong' greeting having been given.

Similarly, in some cultures, eye contact while speaking is considered normal, and even expected. In others, this is intimidating.

The level of formality is often the most obvious 'norm' that may influence communication, and may also affect how you dress as well as how you behave. Our page on Personal Appearance explains more about why this matters.

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Addressing Cultural Barriers to Communication

Failing to understand and respect cultural differences can result in a breakdown of communication.

It is therefore important to understand how to overcome cultural barriers to communication.

Fundamentally, the best way to achieve this is to improve your intercultural awareness (and our page on Intercultural Awareness explains more about how you can do this).

The next step is then to work out how best to communicate with people in a way that reflects and respects their culture and its norms and values. Part of this is understanding those norms, and part of it is being aware of your own frame of reference, and avoiding ambiguity in your communications.

Our page on Intercultural Communication explains more about this.

Together, these skills are known as Cultural Intelligence: the ability to interpret someone's unfamiliar and potentially ambiguous gestures in the way that one of their compatriots would do. Someone who has cultural intelligence, and is able to interact, work, and develop meaningful relationships with people from other cultures can be said to be culturally competent.

Our page on Building Cultural Competence explains more about how individuals and organisations can develop this essential skill.

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A Final Thought

There are many possible barriers to communication that are connected with culture.

Increasing your awareness of these barriers, and improving your understanding of other cultures, will help to reduce problems. Beyond that, open communication and mutual respect will probably go the rest of the way.

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