Cross-Cultural Communication

1. Theories and models of cross-cultural communication: Culture (Nida); Incarnational (Kraft); Bonding (Brewster & Brewster); Christ and Culture (Niebuhr).
2. World views and their significance for cross-cultural communication, with reference to: naturalist; animist; folk religion; Hindu-Buddhist; Chinese; monotheist; syncretistic and multi-religious world-views.
3. Cognitive processes: conceptual, intuitional, concrete relational; language and communication; cultural distance and audience response.
4. Behavioural patterns: cultural norms and values; body language, space, time, para-language, artefacts and the environment.
5. The influence of social structures on communication; indigenous modes of communication: music; drama; sports; puppetry etc.
6. Media influences: media and message; audience response.
7. Contextualisation:

• Its necessity; biblical mandate and examples;
• The process of contextualisation: criteria, stage and limitations;
• Cultural examples of contextualisation critically evaluated.

This unit expects 150 hours of work from you in total, or around 10-12 hours each week over the semester. This volume of learning includes working through the learning materials and required learning tasks, additional reading and self-directed study, and working on assessment items, and for online units this includes participation in any online forums.