Complete 5 pages APA formatted article: The Interaction of Cultures. A feeling of commonality is required for enhanced communication. People with common cultures, backgrounds and even religious belief

Complete 5 pages APA formatted article: The Interaction of Cultures. A feeling of commonality is required for enhanced communication. People with common cultures, backgrounds and even religious beliefs communicate more freely and understand each other better as compared with those whose such traits vary. It is agreeable that many hindrances face communication between cultures since such commonalities are not so common after all. Larry M. Barna identifies the smile as a “contradicting gesture”. Different cultures understand smiles differently (Spack, 1990, p. 67). Stereotyping is also brought out as a hindrance to communication due to various expectations created through stereotypes. Having encountered communication barriers when interacting with foreigners, words having the same spellings or pronunciations, but different meanings for different cultures were one of the challenges. Such words bring about the controversy and can send the wrong message to the one interpreting them, leading to rather unexpected outcomes from a simple conversation. Stereotyping also affected the exchange program to stay abroad, whereby people had heard of various stories about people of the culture and expected me to act in various ways when faced with some situations. Language is essential in communication, but a great stumbling block in intercultural interaction and communication. Different cultures have different languages, creating a barrier in communication among people from these cultures. For instance, some people write from left to write on a sheet of paper while others write from right to left. This can lead to confusion when it comes to the interpretation of the same written information since some will start reading from right and others from the left. Those who read in the direction in which the information was not written get the wrong message.

Words are commonly misused across cultures. Similar to Larry's work, foreigners who learn a local word tend to use it anywhere and anyhow regardless of the “context” and&nbsp.meaning.