Abstract | In the modern times, we are increasingly confronted with members of other nations and cultures. It is logical to reconsider our approach since we meet each other at all levels of life - business, academic, leisure, etc. There are differences, which sometimes seem insurmountable, in the communication of different nations and cultures, but the following quote sums up the general idea of what this thesis is about and how I think those differences can actually be surmounted: “Everywhere and with every step, on each or without any occasion, with or without reason, it is necessary to ridicule the most firmly accepted judgements and to state paradoxes. And then - one will see what happens” (Bauman, 1991:82). For example, words by itself do not have an intention so firstly we can think about how we use them in each context. A sea can be: fish habitat, death for sailors, place for leisure and swimming, salt container, national border, metaphor for something abundant, food source, a subject of inspiration, and so on, but on the base line, a “sea” by itself as a word is nothing more than a signifier for natural salty water mass on Earth.
Therefore my question is why and how does communication happens beyond words? Before we say anything, we are also forming thoughts through dialogue. When we engage in a dialogue, be it with a person, a form of a literature or something else, it is always a dialogue of more factors than we are aware of – in general, of multiple texts within the contexts. We communicate in concepts and images, thus we should examine the human brain as software, whereas interaction is based on social settings. Knowing that someone is of another culture, we approach them as an operating system that we do not understand (know nothing about) and its settings can be absolutely different from ours. Thankfully, we are all capable of learning different ways of communication, we only need volition. |