There are many definitions for intercultural communications, but they all have something in common. Let’s pick one. Dr. Milton Bennet from the Intercultural Development Research Institute (IDSInstitute) defines Intercultural communications as:
“Intercultural communication is the study and practice of communication across cultural contexts.”
Although Intercultural Communication is often defined as a discipline, it is also a soft skill. In this course, we treat it as a soft skill. But what is it? The first word is intercultural. The key words here are “inter” and “culture”. “Inter” is a prefix that means between and “culture”, means “from a culture”. Communication involves the transmission of information between parties in a meaningful way. Communication could be either verbal or nonverbal and if the meaning is lost in the mode of transmission, miscommunication occurs.
So, in this topic, we define intercultural communication as a soft skill and as “the successful transmission of meaningful communication between persons from different cultural backgrounds”.