Language and culture serve as the foundation for all human societies. In our increasingly diverse global environment, many people from significantly different linguistic, social and cultural environments must work, live and build societies together. In order to be effective at interacting with different cultures while achieving goals, it is imperative to understand how various aspects of language and culture impact interaction. Syntax, semantics, and kinesics all influence cross-cultural communication. Syntax refers to the particular way that sentences are structured or the ôsequencing of morphemesö (Wallace 2003, 2). Semantics is a considerably important influence on cross-cultural communication because it refers to the meaning of each cultures meanings. It includes the particular style of speaking that is constructed individually by each culture. Kinesics refers non-verbal communication such as hand gestures, eye movements, facial expressions, and touch.
These different components of language have a significant impact on cross-cultural communication. This is because each of them makes it more challenging and complex for individuals of different cultures to communicate well. Lacking insight and understanding into the meaning of meanings or the symbols behind non-verbal communication in another culture makes effective communication problematic. Some cultures like the Chinese have quite different kinesics than U.S. culture. Asian cultures typically tend to find looking directly into someoneÆs eyes offensive, whereas in the U.S. such kinesics represent directness and honesty. In a study of different cultures viewing static expressions by Huang (et al. 2001), researchers discovered that kinesics or non-verbal language interpretations are judged differently by different cultures, ôThe data showed that Japanese viewers and Chinese viewers judged many static facial emotional expressions differently from US
...