Intercultural Communication
Guirdham (2005) argues that communication distinguishes between high-context cultures and low-context cultures. In a high-context culture (e.g., China), people “rely heavily on the overall situation to interpret message, so that spoken messages can be ambiguous or vague”, while in a low-context culture (e.g., Canada), people “rely more on the explicit verbal content of messages” (Guirdham, 2005, p. 61). Because the cultural difference could lead to ineffective communication, CIS should be equipped with communicative skills concerning cross-cultural issues before they come to Canada and study at McGill.
Although Van Herk (2012) argue that everyone has communicative competence, Huang and Berman (2006) claim that unfamiliarity with a new language results in communicative failure. Because CIS lack sufficient English to translate Chinese cultures and customs into English, their intercultural communications becomes even worse. For example, as a master’s student in second language education, I often need to clarify some elements of Chinese culture to my Canadian classmates, but I fail to do so because I do not know how to explain them in English. As the McGill Writing Centre does not offer courses that helps students improve their communicative skills, I argue that McGill should provide IEC to CIS in order to enhance their skills for intercultural communication.