1. Understanding Intercultural
Communication Second Edition
Chapter 2
What is Intercultural Communication
Flexibility?
Stella Ting-Toomey & Leeva C. Chung
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
PowerPoint Slides Designed by Alex Flecky and Noorie Baig

2. TODAY’S MENU
I. Defining Intercultural Communication:
A Process Model
II. Practicing Intercultural
Communication Flexibility
III. Developing Intercultural
Communication
Flexibility
IV. Deepening Intercultural Process

3. I. Defining ICC: A Process Model
Intercultural communication:
• symbolic exchange (digital, analogic)
• process (transactional, irreversible)
• cultural community
• negotiate shared meanings (content, relational,
identity meaning)
• interactive situation (relational, psychological,
physical)
• embedded societal system (multilayered
context)

4. I. Defining ICC: A Process Model
Person Person B’s
A’s cultural
cultural frame of
frame of reference
reference

5. II. Practicing Intercultural
Communication Flexibility
Introduction Section:
1. Flexible and inflexible intercultural
communication
2. Ethnocentric and ethnorelative
mindset

6. II. Practicing ICC Flexibility
Ethnocentric mindset…
- Stuck in own cultural worldviews, using our
own cultural values as standards to evaluate
others’ behaviors.
- Viewing our cultural way of living as “natural”
and what’s going on in other cultures as
“unnatural.”
- Evaluating the communication norms of our
own cultural group as more “proper.”
- Acting in a conscious or unconscious manner
in favor of the ingroup standard to the

7. II. Practicing ICC Flexibility
Ethnorelative mindset…
- Understanding behavior from the other
person’s cultural frame of reference.
- Suspending ethnocentric, reactive
judgments and engaging in a systematic
cross-cultural comparative analysis.
- Promoting a respectful, inclusive climate via
competent communication skills practice.

8. II. Practicing ICC Flexibility
A. Three Content Components:
Knowledge, Attitude, and Skills
B. Three Criteria:
Appropriateness, Effectiveness,
and
Adaptability

9. III. Developing Intercultural Communication
Flexibility
A. Staircase Model: Four Stages of Flexible
Intercultural Communication
1. Unconscious incompetence: blissfully
ignorant
2. *Conscious incompetence: semi-
awareness
3. Conscious competence: “full mindfulness”
4. Unconscious competence: “mindlessly
mindful”

10. III. Developing ICC Flexibility

11. III. Developing ICC Flexibility
Movie Analysis: Outsourced film clip
Questions to think about:
 Which stage of the staircase model is Aunty-ji
operating from? How did Todd react to Aunty-ji’s
comments?
 Did you find Aunty-ji’s questions too intrusive?
What culture-sensitive information can you use to
justify her questioning?
 At what point in the clip did Todd switch from
unconscious incompetence to conscious
incompetence?
 Apply the three content components (knowledge,
attitude, and skills) from your chapter to help Todd
and Puro reach the conscious competency stage.

12. III. Developing ICC Flexibility
B. A Mindful Perspective: Flexible
Communicators:
• Attune to their own internal assumptions,
values, and expectations.
• Attend to alternative assumptions, values,
and expectations of the cultural strangers.
• Learn to understand unfamiliar behaviors
from multiple cultural angles.
• Are committed to shift communication styles
when appropriate to the persons, goals, and
cultural context = ICC Flexibility.

13. NACIREMA Application
Exercise
Instructions:
-- Need 3 - 5 volunteers to take a walk outside
and be
prepared to visit a new culture.
-- Inside the classroom: Get ready to play. Will
give you the Nacireman cultural values and
rules.
-- Enjoy! Play out and dramatize your new roles.

14. IV. Deepening Intercultural Process
Thinking
Realize that ICC often involves these
principles:
• Mismatched expectations stem from group
differences.
• Involves degrees of biased intergroup perceptions,
overgeneralizations, stereotypes.
• Simultaneous decoding and encoding of
verbal/nonverbal messages.
• Multiple goal transactions: content, relational,
identity.
• Calls for understanding of diverse communication
approaches and styles.
• Often involves well-meaning culture bumps or

15. IV. Deepening Intercultural Process
Thinking
Mindfulness
Flexibility

16. Parting Thoughts…
A traveler without observation
is like a bird without wings…
~ Author unknown