寻找

Communication across cultural boundaries
跨越文化边界的沟通

Communicating across cultural boundaries, whether verbal or non-verbal, is a particularly important skill for international managers. While communication can often go awry between people who share a culture, the chances of mis-communication increase substantially when the people are from different cultural backgrounds.
跨文化边界的沟通对跨国企业的经理们来说是一项特别重要的技能，无论是语言沟通还是非语言沟通。在文化背景相同的人之间，沟通常常会偏离本意，而当来自不同文化背景的人沟通时，错误传达的可能性大幅上升。

In such cases, the sender encodes a message using his/her cultural filters and the receiver decodes the same message using his/her cultural filters. The result of using different cultural filters is that misunderstandings are common, and often expensive to resolve.
在这种情况下，发送者用他/她的文化过滤器编成一段信息，而接收者用他/她的文化过滤器解读这段信息。用不同的文化过滤器的结果是，误解是普遍的，而且往往解决的成本高昂。

Keep in mind that the importance of the context within which communication occurs varies among cultures. Experts distinguish between high-context and low-context cultures. A low-context culture is one in which the words used by the speaker explicitly convey the speaker’s message to the listener. A high-context culture is one in which the context in which a conversation occurs is just as important as the words that are actually spoken, and cultural clues are important in understanding what is being communicated.
记住，沟通时其背景的重要性在不同的文化下是不一样的。专家区分为背景相关度高的文化和背景相关度低的文化。一种背景相关度低的文化是指那种说话者使用的词汇明确地传达了他的信息给倾听者。一种背景相关度高的文化是指那种一段对话发生的背景同实际使用的词汇一样重要，而且文化线索对于理解沟通的内容起着重要作用。

Business behaviors in high-context cultures often differ from those in low-context cultures. High-context cultures place higher value on interpersonal relations in deciding whether to enter into business arrangement. Low-context cultures place more importance on the terms of a contract.
在背景相关度高的文化下的商业行为通常与那些在背景相关度低的文化下的商业行为不同。在决定是否加入商业约定时，背景相关度高的文化更重视人际关系。背景相关度低的文化更重视合同的条款。

Members of a society communicate with others using more than words. In fact, some researchers believe 80 to 90 percent of all information is transmitted among members of a culture by means other than language. This non-verbal communication includes facial expressions and hand gestures, intonation, eye contact, body positioning and body posture.
一个社会的成员们不光光使用词汇与其他人沟通。事实上，一些研究人员相信同一种文化下的成员们，其80%-90%的信息是通过非语言的手段传递的。这种非语言沟通包括，脸部表情和手势、声调、眼神接触、肢体的位置和姿势。