What follows is a list of terms that are commonly used in international and/or intercultural communication. If you have a definition for a term, please feel free to provide it, including a reference. If you have an additional term that you'd like to add, please feel free to do that as well.
International Communication Terms:
Globalization - in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones. It can be described as a process by which the p'[;2 1Qpeople of the world are unified into a single society and function together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization
Hybridity - refers in its most basic sense to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridity
Hegemony - The predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridity
Cultural imperialism - the use of political and economic power to exalt and spread the values and habits of a foreign culture at the expense of a native culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridity
World systems theory- post-Marxist view of world affairs, one of several historical and current applications of Marxism to international relations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-systems_theory
Electronic colonialism - the impact on the mind of repeated mass media messages, including commercials, on audiences around the world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridity
Coup and earthquake coverage
Intercultural Communication Terms:
Uncertainty reduction theory-was introduced in 1975 in a paper entitled Some Exploration in Initial Interaction and Beyond: Toward a Developmental Theory of Interpersonal Communication. This theory, a collaborative effort of Charles R. Berger and Richard J. Calabrese, was proposed to predict and explain relational development (or lack thereof) between strangers.
Convergence theory-method of looking at small group interaction and cohesiveness.
Face negotiation- theory first postulated by
Stella Ting-Toomey in 1985 to explain how different cultures manage conflict and communicate. The theory has gone through multiple iterations since that time, and has been updated most recently in 2005.
1 In essence, the theory explains that the root of conflict is based on identity management on an individual and cultural level.
Coordinated management of meaning-is a theory of communication based on the flow of information or data between two people. Coordinated Management of Meaning start with the assertion that persons in conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds they create The theory states the use of language creates the social world around it. In all, CMM heavily relies on three basic processes: coherence, coordination, and mystery. Separate and sometimes in combination, these processes help to clarify and explain how social realities are created through conversation.
Anxiety uncertainty management theory -explains initial interactions between two strangers from the same culture. Studies, however, suggest this theory can also be extended to interpersonal communication between two people from different cultures.
Cultural critical studies -Cultural studies and critical theory combine sociology, literary theory, film/video studies, and cultural anthropology to study cultural phenomena in industrial societies. Cultural studies researchers often concentrate on how a particular phenomenon relates to matters of ideology, race, social class, and/or gender.
Cultural studies concerns itself with the meaning and practices of everyday life. Cultural practices comprise the ways people do particular things (such as watching television, or eating out) in a given culture. Particular meanings attach to the ways people in particular cultures do things.
http://eserver.org/theory/
Feminist genre
Genderlect- the word used to describe the relationship between a speakers gender and the language that they use.
Marxist theory- the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles. Marxism holds at its core a critical analysis of capitalism and a theory of social change.
Muted group theory -developed out of the cultural anthropology field, but more recently has been developed in communication mostly as a feminist and cross-cultural theory. Muted group theory helps explain communication patterns and social representation of non-dominant cultural groups.
Stranger-
anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found an individual that one is not acquainted with wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Culture - an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning; or the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridity
Ethnicity - a term which represents social groups with a shared history, sense of identity, geography and cultural roots which may occur despite racial difference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridity
Race - a biological and scientific concept and does not change over time or vary from society to society
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridity
