Mass Comm Bachelor of Communication Bachelor of Communication: Intercultural Competency 4 ā Questions and Answers
Question 1: An NGO worker in Southeast Asia refrains from using direct refusals to avoid embarrassing local partners. This strategy reflects awareness of:
- Monochronic time
- Face-saving norms in collectivist cultures (Correct answer)
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Instrumental communication
Correct answer: Face-saving norms in collectivist cultures
In collectivist, high-context cultures, indirect communication protects the face and harmony of both parties.
Question 2: Which framework categorizes national cultures along dimensions such as individualism, masculinity, and long-term orientation?
- Hall's Proxemics Model
- Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory (Correct answer)
- Berlo's SMCR Model
- Shannon-Weaver Model
Correct answer: Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory
Geert Hofstede developed a widely-used framework of six cultural dimensions derived from large-scale cross-national surveys.
Question 3: During a negotiation, a Japanese team remains silent after a proposal. An American negotiator should understand this silence as:
- Agreement with the proposal
- A signal to lower the price immediately
- Possibly indicating reflection or polite disagreement (Correct answer)
- A technical error in translation
Correct answer: Possibly indicating reflection or polite disagreement
In many East Asian cultures, silence during negotiation may signal contemplation, discomfort, or polite rejection rather than assent.
Question 4: Which term describes the process of internalizing a new culture's values while retaining one's heritage culture?
- Assimilation
- Separation
- Integration (Correct answer)
- Marginalization
Correct answer: Integration
Integration, according to Berry's Acculturation Framework, involves adopting the host culture while maintaining one's original cultural identity.
Question 5: A media campaign designed for a global audience uses universally recognized symbols instead of culture-specific text. This strategy addresses which challenge?
- Message redundancy
- Cross-cultural interpretability (Correct answer)
- Bandwidth limitations
- Regulatory compliance
Correct answer: Cross-cultural interpretability
Universal symbols minimize the risk of misinterpretation caused by cultural or linguistic differences in global communication.
Question 6: Which ethical principle holds that communicators should evaluate their own cultural biases before judging others' communicative behaviors?
- Universalism
- Cultural self-awareness (Correct answer)
- Normative relativism
- Instrumentalism
Correct answer: Cultural self-awareness
Cultural self-awareness requires examining one's own cultural assumptions and biases as a prerequisite for ethical intercultural communication.
Question 7: Hall's concept of proxemics examines how cultures differ in their use of:
- Time management at work
- Physical space and distance in interaction (Correct answer)
- Nonverbal facial expressions
- Written versus oral communication traditions
Correct answer: Physical space and distance in interaction
Proxemics is the study of how people use physical spaceāpersonal, social, and publicāduring communication, and how this varies by culture.
Mass Comm Bachelor of Communication Bachelor of Communication: Intercultural Competency 4
An NGO worker in Southeast Asia refrains from using direct refusals to avoid embarrassing local partners.
This strategy reflects awareness of: