Page 49 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

Discourse, cultural diversity and communication 27

the doubt and feel that they can make mistakes without fear of being misjudged.
Hierarchical situations, where feedback opportunities are constrained by norms
governing conduct, are less conducive to learning. This means that not all indi-
viduals of a certain ethnic background encounter communication problems.
Those who enter a new society as individuals are more likely to learn the new
discourse conventions than those who migrate to live with others who share
their background. When people settle in groups, they may adopt a new language
but, in their interpersonal contacts, they are likely to develop discourse conven-
tions based on previous communicative experience that are perceived as discre-
pant by other outsiders. As some of the examples cited here show, analysis of
communicative practice can serve as a means of monitoring and thereby gaining
ordinarily unavailable insights into those everyday life communication pro-
cesses that have become so important in today’s diverse communicative en-
vironments (Cook-Gumperz and Gumperz 2002).

References

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2002 Gatekeeping interviews: intercultural differences or common misunder-
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