CULTURAL DIMENSIONS IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION & IMPLICATIONS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

This paper presents a critical review of literature on major values directing communication across Western-Anglo cultures and Asian-Confucian cultures, and hence influential to communication between people of different cultures even when the same language (e.g., English) is in operation. Given that these values exist in all cultures and among all individuals at various levels of prevalence, an effort is made to present these values in a bipolar dichotomy. From the insightful understanding of the operation and influence of the difference in cultural values on intercultural communication, the paper suggests implications practical to the teaching and learning English as a foreign language. 1. Introductio