Theorizing Difference in Intercultural Communication: A Critical Dialogic Perspective

Abstract

Difference between cultures is one of the foci of cross-cultural and intercultural communication research. Difference is often viewed as a problematic source of misunderstanding and conflict. Dialogic scholarship is extensive in interpersonal, organizational, and public communication. However, in the field of intercultural communication, the dialogic approach has not yet been explicitly explored. Based on the dialogic theories of Buber, Levinas, and Bakhtin, this paper argues that to be intercultural is to be dialogic, to celebrate difference, otherness, and plurality. This paper further proposes a critical dialogic approach to understanding difference in intercultural communication, which values both the grand narratives about intercultural power relations and the local meanings of situated intercultural interaction and competing discourses.

Keywords:

• Difference
• Other(ness)
• Critical
• Dialogic
• Intercultural Communication
• Multinational Corporations

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the anonymous reviewers and Professor Katherine Miller for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kaibin Xu

Kaibin Xu (PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2008) is an assistant professor in the School of Media and Communication at Temple University, USA. His research interests include organizational communication, health communication, and intercultural communication