Why?

Why Intercultural Communication? Why study it? Why have it?

It is so simple yet so complex....to be able to understand, to connect, to empower and encourage those around you. Without the ability to communicate interculturally the business world would collapse, the educational field, healthcare, everything would collapse. I mean how did cavemen from one "tribe" communicate with a member of a tribe on a different land mass? I'm sure a grunt from caveman A means hey, what's up, while the grunt from caveman B means to back off. I dont' know, rather just speculating.

What is, or at least should be highly important is that cultures study themselves first. There needs to be a legitimate understanding of one's own culture before any attempt at understanding another culture is made. How are you going to understand body langauge, or paralanguage in another country without knowing first what they FULLY mean in your own country? I don't just mean to look at people (which is fun to do....watching, waiting) and decide oh one eyebrow raised means s/he's quizzical.

I say this like it's an easy task, yeah I know it's not from the readings I've done there are 4,500 different definitions for communication in 2,600 categories broken down into 15 distinctive types which will be components:

Symbols/Verbal/Speech
Understanding
Interaction/Relationship/Social Process
Reduction of Uncertainty
Process
Transfer/Transmission/Interchange
Linking/Binding
Commonality
Channel/Carrier/Route
Replicating Memories
Discriminative Response/Behavior Modifying/Response/Change
Stimuli
Intentional
Time/Situation
Power

Ok thanks a whole lot Mr. Dance for wasting my time. How can you categorize that, what is communication into 15 types? And look, some of the types even have 3-4 types involved in it. This is why people don't take the time to study intercultural communication because it is such a complex field to study!