Cross-Cultural Factors Caused Communication Breakdown among Malaysian Students in Japan

埼玉県越谷市The process of communication with the local people is very important when a student is studying abroad. Not only do they need language skills to communicate but also the skill to identify the differences in the cultural and custom background of the local people. When people from different cultural backgrounds are engaged in communication, it is widely known as cross-cultural communication. The success of any cross-cultural communication depends on producing an interaction that does not carry too much miscommunication between two different cultures. This study focused on the communication behavior of Malaysian students and their interaction in Japanese society. The purpose of this study is to identify whether cross-cultural factors caused communication breakdowns during the process of communication between Malaysian students and Japanese people (students and lecturers). The results showed that the more the student interacted in Japanese society, the less often cross-cultural communication breakdowns occurred. However, when taking into account the duration of their stay in Japan, the study suggests that there is no significant difference in mean scores. Perhaps an in-depth study should be done to look into this matter empirically. An implication of the study calls for encouragement and guidance to be given to foreign students to interact as much as possible with Japanese people so that communication skills can be learned directly from the interaction