书目分类 出版社分类



更详细的组合查询
中国评论学术出版社 >> 文章内容

CHAPTER FIVE Relationships of the Dimensions of Intercultural Communication Competence

Introduction

 Although the study of communication competence can be indirectly traced back to Aristotle's rhetoric, until now only a very few scholars have dealt with this topic by considering cultural factors. In other words, there are very few studies of intercultural communication competence. Within the extant literature one variable that most closely related to intercultural communication competence is intercultural communication effectiveness. Some scholars have argued that communication effectiveness can be used interchangeably with the term communication competence (e.g., Ruben, 1976). However, while some scholars have conceptualized communication competence as a function of perceived effectiveness (Bochner & Kelly, 1974; Parks, 1976; Rubin, 1983), others have looked at communication competence from the viewpoint of appropriateness (Backlund, 1978; Getter & Nowinski, 1981; Trenholm & Rose, 1981; Wiemann & Backlund, 1980). The conceptualization of communication competence should include effectiveness and appropriateness in interaction.

 Historically, according to Hammer, Gudykunst, and Wiseman (1978), three approaches have been used to deal with intercultural communication effectiveness. The first approach focuses on the characteristics of intercultural communication effectiveness (Cleveland, Mangone, & Adam, 1960; Detweiler, 1975; Gardner, 1962; Harris, 1973; Kleinjans, 1972; Mottram, 1963: Stein, 1966). This approach mainly deals with the sojourner's personality, world view, and cultural awareness. The second approach emphasizes observation of the sojourner's behavior (David, 1972; Ruben, 1976, 1977; Ruben & Kealey, 1979). This approach mainly emphasizes the behaviors of interactants. However, a third approach explores intercultural communication effectiveness through studying both the sojourner's characteristics and behaviors (Abe & Wiseman, 1983; Gudykunst & Hammer, 1984; Gudykunst, Hammer, & Wiseman, 1977; Hammer et al., 1978; Wiseman & Abe, 1984). This is an integrative approach which can lead to better understanding of intercultural communication effectiveness.

 Appropriateness refers to the ability to demonstrate knowledge of the socially appropriate communicative behavior in a specific situation (Backlund, 1978). To be competent in intercultural interaction individuals must be able to meet three requirements. First, the verbal context requires individuals to make sense in terms of wording, of statements, and of topic. Second, the relational context requires individuals to be consonant with the particular relationship through the use of messages. Lastly, the environmental context requires individuals to consider the constraint imposed on message making by the environments (Wiemann & Backlund, 1980). Since the extant studies of intercultural communication competence either focus on the perspective of effectiveness or on appropriateness, there is need to reexamine the construct by considering both variables of effectiveness and appropriateness. It is then the purpose of this study to examine the dimensions and components of intercultural communication competence from the perspectives of effectiveness and appropriateness.

Dimensions and Components of Intercultural Communication Competence

Although many scholars have examined the dimensions and components of intercultural communication competence, the results have been diffuse and fragmentary. In order to synthesize the extant literature intercultural communication competence research from the two aspects mentioned above can be categorized into four main dimensions: personal attributes, communication skills, psychological adjustment, and cultural awareness.

 First, Personal Attributes refer to the fact that competent communicators must know themselves well, and through their selfawareness abilities, initiate positive altitudes. This dimension includes various aspects of selfconcept, selfdisclosure, selfawareness, and social relaxation. Selfconcept is the way a person sees him/herself. It is the key of communication, because only through selfconcept can one relate to the world. Studies have shown that in order to be competent in communication, individuals must demonstrate positive selfconcept. One of the most important aspects of selfconcept is selfesteem. Adler and Towne (1987) have concluded the results of selfesteem study showing that high selfesteem persons are usually more likely to think well ol others, to perform better when being watched, and to feel more comfortable when communicating with superiors.

 Other aspects of positive selfconcept were also proposed by communication scholars. For example, Benson (1978) indicated that individuals must show a friendly personality in order to be competent in intercultural communication. Harris (1973) and Holland and Baird (1968) suggested that the personal qualities such as reliability, honesty and sincerity are indispensable for being effective when interacting with people from different cultures.

 Selfdisclosure is the individual's willingness to be open or to appropriately tell their counterparts things about themselves. It is one of the most important elements for the development of an interpersonal relationship. In addition, according to Bochner and Kelly (1974) and Parks (1976), selfdisclosure is not only the way to reach communication competence, but also the way to achieve communication goals.

 Selfawareness is the ability to monitor or be aware of oneself so that one can implement conversationally competent behaviors in interaction (Spitzberg & Cupach, 1984). This ability is one of the major elements to help individuals better adjust to other cultures (Brislin, 1979; Gudykunst et al. 1977; Triandis, 1977). In addition, Berger and Douglas (1982) reported that individuals with higher selfmonitoring ability are more likely to be competent in interaction because they are able to adapt their behaviors to and present themselves in different situations.

 Social relaxation requires individuals to reveal low levels of anxiety, in general, postural cues, speech, and object manipulation (Spitzberg & Cupach, 1984; Wiemann, 1977). The feeling of anxiety is mainly originated from the lack of security when individuals sojourn in a new culture (Herman & Schield, 1961}. Barna (1979} as well indicated that to be competent in intercultural communication, individuals must be able to eliminate the anxiety feeling that is one of the intercultural communication stumbling blocks.

 Second, Communication Skills implies that individuals must be competent in verbal and nonverbal behaviors. These behaviors are comprised or" message skills, flexibility, interaction management, and social skills. All these are elements of communication competence. Message skills include elements such as linguistic skiffs, descriptiveness, supportiveness, oral message evaluation, and basic speech communication skills. Linguistic skills require individuals to exhibit not only the knowledge of using language, but also the ability to execute the language appropriately (Barna, 1979; Chomsky, 1965; Morris, 1960; Parks, 1976). Descriptiveness requires individuals 1o be able to use concrete, specific and descriptive feedback in the process of interaction (Bochner & Kelly, 1974). Supportiveness requires individuals to know how to reward or support the other effectively by cues such as eye behavior, head nod, facial expression and physical proximity (Parks, 1976; Wiemann, 1977). Oral message evaluation requires individuals to be able to identify and recognize different kinds of messages (Rubin. 1982). Basic speech communication skills require individuals to be able to express, ask, answer and organize messages effectively (Rubin, 1982).

 Flexibility, including behavioral flexibility and adaptability, is the ability to choose an appropriate behavior in different situations (Bochner & Kelly, 1974)..Studies from Duran (1983), Parks (1976), Wheeless & Duran (1982), and Wiemann (1977) have shown that using verbal and behavioral immediacy cues to attend to information and to be flexible in selecting strategies in communication is important for individuals to be competent in interaction. In other words, a competent person must be able to deal with different people in different situations.

 Interaction management is the ability to lake turns in interaction. According to Wiemann (1977) and Ruben (1976, 1977), to know how to initiate and terminate a conversation would lead individuals to be competent in interaction. Interaction management may as well include interaction involvement in which a person is able to be attentive, responsive and perceptive in interaction. Cegala's studies (1981, 1984) showed that the ability of interaction involvement is a necessary ability for individuals to be competent in interaction. Interaction involvement was also found to be related to extroversion, neuroticism, selfconsciousness, and communication apprehension.

 Lastly, social skills include empathy or perspective taking, identity maintenance, and human relations skills. Empathy or perspective taking is the ability of individuals to take the role of the other in interaction (Bochner & Kelly, 1974; Gardner, 1962; Parks, 1976; Ruben, 1976, 1977; Wiemann, 1977). Identify maintenance is the ability to maintain their interactants' identity in interaction (Kelman, 1962; Parks, 1976). Human relations skills require individuals to be able to describe and express different viewpoints and feelings (Rubin, 1982). All these skills are composed of the elements of intercultural communication competence.

 Third, Psychological Adjustment refers to the ability to acclimate to a new environment. It is associated with individuals' ability to handle feelings such as frustration, stress, and alienation, and ambiguous situations caused by the new environment. Studies from Furnham and Bochner (1982), Hammer et al. (1978), Ruben (1976, 1977), and Ruben and Kealey (1979) have shown the ability to psychologically adjust to a new environment is a major component to evaluate individuals' competency in intercultural communication.

 Lastly, Cultural Awareness implies the understanding of environmental varieties that affect how people think (Oliver, 1956), and the use of time and space (Hall, 1959). In other words, cultural awareness requires individuals to understand the "cultural map" (Kluckhohn, 1948) or "cultural theme" (Turner, 1968) which consists of social values, social customs, social norms, and social systems. Hammer et al. (1976) and Abe and Wiseman's (1983) studies also showed that to be competent in intercultural communication individuals must understand the social customs and social system of the host culture.    

Figure 1. The dimensions and components of intercultural communication competence

 The four dimensions and components of intercultural communication competence are shown in Figure I. The goat of the proposed study is to investigate the relationships between and among these dimensions and components of intercultural communication competence. Furthermore, Ruben's (1976) other report, Intercultural Behavioral Assessment Indices, was used in the study to examine its relationship with the components of intercultural communication competence based on the subjects' selfreport data.

Expected Relationships between Dimensions and Components

There still is not enough empirical information to make predictions about the direction of influence between dimensions of intercultural communication competence. However, from the theories of interpersonal and intercultural communication, relationships among the components of these dimensions are expected. For example, Lundstedt (1963) stressed the importance of relationships between personality factors and sojourner's adjustment in a foreign culture. Lundstedt maintained that closedmindedness and ethnocentrism may affect effectiveness of overseas psychological adjustment. He indicated several effective coping mechanisms in adjustment including personality factors such as relational attitude, openmindedness, and universalistic tendencies.

 The Cegala et al. (1982) study showed positive relationships between Personal Attributes and Communication Skills. The authors found that personality factors such as neuroticism and impulsiveness correlated negatively with communication attentiveness; neuroticism and social anxiety correlated negatively with communication responsiveness, but a positive relationship existed between sociability and communication responsiveness; and social anxiety and communication apprehension correlated negatively with communication perceptiveness, but perceptiveness correlated positively with private and public selfconsciousness and communication perceptiveness.

 Smith (1956) discovered relationships between Personal Attributes and Culture Awareness. In his study of Indian and Japanese students sojourning in the United States, Smith reported that ignorance and disapproval of the Indian or Japanese cultures caused Indian students to be more offensive or hostile and caused Japanese students to be more withdrawing from Americans.

 Other studies also showed relationships between Psychological Adaptation and Communication Skills, between Psychological Adaptation and Cultural Awareness, and between Communication Skills and Cultural Awareness. For example, Hammer et al. (1978) hypothesized that sojourners who can well understand and interpret another culture's cues may be able to deal effectively with psychological stress caused by the host culture. Studies by Sewell and Davidsen (1956) and Deutsch and Won (1963) showed that ability in the host language influences the degree of sojourner's satisfaction and psychological adjustment. Lastly, Hammer et al. (1978) also found that effective communication skills are necessary for sojourners to gather information about various aspects of the host culture. This shows that Cultural Awareness must be based on effective Communication Skills.

 Two hypotheses then can be generated from this overview:

 H1: There will be significant and positive correlations between and among measures of Personal Attributes, Communication Skills, Psychological Adaptation, and Cultural Awareness.

 H2: There will be significant and positive relationship between the Ruben's otherreport Intercultural Behavioral Assessment Indices and the subjects' data of the components of' intercultural communication competence.

 In addition, subjects' demographic data were analyzed in the study to see how age, sex, nationality, language, martial status, and length of time subjects slaying in the host culture affected intercultural communication competence.

Methods

Subjects

 The subjects in this study were selected from international students in a large Midwestern university in the Spring of 1986. These students were mainly from the Far East, Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America. A few others were from South and Central America, Australia, and the Caribbean. Each international student was assigned a number and 200 potential subjects out of 611 were selected randomly (without replacement) for this study. Of these, 149 international students agreed to participate. Among these, 94 subjects were male and SS were female. The average age of the subjects was 27.5. Six subjects had English as their native language, all others were from nonEnglish speaking countries. In addition, the average time subjects had stayed in the Untied States was 2 years and 9 months.

Procedures

  The researcher first telephoned the subjects and explained the purpose of the study. The researcher then delivered questionnaires and collected them upon completion. At the end of the questionnaire, international student subjects were asked to suggest two American friends, roommates, instructors, or other persons who knew them well. This group, called "raters" in this study, was sent instrumentation booklets and was asked to rate international students' levels of intercultural communication competence. Booklets were returned to the researcher by mail. When both raters returned booklets to the researcher, the first booklet received was used in the study. American raters returned questionnaire booklets for 129 of the 149 international subjects.

Instrumentation

  Raters completed Intercultural Behavioral Assessment lndices developed by Ruben (1976) to measure the general intercultural communication competence of the international students. The instrument was comprised of seven different dimensions of intercultural communication competence: display of respect, interaction posture, orientation to knowledge, empathy, relational role behavior, interaction management, and tolerance of ambiguity. The coefficient alpha (Cronbach, 1951) of the Intercultural Behavioral Assessment Indices was calculated at .80 in the present study. Ruben (1976) failed to report alphas in his previous research.

 In addition, an adaptation of Rubin's (1985) Communication Competency OtherReport Scale was completed by the American rater group about their foreign acquaintances to measure message sending and receiving skills. The present study found the internal reliability of the Communication Competency OtherReport Scale to be .90, compared to the .87 reported by Rubin (1985) for the selfreport versions and .91 reported by Wilson (personal communication, May 1986) for the otherreport mode.

 International student subjects were asked to rate themselves on four different aspects of intercultural communication competence—Personal Attributes, Communication Skills, Psychological Adaptation, and Cultural Awareness.

 Although the dimension of Personal Attributes contains four major personal traits, only selfdisclosure, selfawareness, and social relaxation were measured in this study. This decision was made to reduce the number of questionnaire items subjects were asked to complete, and because testable and valid scales were available in the abbreviated format. Consequently, the General Disclosiveness Scale developed by Wheeless (1978) was used to measure the subjects' general tendency to disclose to others, and the SelfConsciousness Scale developed by Fenigstein, Scheier and Buss (1975) was used to measure subjects' selfawareness and social relaxation. Selfconsciousness, as a measure of selfawareness, was operationalized via 23 statements which grouped into three dimensions. A coefficient alpha of .70 was found for private selfconsciousness, .g8 for public selfconsciousness, and .77 for social anxiety. Previous research reported coefficient alphas of .79 for private selfconsciousness, .84 for public selfconsciousness, .73 for social anxiety, and .80 for overall selfconsciousness (Fenigstein el al., 1975). Reliability for overall selfconsciousness was .84 in the present study.

 Wheeless's (1978) 31item General Disclosiveness Scale consists of five dimensions: amount of disclosure, consciously intended disclosure, honesty/accuracy of disclosure, positiveness/ negativeness of disclosure, and depth/intimacy of disclosure. The coefficient alphas for the five dimensions in this study were .83 for amount of disclosure, .72 for consciously intended disclosure, .88 for honesty/accuracy for disclosure, .75 for positiveness/ negativeness of disclosure, .84 for depth/intimacy of disclosure, and .79 for the total scale. These results are similar to those reported by Wheeless (1978).

 Furnham and Bochner's (1982) Social Situations Questionnaire was used to measure the dimension of Psychological Adaptation. The questionnaire measures mainly the individual's ability to deal with ambiguous and stressful situations in a host culture. In the present study, a coefficient alpha of .92 was calculated for the overall scale.

 For the dimensions of Communication Skills, Cegala's (1981 ) Interaction Involvement Scale was used to measure interaction management, and Wheeless and Duran's (1982) Communication Adaptability Scale was used to measure flexibility. Cegala's (1981) 18item Interaction Involvement Scale measures communication responsiveness, perceptiveness, and attentiveness. The coefficient alphas of the three components of the Interaction Involvement Scale were .80 for communication responsiveness, .82 for communication perceptiveness, .65 for communication attentiveness, and .83 for total scale, Previous research by Cegala (1981) reported coefficient alphas of .79 for communication responsiveness, .67 for communication perceptiveness, .82 for communication attentiveness, and .86 for the total scale. Wheeless and Duran's (1982) 20item Communicative Adaptability Scale measures two prominent dimensions of communicative competence: adaptability and rewarding impressions. The coefficient alphas calculated in this study were .88 for adaptability, .85 for rewarding impressions, and .90 for the overall scale. Previous research (Wheeless & Duran, 1982) reported coefficient alphas of .86 for adaptability and .87 for rewarding impressions.

 Lastly, the Test of American Culture created by Kenji Kitao (1981) was used to measure the dimensions of Cultural Awareness. In order to test the reliability and to reduce the number of questions to be used in the study, a pretest was performed in this scale. Fiftyone American students enrolled in basic speech courses were tested. The results showed that 25 out of 50 questions were answered correctly by over ninety percent of the students. Therefore, subjects in the study were asked to complete these 25 questions, some of which were slightly reworded to counteract vagueness and obsolescence in the original lest. The coefficient alpha of the Test of American Culture was .74 for the total instrument. Previous research did not report coefficient alpha for the scale.Results

Tests of Hypotheses

  Hypothesis 1 predicted significant positive correlations among measures of Personal Attributes, Communication Skills, Psychological Adaptation, and Cultural Awareness." Pearson productmoment correlations werecomputed to test this hypothesis. The results are summarized in Table 1.

 "The results showed significant relationships among measures of selfconsciousness, selfdisclosure, communication adaptability, social situations, and interaction management. However, the results also showed that the dimensions of Cultural Awareness was only significantly correlated with measures of communication adaptability and communication responsiveness. This indicates that a significant relationship exists Only between Cultural Awareness and Communication Skills.

 To test Hypothesis 2, canonical correlation analysis was used to test the relationship between Ruben's Intercultural Behavioral Assessment Indices (including display of respect, interaction posture, orientation to knowledge, empathy, relational role behavior, interaction management, and tolerance of ambiguity) and subjects' data of the components of intercultural communication competence (including private selfconsciousness, public selfconsciousness, social anxiety, consciously intended disclosure, amount of disclosure, positiveness of disclosure, depth/intimacy of disclosure, honesty/accuracy of disclosure, communication adaptability, rewarding impressions, communication responsiveness, communication perceptiveness, communication attentiveness, cultural awareness, social situations, and communication competence). The structure coefficients, which indicate the correlation of the variables in one set with the function in the other set, were used to define the variable sets. The .05 levels of confidence was used for all statistical tests, 

 Table 2 shows that Hypothesis 2 was confirmed. One significant canonical root was found. The canonical correlation (Rc) between the first and second set of variables was .70. An examination of the canonical loadings revealed that the first set was defined by display of respect. Results of the canonical correlation analysis also indicated a significant high positive relationship between display of respect, interaction posture, orientation to knowledge, empathy, relational role behavior, interaction management, tolerance of ambiguity and communication competence. In addition, results showed a significant but small positive relationship between display of respect, relational role behavior, interaction posture, orientation to knowledge, empathy, relational role behavior, interaction management, tolerance of ambiguity and both cultural awareness and social anxiety. 

Additional Analyses

 The analysis of subjects' demographic data showed that, as evidence on Table 3, length of time subjects had lived in the United States was significantly correlated only with rewarding impressions (r = .23, p < .01), communication responsiveness (r = .I 7, p < .05), and with communication perceptiveness (r = .17, p < .05). Level of acquaintance was significantly correlated only with communication adaptability (r = .20, p < .05), rewarding impressions (r = .28, p < .0011, communication competence (r=.44, p <.001), and with Ruben's intercultural behaviors (r=.35, p < .0011.

 Ttests were used to analyze differences between men and women, and native and nonnative speakers of English on the 16 measures of intercultural communication competence and Ruben's intercultural behaviors. The result showed (a) males (M = 4.78) were significantly more positive about their selfdisclosure than females (M = 4.45), t (141) = 2.08, p < .05; (b) subjects with English as a native language (M = 3.65) reported significantly greater depth in selfdisclosure than subjects without English as a native language (M  2.47, t (1431 = 2.23, p < .05; (c) subjects with English as a native language (M = 5.98) were significantly higher in communication adaptability than those without English as a native language (M = 5.00), t (140) = 2.26, p < .05; (d) subjects with English as a native language (M = 5.93) reported that they were significantly more perceptive in their interaction than subjects without English as a native language(M = 4.90), t(139) = 2.31, p < .05; and (e) subjects with English as a native language (M = 23.17) were significantly more culturally aware than subjects without English as a native language (M = 20.16) t (t46) = 2.11, p < .OS.

 Lastly, oneway analysis of variance (utilizing Tukey's post hoc test) was used to investigate differences of nationality and marital status on the 16 measures of intercultural communication and intercultural behaviors. The results showed significant differences between subjects (a) from the Far East (M = 2.81) and Middle East (M = 1.96) on social anxiety, F (5,139) = 3.60, p < .01, (b) from Asia (M = 4.93) and Europe (M = 4.06), Africa (M = 5.37) and Europe (M = 4.06), and Africa (M = 5.37) and the Far East (M = 4.55) on positiveness of selfdisclosure, F (5,136) = 4.31, p < .01 ; and (c) from Africa (M = 5.63) and the Middle East (M = 3.94) on communication perceptiveness, F (5,134) = 3.36, p < .01. No significant differences were found for persons of different marital status.

Discussion

  Hypothesis 1 predicted significant correlations among measures of Personal Attributes, Communication Skills, Psychological Adaptation and Cultural Awareness.  Hypothesis 1 basically was supported. Pearson productmoment correlations indicated significant, yet moderate relationships among measures of (a) dimensions of Personal Attributes, Communication Skills, and Psychological Adaptation; and (b) dimensions of Communication Skills and Cultural Awareness. However, the measures of Cultural Awareness dimension did not appear related to Personal Attributes and Psychological Adaptation.

 The results concerning the Personal Attributes dimension are consistent with Lundstedt's (1963) proposal that closedmindedness may affect effectiveness of a sojourner's psychological adjustment. Lundstedt's study showed that openness or selfdisclosure, especially intent of disclosure and honesty of disclosure, positively correlated with psychological adaptation. The results further support Gardner's (1962) findings. Gardner suggested that the "universal communicator" will have the least amount of psychological difficulty in adjusting to another culture. Gardner described the universal communicator as having a wellintegrated personality and a high degree of sensitivity toward others.

 The results are, as well, consistent with models proposed by Cegala et al. (1982) and Duran (1983). Cegala et al. found significant relationships between personality factors such as neuroticism, impulsiveness, social anxiety, sociability, communication apprehension, private and public selfconsciousness, and interaction management. And Duran found significant relationships between communication apprehension, selfesteem, and communication adaptability.

 The results reporting significant relationships between measures of Communication Skills and Psychological Adaptation are consistent with results found by Sewell and Davidsen (1956) and Deutsch and Won (1963). The authors indicated that a sojourner with good communication skills, especially fluency in the host language, is especially satisfied and psychologically adjusted in another culture. Ruben and Kealey's (1979) findings are also supported by the results. They found that two major elements  empathy and interaction management  were two of the communication skills significantly related to cultural shock. Sojourners with the ability to empathize and take turns in interaction are expected to encounter more psychological adjustment problems at the beginning of a stay in a foreign country because they tend to have more interaction with people. However, the problems will be overcome in a short period of time.

 The relationships between Communication Skills and Cultural Awareness support the Hammer et at. (1978) proposal that awareness of another culture is based on the sojourner's effective communication skills. According to Hammer et al., communication skills such as interaction posture and interaction management in Ruben's Intercultural Behavioral Assessment Indices are necessary for sojourners to gather information about various aspects of the host cultures to interact effectively with the people from the host culture.

 Finally, Smith's (1956) findings on relationships between Personal Attributes and Cultural Awareness are not supported in this study. One possible explanation is that the number of indices used to tap the dimensions of Personal Attributes and Cultural Awareness were limited. Also, the Cultural Awareness index used here may not be a valid one because it mainly measures the surface level of 'American culture.

 Hypothesis 2 predicted the relationship between the seven dimensions of Ruben's Intercultural Behavioral Assessment Indices and the measures of subjects' data from the Personal Attributes, Communication Skills, Psychological Adaptation, and Cultural Awareness dimensions. The hypothesis was confirmed. One significant root was produced from the canonical analysis. Display of respect defined the first set while communication competence defined the second set. Conceptually, these loadings are consistent, suggesting that display of respect and communication competence is related to generalized competence in intercultural communication. This result confirmed that appropriateness and effectiveness are the two indispensable elements for conceptualizing intercultural communication competence.

 The canonical analysis further indicated that a high and positive relationship exists between Ruben's Indices and communication competence. Because both Ruben's (1976) Intercultural Behavioral Assessment Indices and Rubin's (1985) Communication Competence Scale measured the communication skills of behavioral performance, it is not surprising that a high and positive correlation exists between intercultural communication competence and communication competence. The same analysis also indicated a significant but small positive relationship between Ruben's Indices and cultural awareness. Previous research by Hall (1959) and Hall and Whyte (1963) has shown the relationship between Communication Skills and Cultural Awareness. The authors indicated that the ability to be aware of one's host culture may lead sojourners to be effective in intercultural communication. The results are also further consistent with the findings in Hypothesis 1 in which Cultural Awareness was found to be significantly correlated with Communication Skills.

 Finally, the level of acquaintance was found to be significantly correlated with communication competence and Intercultural Behavioral Assessment Indices. The results reflected social penetration theory in which Altman and Taylor (1973) indicated that intimate relationships are defined by breadth and depth of selfdisclosure. Since the previous literature review had shown that selfdisclosure is one of the main components in effective communication with people from the same or different cultures, it was predictable that people who know better the sojourners would have more information on which to base their judgments of communication and intercultural communication competence.

 The results of this study stress the interrelationships among the dimensions and components of intercultural communication competence. However, even though each original dimension was comprised of several different components, only a limited number of the components could be examined in this study. Subject fatigue and the effects of instrumentation would have become too great if each component was fully tapped. So evidence about the relationships among the dimensions and components of intercultural communication competence is still incomplete at this time. Future research should examine more components of intercultural communication competence in order to develop a more complete understanding of the interrelationships among these dimensions and components.

 The study of intercultural communication may include several of the inherent limitations mentioned by Klopf and Cambra (1983); these were originally derived from Campbell's (1969) lists of fifteen factors that may jeopardize the validity of crosscultural research data. First, social variables may affect the one being measured on survey responses. For example, in some cultures selfdisclosure is not positively valued and so subjects might score themselves low on this trait. Second, paperpencil testing may be an uncommon activity in many cultures even though these subjects are used to such tests in college, they may not be used to revealing such personal information. Lastly, response biases such as giving inaccurate answers to researchers of different races may affect the validity of data. For this study, these problems might have been reduced to a minimum level because of initial agreement to participate and the use of outside raters. Future research in intercultural settings should avoid these barriers.

 The results of this study have great potential for future research. For instance, factor analysis might be used to investigate if the dimensions proposed in this study are the best model to explain intercultural communication competence. Future research may as well try to develop a scale of intercultural communication competence by using those components proposed in this study.

References

Abe, H., & Wiseman, R. L. (1983), A crosscultural confirmation of the dimensions of intercultural effectiveness. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 7, 5367.

Adler, R. B, & Towne, N. (1987). Looking out/looking in. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Altman, I., & Taylor, D. (1973). Social penetration: The development of interpersonal relationship. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Backlund, P. (1978). Defining communication competence, In C. Larson, P. Backlund, M. Redmong, & A. Barbour (Eds.), Assessing functional communication. Annandale, VA: SCA/ERIC.

Barna, L. M. (1979). Intercultural communication stumbling blocks. In R. E. Porter & L. A. Samovar (Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader (pp. 291298). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Benson, P. R. (1978). Measuring crosscultural adjustment: The problem of criteria, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2, 21  37.

Bochner, A. P., & Kelly, C. W. (1974). Interpersonal competence: Rational, philosophy, and implementation of a conceptual framework. Speech Teacher, 23, 279301.

Brislin, R. W. (1979). Orientation programs for crosscultural preparation, in A. J. Marsella, R. G. Tharp, & T. J. Ciborowski (Eds.), Perspectives on cross cultural psychology (pp. 287303), New York: Academic Press.

Campbell, D. T. (1969) Reforms as experiments. American Psychologist, 24, 409429,

Cegala, D. J. (1981). Interaction involvement: A cognitive dimension of communicative competence. Communication Education, 30, 109121.

Cegala, D. J. (1984). Affective and cognitive manifestations of interaction involvement during unstructured and competitive interactions Communication Monographs, 51, 320338.

Cegala, D. J., Savage, G. T., Brunner, C. C., & Conrad, A. B. (1982). An elaboration of the meaning of interaction involvement: Toward the development of a theoretical concept. Communication Monographs, 49, 229248.

Cleveland, H., Mangone, G. J., & Adams. J. C. (1960). The overseas Americans. New York: McGrawHill.

Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrica, 16, 297334.

David, K. (1972), Intercultural adjustment and applications of reinforcement theory to problems of culture shock. Trends, 4, 164.

Detweiler, R. A. (1975). On inferring the intentions of a persona from another culture. Journal of Personality, 43, 591611.

Deutsch, S. E., & Won, G. Y. M. (1963). Some factors in the adjustment of foreign nationals in the United Stales. Journal of Social Issues, 19(3), 115122.

Duran, R. L. (1983). Communicative adaptability: A measure of social communicative competence. Communication Quarterly, 31, 320326.

Fenigstein, A., Scheier, M. F., & Buss, A. H. (1975). Public and private sellconsciousness: Assessment and theory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43, 522527.

Furnham, A., & Bochner, S. (1982). Social difficulty in foreign culture: An empirical analysis of culture shock. In S. Bochner (Ed.), Cultures in contact: Studies in crosscultural interaction. New York: Pergamon Press.

Gardner. G. H, (1962). Crosscultural communication. Journal of Social Psychology, 58, 241256.

Getter H., & Nowinski, J. K. (1981). A free response test of interpersonal effectiveness. Journal of Personality Assessment, 45, 301308.

Gudykunst, W. B., & Hammer, M. R. (1984). Dimensions of intercultural effectiveness: Culture specific or culture general? International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 1, 99110.

Gudykunst, W. B., Hammer, M, R., & Wiseman, R. L, (1977). An analysis of an integrated approach to crosscultural training. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 8, 110,

Hall, E. T. (1959). The silent language. Garden City, NY: Doubleday,

Hall, E. T., & Whyte, W. F. (1963). Intercultural communication: A guide to men of action. Practical Anthropology, 9, 83  108.

Hammer. M., Cudykunst, W., & Wiseman, R. (1978). Dimensions of intercultural effectiveness. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2, 382 393.

Harris, J. G. (1973). A science of the South Pacific: An analysis of the character structure of the Peace Carp volunteer. American Psychologist, 28, 232247.

Herman, S,, & Schield, E. (1961 ). The stranger group in crosscultural situation. Sociometry, 24, 165176.

Holland. J. L., & Baird, L. L. (1968). An interpersonal competence scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 28, 503510.

Kelman, H. C. (1962). Changing attitudes through internationat activities. Journal of Social Issues, 18(1), 6887.

Kitao, K. (1981). The test of American culture. NALLD Journal, 15(2), 2545.

Kleinjans, E. (1972). Opening remarks on a conference on world communication held at the East West Center. Honolulu, Hawaii.

Klopf, D. W., & Cambra, R. E. (1983). Communication apprehension in foreign settings: The results of exploratory research, Communication. The Journal of Communication Association of the Pacific, 12(1), 3751.

Kluckhohn, C. (1948). Mirror of man. New York: McGraw Hill.

Lundstedt, S. (1963). An introduction to some evolving problems in crosscultural research, Journaf of Social lssues, 19(3), 19.

Morris, R. T. (1960). The twoway mirror: National status of foreign students' adjustment. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Mottram, R. (Ed.) (1963). The selection of personnel for international service. New York: World Federation for Mental Health.

Oliver, R. T, (1962). Culture and communication: The problem of penetrating national and cultural boundaries. Springfield, IL: Thomas.

Parks, M. R. (1976, December). Communication competence. Paper presented at the meeting of the Speech Communication Association, San Francisco.

Ruben, B. D. (1976). Assessing communication competency for intercultural adaptation. Group & Organization Studies, 1, 334354.

Ruben, B. D. (1977). Guidelines for crosscultural communication effectiveness. Group & Organization Studies, 2, 470479.

Ruben, J. D., & Kealey, D. J. (1979). Behavioral assessment of communication competency and the prediction of crossculturat adaptation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 3, 1547,

Rubin, R. 8. (1982), Assessing speaking and listening competence at college level: The Communication Competency Assessment instrument. Communication Education, 31, 1932.

Rubin, R. B. (1983, November). Conceptualizing communication competence: Directions for research and instruction. Paper presented at the meeting of the Speech Communication Association, Washington, DC.

Rubin, R. B. (1985). The validity of the communication competency assessment instrument. Communication Monographs, 52, 173185.

Sewell. W. H., & Davidsen, O. M, (1956). The adjustment of Scandinavian students, Journal of Social Issues, 12(1), 919.

Smith, M. B. (1956). A perspective for further research on crosscultural education. Journal of Social Issues, 12(1), 5667.

Spitzberg, B. H., & Cupach, W. R. (1984). Interpersonal communication competence. Beverly Hills: Sage.

Stein, M. I. (1966). Volunteers for peace. New York: Wiley.

Trenholm, S., & Rose, T. (1981). The compliant communicator: Teacher perceptions of classroom behavior. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 45, 13 26.

Triandis, H. C. (1977). Theoretical framework for evaluation of crosscultural training effecliveness. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 1 (4), 195 213.

Turner, C. V. (1968). The Sinasina "Big Man" complex: A central culture theme. Practical Anthropology, 15, 1623.

Wheeless, E. W., & Duran, R. L. (1982). Gender orientation as a cartelate of communicative competence. Southern Speech Communication Journal, 48, 5164.

Wheeless, L. R. (1978). A followup study of the relationships among trust, disclosure, and interpersonal solidarity. Human Communication Research, 4(2), 143157,

Wieman, J. M. (1977). Explication and test of model of communication competence. Human Communication Research, 3, 195213.

Wiemann, J. M., & Backlund, P. (1980), Current theory and research in communicative Competence. Review of Educational Research, 50, 185199.

Wiseman, R. L., & Abe, H. (1984). Finding and explaining differences: A reply to Gudykunst and Hammer. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 8, 1116.[WT][HT]
最佳浏览模式:1024x768或800x600分辨率