SILENCE

Similarly, silence as a nonverbal communication tool can be very effective in negotiations. In low-context cultures where ideas are explicitlyencoded into words and unspoken ideas are more difficult to respond to, silence makes low-context negotiators uneasy. Silence often means unhappiness in low-context cultures. Even when no message about unhappiness is intended, silence in low-context cultures indicates a rupture has occurred, a break in the process of communicating. For these reasons, negotiators from low-context cultures generally are uncomfortable with silence. They often feel responsible for starting conversation or keeping it going.

Japanese speakers are comfortable with silence in negotiations and do not hurry to fill it up with speech. After a speaker from one side speaks, Japanese listeners pausein silence to reflect upon what has been said and to consider the speaker's feelings and point of view. To interrupt a negotiator who is speaking is to show disrespect. Because of the Japanese value of silence, negotiators with Japanese counterparts must be careful not to speak too hastily or too much.

2. Answer the questions based on the text:

- What do intercultural negotiators need to negotiate effectively?

- How do you understand the physical context of the negotiation?

- What are the requirements to cite and space during intercultural negotiations?

- Why is schedule so important in negotiating process?

- How different perception of time can effect multicultural negotiations?

- What types of socializing are appropriate during negotiations?

- What is difference in focus and what role it plays in intercultural negotiations?

- How group membership can impact on negotiations?

- What are the forms of negotiations in different cultures?

- Can emotions somehow hinder negotiations?

- Why is it important to know about things discussed above?

 

3. Fill in the gaps.

 

familiar	simultaneous	told
lengthy	humor	that
considers	audience	out

 

Be Careful about Jokes. Humor does not translate well. What one culture … funny another may consider not funny, crude, or rude. In addition, … loses much in translation. Johnny Carson found that … when his show was aired in Great Britain. His jokes were rooted in American culture and often were based on current events. The British were not … with the events and did not share the American sense of humor, and the show was canceled after only a short time. In order to appreciate jokes, the listener must share cultural references with the speaker. In the absence of … common experience, jokes lose their funniness.

Humor, in many cases, is based on puns and word plays. If a … explanation is required, the situation is usually not consid­ered funny anymore. You may have heard of the speaker who delivered his speech through a translator to his foreign … His audience laughed at the appropriate places. What the speaker did not know was that the interpreter supplied his own jokes or asked the audi­ence to laugh because the speaker just … a joke and it would be impolite not to laugh. Just imagine this situation if

the speaker is addressing an audience of people from … dif­ferent countries who all have their own … translators. Jokes would be a night­mare in this environment.

 

4. Match the terms with their definitions.

 

Accord	1. Head of the mission or a member of the diplomatic staff of the mission
Mission	2. A professional diplomat
Ambassador	3. The collective heads of foreign diplomatic missions and their staffs in the capital of a country
Career diplomat	4. A title of honor given to cer­tain high officials, as governors and ambassadors
Diplomatic agent	5. A formal treaty or agreement
Envoy	6. A final proposal or a statement of terms, the rejection of which by the other party (or parties) may lead to a rapture of diplomatic relations or a state of war
Excellency	7. One (esp. A diplomat) who is not acceptable
Diplomatic corps	8. A general term for a commission, delegation, embassy, or legation
Persona non-grata	9. A diplomatic agent, esp. One who ranks immediately below an ambas­sador
Ultimatum	10. A top-ranking diplomat ac­credited to a foreign government or to the head of state as a resident rep­resentative

 

5. Watch the video “Effective business negotiations”. What can one do to make negotiations successful?

DISCOVERING OTHER CULTURES

BUSINESS LETTERS [23]

In most cases, business letters are written on letterhead stationery providing information on address, telephone, and fax numbers. German letters also provide the company's bank numbers.

United States Business Letters. Inthe United States, a business letter has the follow­ing parts: letterhead/return address, date, inside address (address of the receiver), salutation, body of the letter, complimentary close, and signature block with typed name of sender below the handwritten signature. After that comes information on enclosures, initials of the typist, and names of people who receive a copy of the letter. Increasingly American business letters are blocked; that means paragraphs and all parts of the letter are flush with the left margin. Business letters are always single spaced.

German Business Letters. The German format is quite different. Most company sta­tionery has a line for annotations. In the example in Exhibit 2-4 this line lists (left to right) the initials of the recipient, the subject of the letter, a filing number for the recipient, the tele­phone extension of the writer, and the date. Sometimes this line gives the initials of the sec­retary and the sender. The important difference is that this information comes before the salu­tation, whereas in the United States most of that information comes at the end if it is provided at all.

 

The name of the company appears below the complimentary close. Traditionally, German letters are signed, but the name of the sender is not typed. In the example, it is impossible to decipher the name of the writer. If Frau Boehmer, who received the letter in Exhibit 2-4, wants to send a reply, she must send it to the department rather than to a particular individual. In contrast to practice in the United States, the German style empha­sizes the company rather than the identity of the individual sender. The writer is an agent of the firm. Frequently German business letters are signed by two people.

French Business Letters. French letters (see Exhibit 2-5) typically use indented style; blocked style is rarely used. The date can follow or precede the inside address, which appears on the right-hand side. As in German letters, the zip code precedes the name of the city, and the name of the city is set off by a double space. The format of the address is gov­erned by postal regulations.

French business letters always have a subject line. Initials and reference numbers, if they are given at all, appear after the inside address before the subject line and salutation. In French business letters the complimentary close may be followed by the signature of the writer and the typed name or just the typed name.

Iranian Business Letter. The letter in Exhibit 2-6 is from Iran. Unless you can read Farsi, you will not be able to read anything in the letter, not even the date, name of sender, or name of company. The letter is written from right to left. The English translation appears in the Western style, left to right. In the upper right-hand corner of the original appears the reference number of the letter by which it is filed. Below that number comes the date, October 2, 1360. The date is based on the Islamic calendar, which starts in 632 A.D. of the Western calendar. The signature at the bottom comes after the typed name of the sender and the company.

 

Write your own business letter to a foreign firm using the information above and extra sources if necessary.

UNIT 12