CROSS-CULTURAL MISCOMMUNICATION: We communicate through language, symbols, gestures and our whole bodies. But just as we are able to communicate through all these means, there is also the potential to miscommunicate, or send unintended or false messages. Possibly the greatest source of potential miscommunication is mixing HC and LC communication modes such as when one party is communicating in a HC way and the other in a LC way, or when a LC medium is used in a HC way. The potential for miscommunication using the same language, for example English, rises when it is simultaneously used in a HC way and a LC way at the same time. The rules governing the two modes are examined and compared, and the potential situations for cross-cultural miscommunication and conflict are presented on a contextual scale ranging from language, to pictorial, to visual, to aural, to tactile, to kenesic, and finally to olfactory.
