Marinel D.

Liwanag

Rajan, P. (2021). Intercultural Communication and Barriers in Malaysian Public Universities: The

Mediating Effect of Intercultural Willingness to Communicate. Asia-Pacific Social Science

Review

Rajan (2021) claimed that Malaysian university students has reached its alarming low

intercultural engagement as revealed in his several citations (Hashim, 2019; Hashmi, 2017).

Hence, he sought to resolve the predicting barriers in intercultural communication namely

anxiety, uncertainty, and ethnocentrism. His study is grounded on anxiety/uncertainty

management (AUM) theory of Gudykunst (1995) that explains the relationship among the

predictive barriers which were influenced and affected by one’s culture. He also presented

several literature reviews which focuses on intercultural communication, intercultural

willingness, anxiety, uncertainty, ethnocentrism and, intercultural willingness to communicate as

mediator. He was able to analyze the responses of 450 undergraduate students applying the

proportionate stratified sampling which revealed that the intercultural willingness to

communicate (IWTC) predicting barriers namely anxiety, uncertainty, and ethnocentrism

significantly affect students’ willingness to initiate communication. However, due to small

population it is recommended that future researchers should conduct a larger population sample

across the country.

Qin, N. (2022). On Cultivation of Intercultural Communication Competence in College Students’

Autonomous Language Learning Via Computer Technology. Department of International

Business pp. 781–793. https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-044-2_98

The study conducted by Qin (2022) centered on the autonomous learning and the use of

technology which cultivates students’ intercultural communication based on the similarities and
differences in using computer technology. Before conducting the study, Qin (2022) conducted a

survey on the status of 203 college students’ use of computer technology in learning. It was

revealed that desktop computer is the most used hardware and social media platforms is the

most used software which were said to be useful in autonomous language learning style. After,

Qin (2022) constructed a questionnaire for the 150 students and analyzed the positive influence

of computer technology in achieving intercultural communication competence (ICC). It was

revealed that college students have medium level of ICC, while 88% of their learning relies on

social media platforms. This prompt Qin (2022) to recommend that despite of the competence in

using computer technology in acquiring intercultural knowledge, college students must

overcome and gradually improve their anxiety and awareness in intercultural participation to

better their ICC.

Kulinich, M., Makeeva, E., & Savitskaya E. (2019). Theory and Practice of Intercultural

Communication in Language Teacher Training and Translator Training. Arpha Proceedings.

International Forum on Teacher Education

Kulinich et.al. (2019) claimed that successful communication in global arena is relatively

related not only to language proficiency but also to intercultural communication competence

(ICC). Hence, their university offered Intercultural Communication course with the goal in mind

to develop individual’s appreciation for cultural diversity to avoid several problems that may

arise in intercultural communication. Thus, the focal point of their study is to know students’

expectations and impressions on before and after learning the course. The researchers used

regular anonymous questionnaire to gather data among their chosen participants. The results

indicated that 95% of students’ expectation regarding what they most likely to study is

communication between representatives of different cultures, while 90% agreed that the ICC

course is helpful and of practical value. Therefore, the researchers concluded that students are
interested in the subject because of its future application endeavors and because it forms

cultural awareness and sensitivity that is needed in today’s globalization.

Jhaiyanuntana, A. & Nomnian, S. (2020). Intercultural Communication Challenges and

Strategies for the Thai Undergraduate Hotel Interns. PASAA Vol. 59, 204-235

Jhaiyanuntana & Nomnian (2020) claimed that there are several challenges between

Thai people and ASEAN countries due to lack of cultural knowledge and awareness. They

believed that to overcome these, interpersonal and intercultural communication skills should be

part of the course of Thai hospitality industry. Hence, rooted on Byram’s (1997) Intercultural

Communication Competence (ICC) model –which underpins attitudes, knowledge, skills of

interpreting and relating, skills of discovery and interaction, and critical and cultural awareness

—they explored intercultural communication challenges and strategies faced by Thai

undergraduate students who underwent in-house internship. The results revealed that ICC, as

an integral part of building communicative competence and cultural awareness and sensitivity,

must be incorporated in the language curriculum of tourism and hospitality program. Likewise,

students must not only develop the positive attitude of interpreting and relating towards linguistic

and cultural diversity skills but also eloquence on the international standardized service

protocols necessary for effective and efficient interaction among other cultures.

Mahayussnan, T. (2021). Intercultural Communication Challenges: A Case Study of Multilingual

Workplaces in Thailand. Thammasat University Language Institute. 1-44

The study conducted by Mahayussnan (2021) sought answers to intercultural

communication challenges faced by 40 Thai employees working in English tutorial schools and

how they handle these challenges. He employed mixed-method design, interviewed

participants, and constructed self-assessment questionnaire based on Byram’s ICC model that
consists of five areas including knowledge, skills, attitudes and cultural awareness. Results

revealed that employees struggled to give appropriate constructive feedback toward their

students and appropriate English words and expressions considering the level of their students;

thus, knowledge of Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) and cultural differences

need to be improved. Likewise, the employees must be more emphatic and adapt their

approach to the students they are engaging with; hence, they should be an active listener, open-

minded, and good mediator of knowledge to promote harmonious classroom atmosphere. Thus,

Mahayussnan (2021) concluded that ICC must be integrated into language teaching to enable

individuals to have positive attitudes and adequate cultural knowledge. This will pave way for a

wider perspective that encourages individual to embrace cultural diversity conspicuously.

Shahid, D. (2022). Importance of Intercultural Communication in an Organization. Journal of

Business and Management Studies. 4(2): 459-463. DOI: 10.32996/jbms

Inclining to Shibata’s (1998) intercultural communication “which refers to the

communication process between people of different cultural backgrounds, whether from

different countries or subcultures within the same country”, Shahid (2022) explored the factors

of the intercultural communication in an organization. He provided relevant information on

culture and communication, challenges of intercultural communication (IC), and conflict

management in intercultural communication. The main purpose of his article is to impart the

significance and utility of IC in the business society as it is the trend and norm of society to have

diverse and multicultural employees. He concluded that it is vital to educate employees in

understanding intercultural differences, organization-appropriate behaviors, and conflict

resolution to promote positive and harmonious environment. Thus, organization must promote

cross-cultural communication and gender-diverse top-level administration teams in the

workplace.
Lou, G. (2021). Research on Intercultural Communication Teaching Mode Based on Skype

Computer Network Technology. Journal of Physics: Conference Series. doi:10.1088/1742-

6596/1744/3/032073

Lou (2021) discussed the current situation of intercultural communication teaching (ICT)

mode in China where the course’s goal –to cultivate intercultural communication competence as

the core vis a vis "cultivating sensitivity to cultural differences, tolerance and flexibility in dealing

with cultural differences" —is affected by several constraints such as lack of high-quality

teachers, traditions, educational and teaching ideas which posit “knowledge-centered and

dominant culture teaching model”. He argued that traditional teaching—where teachers are the

vessel of information while students are passive receivers of information—has defected

student’s active learning. Arguably, the presence of computer network technology assisted

cross-cultural communication teaching in a way that students became more interested in

learning which is manifested on the use of picture resources, audio, and video materials and, all

kinds of learning websites. For instance, he explicated that Skype in ICT has paved way for

aiding both teachers and students in several ways as it can be used in teaching/learning

through an audio dialogue, video conferencing, send real-time messages, documents, photos,

and emails and share applications. He concluded that with the numerous advantages of

computer network technology to cross-cultural communication, the learning and teaching

process becomes collaborative, creative, and innovative.

Ou, Q. (2019). Research on Perception Diversity in Intercultural Communication —With Guasha

Treatment as a Case Study. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 9(1), 82-88. DOI:

http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0901.13

To achieve a better understanding of miscommunication in an intercultural

communication (IC), a model was used where Culture A and Culture B undergo process of
communication (send-encode-message-decode-receive) on the assumption that both undergo

encoding and decoding of information based on his/her own cultural perspective. Qu (2019)

made use of Guasha Treatment (a movie) to fully understand the misunderstandings caused by

perception diversity in IC which posit the analyses: different perceptions of the practice of

Guasha Treatment, different perceptions of the relationship between father and son, different

perceptions of face and, different perceptions of abortion. To address these misunderstandings,

Qu (2019) explicated the (1) Berger and Calabrese’s Uncertainty Reduction Theory which

promotes uncertainty reduction and predictability increase of one’s action; (2) Gudykunst’s

Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory which posit that managing anxiety and uncertainty is

necessary for effective and efficient communication and intercultural adjustment; and, (3)

empathy which is the ability to see, understand, and feel other peoples’ experiences and

emotions. He concluded that being emphatic is the most effective way to resolve

misunderstandings in IC.

Akhmadieva, R., Guryanova, T., Kurakin, K., Makarov, A., Skorobogatova, A., & Krapivina, V.

(2020). Student Attitude to Intercultural Communication and Intercultural Interaction in Social

Networks. Contemporary Educational Technology. 11(1), 21-29. DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30935/cet.641762

Akhmadieva et.al. (2020) explicated ethnocentrism as “socio-psychological attitude

perception and evaluation of other cultures and the behavior of their representatives through the

prism of their own culture", where it affects interethnic (active-passive act, ethnic assistance,

ethnic opposition, ethnic discrimination) and intercultural communication such as in “friend-foe”

(Trubetskoy, 2003) and “man and situation” (Ross & Nisbet, 2008). They used interview method

to collect data and analyzed how students connect and intersect with representatives of other

Nations and how these representatives affect students. It was revealed that students are often
in contact with other representatives and do not feel any discomfort (female tend to feel more

discomfort than male in 15%-12% ratio); however, students do not regard themselves higher

than the representatives. They concluded that ethnocentrism, rearing on their study, is a

respondent who is in general rarely in contact, feels discomfort, and gives high regard with other

nationalities, look at other nationalities with much respect, do not interact to people inferior to

their culture and many others from which ethnocentrism is derived (Akhmadieva et.al., 2020).

Ganapathi, N. (2019). The Need for Intercultural Communication Skills in the Multicultural

Settings. Journal of General Management Research. 6(2), pp. 39–47

Ganapathi (2019) defined culture as a shared morals, behaviors, beliefs, and values

among community. He argued that the success of an organization depends on the

communication and choices of all employees and executives. He used descriptive study and

was done based on his personal experiences focusing on multicultural organization which

explains the need to have good communication skills among employees. He explicated the

relationship between cultural influence and communication where it must lead to an adaptive

relationship, amity, focused understanding, lasting ties, openness, declaration, interrogative,

supporting, attending, contribution reaction, declaring, and proposing; and, multicultural

communication in the workplace where he suggested efficient workplace communication could

be useful for inspiration, policymaking, amending individual’s approach, regulating one’s

behavior and engagement. He concluded that even though every organization has their own

unique culture and ways of communication—which makes diversity helpful to sustain and

innovate the organization—, intercultural training for employees must be done to promote

culture understanding and cross-cultural relationships.

Science. Human and Social Sciences. 48(1), 431-442

Haddad (2021) systematically reviewed 5, 372 articles and only 17 publications were

analyzed and studied focusing on intercultural communicative competencies and sensitivities,

utilization of empirical and theoretical knowledge, historical and psychosocial roles of culture in

different societies etc. In his findings, IC as a social science examines the process of

communication among diverse cultural backgrounds of groups, communities, and organizations

that promotes intercultural competence and sensitivity. He discussed the important component

of intercultural communicative competence which is language as tool for communication among

local to global business relationships and, advancement of cultural knowledge within the scope

of local and global platforms. Likewise, IC as a social science addresses ethnocentrism,

stereotypes and prejudices which provides room for meaningful relationships bridging the gap

between culture and communication. He posits that in today’s generation where globalization is

a trend in society, students should be exposed in intercultural communication to equip them with

knowledge, skills, and abilities to communicate and participate within multicultural setting.

Caetano, A., Freire, I., & Machado, E. (2020). Student Voice and Participation in Intercultural

Education. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 9(1).

DOI https://doi.org/10.7821/naer.2020.1.458

The study of Caetano et.al. is aimed at understanding the dynamics of children and

young people’s participation in sharing of power, responsibility, and decision-making, and how

these promote intercultural learning and other changes among community members. They

regarded student-voice as proactive engagement in the community while building “autonomy,

responsibility, creativity, reflexivity, and social leadership, along with stronger communication

skills” (Caetano et.al. 2020). They employed case study and a participatory approach designed
by the researchers. Results showed that students are active participants in the community and

showed cultural knowledge which helped build group cohesion and friendship. Integrating

student-voice in IC helped the teachers and administrators to create a more inclusive projects

for the school and for the community. According to Caetano (2020), changes around us start

with the changes we make in ourselves; however, awareness of different programs and voices

will better the outcome of becoming interculturally and holistically inclusive education.

Ahrndt, S. (2020). Intercultural Communication. Open Educational Resources Collection.

https://irl.umsl.edu/oer/24

The textbook (a collection from different sources) gave vast ideas on the following

chapters: (1) Intercultural Communication (IC), (2) Social Categorization, Stereotyping, and

Discrimination, (3) Beliefs, Values, and Cultural Universals, (4) Introduction to Race and

Ethnicity, (5) The Impacts of Social Class, (6) Gender and Gender Inequality, (7) Socialization

and Human Sexuality. Focusing on the summary of Chapter 1 (IC), it discussed the topics:

culture, personal, social, cultural identities, social constructionist view of culture and identity,

intercultural communication, and intercultural communication competence. It also explicated

nondominant and dominant identity development; difference matters in the study of culture and

identity; historical development and construction of the four cultural identities and how it relates

to communication; six dialectics of intercultural communication; effects and relation of

intercultural communication to interpersonal relationships, motivation, self- and other-

knowledge, and tolerance; and “thinking under the influence”. Ahrndt (2020) defined the

following terminologies to explicitly guide the readers along their journey in the book: culture

“the ongoing negotiation of learned and patterned beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors”;

intercultural communication “communication between people with differing cultural identities”;

appropriately in various cultural contexts”. The textbook offers a wide range of information that

will open the minds of every individual in the spectrum of diversity and inclusivity.

Kramer, I. (2020). An Analysis of Intercultural Research From 2000-2019. Undergraduate

Honors Theses. 161. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studentpub_uht/161

Kramer (2020) addressed the gap between media landscape and intercultural

scholarship in the academic context. In his article, he highlighted intercultural communication

(IC) trends studies in IC some of which are new media and globalization. Further, he conducted

a content analysis of all articles published in EBSCO from January 2019-January 2020, 287

articles were chosen following the coded categories of geography, language, ethnicity, religion,

sexual orientation among others. He obtained the results that there are significant differences

among research articles by scholars in terms of cultural quantities and research trends where

language comes out in the highest peak (researchers mostly focused on defining what language

is), while the least in line is sexual orientation. According to Kramer (2020), the result is affected

by overrepresentation of U.S. culture and ambiguous cultural groupings (where he implied that

IC researchers need to differentiate culture and specify its differences). However, he

recommends that every article in the database should be coded and categorized accordingly to

produce a more comprehensive and thorough analysis of IC articles.

Borghetti, C. (2021). Interculturality as Collaborative Identity Management in Language

Education. Intercultural Communication Education, 2 (1), 20-38.

https://dx.doi.org/10.29140/ice.v2n1.101

Borghetti (2021) claimed that language learning and teaching is aimed at holistically

honing students gearing towards self-identity. One interesting thing he discussed is

interlocutors to achieve communicative competence. He explicated “identity” is a factor in

promoting intercultural competence that develops awareness, attitude, skills of interpreting and

relating and, skills of discovery and interaction. Borghetti (2021) enumerated several strategies

to execute identity-based intercultural language education, and some are: intercultural uses of

textbooks, teaching “to compare with caution”, and class interaction for identity-related

interculturality. He concluded that plurilingualism and being knowledgeable in culture is

counterproductive, he posits that an individual should not only achieve language competence

but cultural competence (flexibility to quickly adapt and linguistically inclined) as well. Thus, he

concludes that “culture” should be replaced with “identity” as the main theoretical construct of

intercultural language education.

Bal, N. (2022). Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning: Teachers’ Perspectives and

Practices. Participatory Educational Research (PER). Vol.9(6), 268-285.

http://dx.doi.org/10.17275/per.22.139.9.6

Bal (2022) stated that intercultural orientation transforms and develops learners to have

a new intercultural identity through being involved in other culture. Hence, his study focuses on

the EFL teachers’ intercultural language teaching perspectives and practices; attitudes and

experiences with international students; difficulty or ease of teaching IC; and, roles they play in

the development of students' IC. A qualitative approach and Interpretative Phenomenological

Analysis were used to analyze the data of 30 teacher-respondents. The findings showed that

teachers used varied instructional materials in teaching IC and exerted effort to increase

intercultural awareness; teachers view of having foreign students would aid them in showing the

value of teaching the English language; although teachers regard teaching IC as easy, however

some of them admitted that they were not appropriately contributing to students’ development of
IC due to lack of facilities and instructional materials (eg. workbook). Bal (2022) concluded that

teachers need more facilities for teaching IC and a more critical approach to teach students’ IC

is much needed.

Köylü, Z. & Borras, J. (2023). ‘I came as a visitor, but I stayed’: an ERASMUS-Sojourn in an

ELF country. Language and Intercultural Communication

https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2023.2286471

The qualitative study of Köylü & Borras (2023) explored how study-abroad (SA) program

(esp. ERASMUS-an SA program in Europe) affects student-sojourners in developing

intercultural awareness (ICA) where they can be able to practice their cultural knowledge on

other peoples’ culture. Hence, Baker’s model of ICA (2011; 2015) helped the researchers in

foregrounding the role of attitudes, knowledge, awareness, and skills which highlighted the

nature of interaction within the framework of international contexts of the 7 adult participants.

The themes emerged in their study are: emerging English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

communities of practice (CoP); change of personality – the emergence of ‘new me’; and, culture

franca-the emergence of a supranational identity. These relevant themes explicated how non-

native and native speakers find their voice and discover their self-identity to become multilingual

and multicultural student-sojourners. Thus, the researchers contributed to the body of

knowledge between ICA and SA proving that ERASMUS whose aim is to develop “inclusivity

and diversity” produce interculturally competent individuals.

Chernyishkova, N., Sukhorukova, D. & Aroshidze, M. (2021). Intercultural communication:

English dominance. EDP Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202112501001

Chernyishkova’s et.al. (2021) main objective is to scrutinize available intercultural

communication (IC) textbooks and educational materials in ISBN Database, Elsevier, and
Amazon written in different languages. It revealed that English textbook is the highest in number

in all sites while other languages present are French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Russian,

Italian and Japanese/Korean. Hence, it is perceived that English is the most preferred language

in creating textbooks for IC (probably because it is used as the medium of communication in the

global platform). They posit that the lack of IC textbooks and educational materials in other

languages is logically related to the number of American nationalities who studied it and are

considered as “founding fathers”. The researchers claimed that in writing educational materials

in IC, Safonova methodological framework should be considered; while in choosing IC

textbooks and educational materials, teachers should investigate sociocultural saturation,

system, motivation, content, contrast, and information. They concluded that there should be a

wide array of available resources in IC written in different languages online, while neologisms

should be an integral part of crafting IC materials.

Rubtcova, M. (2019). Intercultural Communication as a Subject of Research in a Modern

Education System. International Conference on Business Management and Social Innovation

(ICBMSI)

Rubtcova (2019) narrated Hall’s “The Silent Language” where it discusses concepts of

culture from micro-macro levels, monocultural and bicultural process and the connection of

culture to human behavior from which the “intercultural communication” (IC) was first derived.

His study is grounded on the meaning of culture in anthropology and linguistic relativity

(communication is in between human and culture). His study also gave light on psycholinguistic

study on IC which focuses on the relationship among language, consciousness, and culture;

and IC as a scientific discipline which focuses on applied character and interdisciplinary.

Further, he explicated cultural diversity of today’s generation where everyone can achieve

mutual understanding and respect if there is cultural knowledge. However, there are active
opposition, discriminations, and resistance in some countries (e.g. North Korea) mainly to

maintain their national identity. Rubtcova (2019) posits that the failure in IC lies within the scope

of one’s limited perception of other’s culture, in other words, ethnocentrism. Thus, he concluded

that it is the role of education system to make ethnorelative and multi-ethnic institutions to form

intercultural competence.

Seregina, T., Zubanova, S., Druzhinin, V. & Shagivaleeva, G. (2019). The Role of Language in

Intercultural Communication.

According to Seregina et.al. (2019), the function of language—as a key paradigm—is to

understand intercultural communication. They claimed that culture-centric education is

influenced by globalization, imposing the notion that multicultural education should be based on

multiculturalism. Hence, the purpose of their research highlighted the importance of

multiculturalism and learning second language in higher education in Rusia. Some of the

methods they used in conducting their study are: “stop-frame”, modelling, and role-playing while

psychologists and culturologists helped in their experiment. Their findings include the

effectiveness of e-learning (mobile applications, translators etc.) where “weak” students who

used electronic vocabulary game seemed to remember more words than “weak” students who

used workbooks; and, intrinsic motivation (e.g. career opportunities) and extrinsic motivation

(desire to communicate with other nations, travel abroad etc.) played a key role in learning a

second language. However, one of the problems the researchers identified is the lack of

methodological literatures of learning/teaching a foreign language because of the little and

unclear representation of multiculturalism in instructional materials. Thus, they recommend that

learning a foreign language should be a priority and having a training specialist should be on top

of the list.