Tóm tắt

Verbal communication is realizedthrough two codes: writing and speakingwithintra-linguistic factors (e.g. lexicon,grammar rules, phonetic rules, orrules oflanguage use), whereasnon-verbalcommunication refers toparalinguistic andextra-linguistic factors. Para-linguistic factorsinclude vocal characteristics (e.g. pitch,volume ...), types of vocal flow, vocalinterferences, and silence. Extra-linguisticfactors consist of body language (e.g. eyecontact, facial expressions, gestures, postures...), object language (e.g. clothing, make-up ...),and environmental language (e.g. setting,conversational distance, time ...).Culture can be defined differentlyfrom different perspectives. In theanthropological sense, culture is meant“to consider any aspect of the ideas,communications, or behaviors of a groupof people which gives them a distinctiveidentity and which is used to organizetheir internalsense of cohesion andmembership” (Scollon and Scollon, 2001:39-140, cited in Thomson, 2003: 20). Inother words, culture is“the total set ofbeliefs, attitudes, customs, behavior,social habits, etc. of the member of aparticular society” (Richards et al., 1985:84). At its simplest, culture can beregarded as shared ways of seeing,thinking, and doing by people in acommunity.People who live in the same culturecan find it easy to communicate with oneanother because it gives them aninterconnected set of shared ideas,assumptions, beliefs, values, and evenunwritten rules. On the contrary, whenpeople from different culturalbackgrounds communicate with oneanother, there is immense potential fordifficulties to arise because of differentcultural values, attitudes, or beliefs. So