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Intercultural Communication and Global Integration
eBook Version You will receive access to this electronic text via email after using the shopping cart above to complete your purchase. Most of the literature dealing with intercultural communication presupposes that communication is a tool for some other purpose like selling shoes or making a personal relationship “work.” Such an assumption is what has given rise to the idea that intercultural communication can be “problematic. Much of the justification for doing intercultural communication research is that business, world peace, and security are contingent on our ability to communicate effectively across cultural and national boundaries (which are not the same thing as evinced by ethnic civil wars within national boundaries). Intercultural Communication and Global Integration presents the reader with a three-part approach to intercultural communication; communication, culture, and consciousness. Intercultural Communication and Global Integration argues that communication, culture, and consciousness combine to form one’s intercultural perspectives. The tool of language is central to understanding the relationships between these three elements.
While most tend to view these three areas as separate parts, the reader will see they are much more integrated than most typically think. For example, the relationship between communication and culture is so close that there are those who have argued that principles of communication are virtually identical with anthropological descriptions. Intercultural Communication and Global Integration includes student centered pedagogical features in each chapter, such
While most tend to view these three areas as separate parts, the reader will see they are much more integrated than most typically think. For example, the relationship between communication and culture is so close that there are those who have argued that principles of communication are virtually identical with anthropological descriptions. Intercultural Communication and Global Integration includes student centered pedagogical features in each chapter, such
282 pages, Paperback
Published August 19, 2013
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 22, 2019
Where to begin.
This is easily the worst book I have ever read. I wish I could give it zero stars.
I've seen people say that phrase before: "I wish I could give it zero stars." I could never imagine reading something so bad, that it wouldn't at least earn a star for the effort it takes to write a book.
The only "star" that is appropriate when talking about this book is "could use to STARt a bonfire."
Except, teehee, just kidding. I would never burn this book. Because it was ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS.
So.
This was one of those dreaded beasts I've always heard rumor of... those books that a professor writes and makes you read for his/her class. This review is not a reflection of my professor. However, this book was bad. And I hope he doesn't read this ever/before he grades my midterm.
1) This book was written very strangely. It was simultaneously in first and third person. There were constant references to "I did this...", but also "the author(s) of this book" and "Eric Kramer." It was extremely disorienting and felt unprofessional
2) That being said, there were three authors of this book. So maybe those are all three different people. I honestly wouldn't be surprised, because it seems as though the three authors didn't communicate with each other at all while writing this textbook. But more on that later.
3) This book is absolutely riddled with typos. They jump out at you from the page and at some times even change the meaning of the content, which is not ideal when you are reading a textbook to, like, learn. It was clearly not edited very well/at all. Do I blame the people who didn't want to read this cover to cover looking for typos? No. But if your textbook isn't going to be well-edited and coherent, I don't think you can remotely justify selling it for ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS. But more on that later.
4) The citations in this book are incredibly distracting. They take up about 30% of the text, which is nice, I guess, because there was less to read. But nearly every sentence was interrupted with citations that sometimes took up multiple lines. I didn't understand why these couldn't just be at the end. I got lost within paragraphs, looking for the actual content.
5) The formatting was extremely inconsistent. It almost felt as if each author was just assigned a couple chapters, and they pasted them together at the end. Some chapters were somewhat nicely formatted, with those cute little "A Closer Look" and "People to Know" boxes. But about three chapters in, these drop off. Suddenly we are just presented with walls upon walls of texts, with the occasional, entirely irrelevant, tiny stock photo in the corner. My favorite example was a painstakingly long page on cultural differences which at some point contained a line along the lines of "Some people in America would find it weird that people in Japan eat raw fish." And then, a few paragraphs later, in the bottom corner of the page? A captionless picture of sushi.
6) There were also graphs that were included and entirely unexplained throughout the book. One chapter contained around eight pages of different child labor rates in countries around the world, which went entirely unacknowledged and did not in the slightest relate to the content of the chapter. I don't even know how to try and justify this.
7) It was impossible to know what was supposed to be important. After we lost our "closer look" boxes, I began to rely solely on the bolded words, which initially seemed to imply relevant vocabulary. Quickly, however, bold started to be used instead for emphasis and, it often seemed, simply for fun, with no definitions or elaborations in sight.
8) This book was so repetitive. It could've been twenty pages long. Granted, those twenty pages still would've been bad, but it would, at least, be less time consuming. Gudykunst and Kim were brought up and bashed such an incomprehensibly large number of times that I am entirely convinced that there is some sort of jilted lover scenario going on. I agree with the authors that G & K's theories were wrong. However, I don't know if I would tell someone that 6,000 over the course of 200 pages. My favorite example of repetitiveness, however, was when two entire pages of text appeared word for word in two different chapters. Just copy and paste. It made me laugh, and then I remembered that this book was ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS.
9) This book cannot be used for reference, at all. It is extremely hard to navigate and even pursue, due to the aforementioned walls of text. Beyond that, there is a very weak table of contents and vague index, and that's all you've got to go off of. By all modern standards, this isn't really a textbook. But I don't know what else to call it really, so I won't argue that point too much.
10) I feel bad bashing this so much. I really do. Because I understand that writing a book is no easy feat, and from the sheer number of references embedded throughout the entire text, a lot of research clearly went into it. HOWEVER. I find it entirely reprehensible that a book that is so poorly edited and crafted could be published and sold for $130. I know that a lot of textbooks cost more than this. I know that the authors perhaps intentionally included less reference materials and pictures in order to keep the cost lower for students. But their lack of effort in this department makes the book so incoherent that I would've rather paid 50 more dollars than slog through this mess. It is so completely frustrating. And yes I will probably be able to sell this book used to another student and get some of that money back, but the thought of knowingly selling this to someone else makes me feel sick. It is not an educational or helpful text in any respect. Textbooks are written to teach and assist in the learning process. This has achieved entirely the opposite. For $130.
Thank you.
This is easily the worst book I have ever read. I wish I could give it zero stars.
I've seen people say that phrase before: "I wish I could give it zero stars." I could never imagine reading something so bad, that it wouldn't at least earn a star for the effort it takes to write a book.
The only "star" that is appropriate when talking about this book is "could use to STARt a bonfire."
Except, teehee, just kidding. I would never burn this book. Because it was ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS.
So.
This was one of those dreaded beasts I've always heard rumor of... those books that a professor writes and makes you read for his/her class. This review is not a reflection of my professor. However, this book was bad. And I hope he doesn't read this ever/before he grades my midterm.
1) This book was written very strangely. It was simultaneously in first and third person. There were constant references to "I did this...", but also "the author(s) of this book" and "Eric Kramer." It was extremely disorienting and felt unprofessional
2) That being said, there were three authors of this book. So maybe those are all three different people. I honestly wouldn't be surprised, because it seems as though the three authors didn't communicate with each other at all while writing this textbook. But more on that later.
3) This book is absolutely riddled with typos. They jump out at you from the page and at some times even change the meaning of the content, which is not ideal when you are reading a textbook to, like, learn. It was clearly not edited very well/at all. Do I blame the people who didn't want to read this cover to cover looking for typos? No. But if your textbook isn't going to be well-edited and coherent, I don't think you can remotely justify selling it for ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS. But more on that later.
4) The citations in this book are incredibly distracting. They take up about 30% of the text, which is nice, I guess, because there was less to read. But nearly every sentence was interrupted with citations that sometimes took up multiple lines. I didn't understand why these couldn't just be at the end. I got lost within paragraphs, looking for the actual content.
5) The formatting was extremely inconsistent. It almost felt as if each author was just assigned a couple chapters, and they pasted them together at the end. Some chapters were somewhat nicely formatted, with those cute little "A Closer Look" and "People to Know" boxes. But about three chapters in, these drop off. Suddenly we are just presented with walls upon walls of texts, with the occasional, entirely irrelevant, tiny stock photo in the corner. My favorite example was a painstakingly long page on cultural differences which at some point contained a line along the lines of "Some people in America would find it weird that people in Japan eat raw fish." And then, a few paragraphs later, in the bottom corner of the page? A captionless picture of sushi.
6) There were also graphs that were included and entirely unexplained throughout the book. One chapter contained around eight pages of different child labor rates in countries around the world, which went entirely unacknowledged and did not in the slightest relate to the content of the chapter. I don't even know how to try and justify this.
7) It was impossible to know what was supposed to be important. After we lost our "closer look" boxes, I began to rely solely on the bolded words, which initially seemed to imply relevant vocabulary. Quickly, however, bold started to be used instead for emphasis and, it often seemed, simply for fun, with no definitions or elaborations in sight.
8) This book was so repetitive. It could've been twenty pages long. Granted, those twenty pages still would've been bad, but it would, at least, be less time consuming. Gudykunst and Kim were brought up and bashed such an incomprehensibly large number of times that I am entirely convinced that there is some sort of jilted lover scenario going on. I agree with the authors that G & K's theories were wrong. However, I don't know if I would tell someone that 6,000 over the course of 200 pages. My favorite example of repetitiveness, however, was when two entire pages of text appeared word for word in two different chapters. Just copy and paste. It made me laugh, and then I remembered that this book was ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS.
9) This book cannot be used for reference, at all. It is extremely hard to navigate and even pursue, due to the aforementioned walls of text. Beyond that, there is a very weak table of contents and vague index, and that's all you've got to go off of. By all modern standards, this isn't really a textbook. But I don't know what else to call it really, so I won't argue that point too much.
10) I feel bad bashing this so much. I really do. Because I understand that writing a book is no easy feat, and from the sheer number of references embedded throughout the entire text, a lot of research clearly went into it. HOWEVER. I find it entirely reprehensible that a book that is so poorly edited and crafted could be published and sold for $130. I know that a lot of textbooks cost more than this. I know that the authors perhaps intentionally included less reference materials and pictures in order to keep the cost lower for students. But their lack of effort in this department makes the book so incoherent that I would've rather paid 50 more dollars than slog through this mess. It is so completely frustrating. And yes I will probably be able to sell this book used to another student and get some of that money back, but the thought of knowingly selling this to someone else makes me feel sick. It is not an educational or helpful text in any respect. Textbooks are written to teach and assist in the learning process. This has achieved entirely the opposite. For $130.
Thank you.
Displaying 1 of 1 review