"lntercultural Communication"
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Table of Contents

Issue #3 as well as supplement added at the end.

Communication Research Trends:
lntercultural Communication
vol. 7 no. 3 1986

Research Trends in Religious Communication:
'Teach Ye All Nations': Christianity as lntercultural Communication
vol. 7 no. 3 1986

Abstract

The 1950s novel, The Ugly American, symbolized the mentality that generated the study of intercultural communication. The 'uglies' were the 'beautiful people' of the embassy set who made no effort to learn the language or culture and barely concealed their disdain for the 'locals' in rare excursions outside the golden ghetto of transplanted Western culture. The hero, a homely agronomist, went out among the peasants of Southeast Asia, gradually immersed himself in their culture and found he had much to learn from them. He alone communicated.

In the centuries of colonialism there have long been 'ugly imperialists', but the national independence movements of the post World War II period let people know that their cultures were not a mere receptacle for Westernization. They wanted equal cultural exchange. Militant movements among ethnic and racial minorities-American Blacks, Spanish Basques, Welsh and South India Tamils-rejected the notion that they were fodder for a national melting pot.

With the 1960s came massive overseas development efforts, and the technology of jet engines and satellite communications brought millions of people of different cultures into more intimate contact. The creation of the multinational corporation required that people of different cultures work together in the same organization.

In the 1960s the first university courses in intercultural communication were introduced, and this new field of communication studies took shape. This issue traces the efforts to form a separate area of research out of the traditions of cultural anthropology, linguistics, psychology and other fields.

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