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< BACHELOR ACCOUNTING>

< MAY 2020>

< ABCC 1103>

< INTRODUCTION OF COMMUNICATION>

MATRICULATION NO : <960828016204001>

IDENTITY CARD NO. : <960828016204>

TELEPHONE NO. : <018-4654028>

E-MAIL  : <[email protected]>

LEARNING CENTRE : <JOHOR>

                                                    Content                                                  
Pages              

1.0 Introduction of the topic …………………………………          3

2.0 Importance of intercultural communication among Malaysian societies…... 3-4

          
  3.0 Challenges faced by intercultural communication- locally and
globally …………………………………. 5-7

 
4.0 What extended does the intercultural communication between
Malaysian is effective ……………………………. 7-8

5.0 Effective strategies on how to improve intercultural communication

6.0 Conclusion and Video Link………………………………………… .. 9-10

7.0 References ……………………………………………………………………. 10

1.0 Malaysia is a country characterized by racial, ethnic and cultural differences. The major

ethnic groups in West Malaysia are the Chinese, Indians and Malays. Some 62% of

Malaysia’s total population are Malays and other indigenous groups, 20.6% are Chinese and

6.2% are Indians, while other groups account for the remaining 0.9% (Malaysia

Demographics Profile,

2019:https://www.indexmundi.com/malaysia/demographics_profile.html). In a pluralistic

society such as Malaysia, Intercultural communication can be a perplexing activity.

Intercultural communication is the verbal and nonverbal interaction between people from

different cultural backgrounds. Inter comes from the Latin word for “between”, and the

dictionary defines “communication” as “exchanging information”. Intercultural

communication refers to exchanging information between people from different cultures.

(Ahmed, S. & Naumann, E. (2014). Intercultural Communication. Retrieved from http: //

www.internations.org/ magazine / intercultural- communication-15409). Intercultural

communication is the sending and receiving of messages across languages and cultures. It is

also a negotiated understanding of meaning in human experiences across social systems and

societies. With each group’s varied cultural communication system, ignorance,

misunderstandings, misinterpretations or misperceptions of other groups cultures can

undoubtedly lead to frustrations and conflicts (Mariana Omar, 1993. Intercultural

communication in Malaysia and Social Settings).

2.0 Intercultural communication is one of the most important aspects of life. It is through

communication that we discover who we are and what the world or our surroundings are like. It

allows us to convey m our beliefs and views to others as well as fulfil our own needs (Nolan, 1999, p.

33). Intercultural communication offers the ability to deal across cultures, which is

increasingly important, as the world gets smaller. Getting smaller doesn’t mean the world is

becoming identical, it means having more and more contact with people who are culturally
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different. Being able to deal with this cultural difference peacefully, never mind creatively

and innovatively, is becoming a survival issue to thrive in a global world as a global leader

(Dr Katrina Burrus, 2014). Every culture brings out the traditions that were believed by the

ancestors, once and it is carried on by the following generation. This leads to good moral

values and etiquettes in a person’s self. It is important to learn that intercultural

communication because we are highly exposed of other cultures. This brings us to understand

a person’s culture more deliberately as we are curious and try to relate ourselves to others. By

learning a person’s culture, it makes us have a wider mind of range of how others behave,

their religious beliefs and their means of establishing trust in each other. Furthermore,

education relies on effective interaction between the teacher and the learners. Intercultural

communication has become important because the schools are becoming more diverse

culturally. Successful educators are effective communicators and thus culturally competent in

intercultural communication encounters (Roux, 2002). Communication can be useful source

of intercultural knowledge and mutual enrichment between culturally diverse students if

managed proactively by the teacher. Successful communication involves the effective

transfer of knowledge and information. Furthermore, as economies evolve and become more

interconnected, communicating across cultures becomes increasingly important. In a

competitive business environment, intercultural communication allows leaders to increase

their value and the value of the organizations they represent, Intercultural communication

skills lead to improved negotiations and help with developing business deals and agreements.

At a basic level, someone with these skills is able to interact with people from different

cultural backgrounds with respect, avoiding potential miscommunications and resulting in

more productive interaction. Finally, intercultural communication is an important part of a

person’s intercultural competence or ability to function effectively across cultures and

intercultural competence enables the individual to interact with people of other cultures and

remain aware of cultural differences (Engagement,2019).

3.0 A global environment the ability to communicate effectively can be a challenge. Even

when both parties speak the same language there can still be misunderstandings due to ethic

and cultural differences. Over the last decade, there have been countless examples from

business sector that demonstrate how poor communication can lead to poor organization

performance. Understanding the impact of globalization on culture communication is

imperative for organizations seeking to create a competitive advantage in the global market.

Recent economic challenges further highlight the need for organizations to develop the

internal communication capacity necessary to control and monitor external threats. As society

becomes more globally connected the ability to communicate across cultural boundaries has

gained increasing prominence (Lowell C. Matthews and Bharat Thakkar, 2012). A more

obvious challenge within an organizationally diverse workplace is the language barrier

among employees, including accents and fluency. Although English is the standard language

internationally for business, many non-English speakers can feel unnoticed and unappreciated

in the workplace because they have difficulty conveying what they want to say in their non-

native language. Employees who may be subject matter experts, may take a backseat to

contributing to the team because of their inability to get message across in their second

language. This can cause frustration and interpersonal conflict. They may become less

engaged and motivated as a team player, and become an impediment to collaborative learning

process as a whole. An organization can be negatively affected and fail to achieve an increase

in their return on investment. Different attitudes toward hierarchy and authority is one of the

challenges faced by intercultural communication. In any organization, teamwork is essential

to success and profitability. However, in some cultures, employees are treated different based

on their rank within the organization. Diversity training in the workplace should account for
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negotiation tactics among different cultures. For example, multicultural employees have

different ways of presenting an idea to the manager. In some organization, employees must

present to higher-level team members and up the corporate ladder before reaching the

executive level. Other organizations have relatively flat hierarchical structures where

employees and leaders work as a unified team. A lack of cultural awareness can result in a

disconnected workforce and leave some employees feeling left out and unrecognized.

Furthermore, language perceived as a link between people but it also a challenge in

communication between people because there may be having some words that use different

way according to different culture. Communication without a common language, the message

will not be interpreted properly and will lead to misunderstanding in the communication

process. Some slang words only appropriate for use in one culture but may carry strong

connection in other cultures. For example, when tourist from foreign countries having a

vacation in Malaysia, they will feel culture shock because Malaysia have different cultures

and Malaysians are speaking different languages. It is because of the ethics diversity in

Malaysia society. Malay language is the main language used in Malaysia. When a foreigner

visits to Malaysia, they may feel trouble to communication with Malaysians which only

speaking of Malay language. The barrier will occur since both parties do not share a common

language. Besides, there are many different Malay slang in different states in Malaysia. In a

university, students from different places and states which speaking same language but

different slang will also a challenge faced by intercultural communication. For example,

when a Chinese student from Johor is talking Malay student who come from Terengganu, the

Chinese student may find trouble to understand the Malay language that is spoken by the

Terengganu student (Kar Wah Ryan, 2013). Finally, a nation as richly diversified as Malaysia

has long achieved an intercultural balance among the local races. The influx of foreign

students in recent years has seen an increase in the number of poor results among the foreign
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students in local academic institutions. In order to strive as a hub for academic excellence for

both local and foreign students, there is a need to tackle this issue from Malaysia context.

There is a correlation between poor intercultural communication among the international

students and local community with the degradation of the academic results. Culture and

language influence the interaction between students of different cultural groups, the

difficulties faced by students in and outside the classroom (Mohamed Ibrahim, 2019). The

above challenges are faced by intercultural communication by locally and globally.

4.0 Although the challenges of an increasingly diverse world are great, the benefits are even

greater. From my opinion, the intercultural communication between Malaysian is more

effective in many ways. First of all, communicating and establishing relationship with people

from different cultures can lead to a whole host of benefits including healthier communities.

Healthy communities are made up of individuals working collectively for the benefit of

everyone, not just their own group. Through open and honest intercultural communication

people work together to achieve goals that benefit to everyone, regardless of group or cultural

orientation. The effective communication can ultimately lower or remove walls and barriers

of misunderstanding that separate human beings from one another (M. Scott Peck).

Communication is the foundation of all human relationships (Peck). Moreover, the principles

of community are applicable to any situation in which two people are gathered together, for

example in the business, home or neighbourhood. Healthy communities support all

community members and strive to understand, appreciate and acknowledge each member.

Secondly, intercultural communication is also reduced conflict between Malaysian people.

Conflict is inevitable, we will never be able to erase it. We can however through cooperative

intercultural communication, reduce and manage conflict. Often, conflict stems from our

inability to see another person’s point of view, especially if that person is from a different

culture. We develop blatant generalizations about them and mistrust them. Such feelings lead
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to defensive behaviour, which fosters conflict. If we learn to think and act cooperatively by

assertive and responsive intercultural communication, we can effectively manage and reduce

conflict with others. As we communicate with people from different cultures, we learn more

about them and their way of life including their values, history, habits and the substance of

their personality. As our relationship develops, we start to understand them better, perhaps

even empathizing with them. One of the things we will learn is that although our cultures are

different, we have much in common. As humans we all have the same basic desires and

needs, we just have different ways of achieving them. As we learn that our way is not the

only way, we develop a tolerance for different. This ca be accomplishing only when we

initiate relationships with people who are different from ourselves. Furthermore, intercultural

communication also effective in an organization. For example, effective leadership in an

organization. Modern organizations are composed of diverse people and managers are

expected to lead their teams by creating understanding of the company’s policies while

accommodating the diverse views of his team. A company that equips its leadership team in

intercultural training enables them to motivate their teams, regardless of their cultural

background. Intercultural training builds effective communication, which is a step toward

effective leadership. In additional, intercultural communication helps employees from

different ethnic backgrounds to communicate effectively with one another. It also guides the

management competencies to design policies that incorporate the diversity in the team,

allowing every member to be productive and proficient in their tasks. Since employees are

well trained in intercultural communication, it eliminates misunderstanding and

dissatisfaction that may arise if employees’ needs are not put into consideration while

developing policies, plaining for meetings and designing incentive schemes. Satisfied

employees are able to focus on their duties, thereby increasing productivity.

5.0 Involvement of others is one of the strategies to improve the intercultural communication

skills among people living in Malaysia. People should be always ensuring that members from

other cultural background are involved in daily communication in order to learn and

understand each other’s cultures. For example, working together and establishing rapport

with members of other cultures breeds an ease and a closeness with them (Brown,2013). This

gives rise to a common ground to understanding each other, the way each person

communicates and how they use non-verbal communication. Involvement of others help the

understanding of the context of usage of certain words and symbols and helps one to

understand how different messages are interpreted by different communities. Intercultural

communication skills also can improve throughout people’s carrier by studying other

languages. Language may play an important role in our perceptions of inappropriate conduct.

Malays, Chinese and Indians have different languages. In order to communicate, individuals

have to accommodate each other. In organization, the disclosure is usually in English. The

majority of the people’s living in Malaysia conversed in English, which meant the groups

communicates in a second language. Misuse and misunderstanding of language can be

common especially if individuals are speaking in a non-native language. The speech acts that

were categorized as inappropriate or ineffective verbal messages described unsatisfactory

feelings and emotions of individuals. These “unhappy” feelings could be due to

misunderstandings and misperceptions that were brought about by the differences in their

languages. According to Lustig and Koester (1993), language also allow speakers to display

respect for others, example in the Malay language the word “Mister” can be said in many

ways. For example, each word “Tuan, Saudara and Tuan Haji,” displays different levels of

respect. Furthermore, the languages are most important factor in the business communication.

The language plays a vital role in our day to day communication with business people.
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Learning the languages not only helps to get through every day business and social situation

but also demonstrate our commitment to the business relationship.

6.0 In conclusion, every culture brings out the traditions that were believed by the ancestors,

once and it is carried on by the following generation. The flavour of cultural diversity is

evident even within our most factual business interactions. What people feel is important is

communicated not only through their business, but also through their styles, decision,

choices, and body language. This leads to good moral values and etiquettes in a person’s self.

It is important to learn that intercultural communication is important because we are highly

exposed of other cultures. This brings us to understand a person’s culture more deliberately

as we are curious and try to relate ourselves to others. By learning a person’s culture, it

makes us have a wider mind of range of how others behave, their religious beliefs and their

means of establishing trust in each other.

VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/WtGZa1YZx5M

References

(Ahmed, S. & Naumann, E. (2014). Intercultural Communication. Retrieved from http: //

www.internations.org/ magazine / intercultural- communication-15409).

Essays, UK. (November 2018). Intercultural Communication: Culture in Malaysia. Retrieved

from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/communications/intercultural-communication-

culture-6508.php?vref=1

(MalaysiaDemographicsProfile,2019:https://www.indexmundi.com/malaysia/demographics_

profile.html).

Perumal, Vimala & Varzandeh Somayeh & Ibrahim, M. & Taman Ezhar (2009).

Intercultural Communication Challenges Among International Students Studying in

Malaysia. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences: Annual Review. 4.

107-116. 10.18848/1833-1882/CGP/v04i03/52861.
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