Task 24. Read the text to answer the following questions. Translate your answers into Ukrainian

Technological advances in communication, travel and transpor­tation have made busi­ness increasingly global. This trend is expected to continue in the foreseeable future. Thus, the chances are good that you will have to communicate with people from other cultures.

Both large and small businesses want you to be able to communicate clearly with those from other cultures for several reasons. Many businesses sell their products and services both domestically and internationally. Being able to communicate with oth­ers helps you be more successful in understanding customers' needs, communicating how your company can meet these needs and winning their business. In addition to being a more productive worker you will be more efficient both within and outside your company. You will be able to work harmoniously with those from other cultures creating a comfortable workplace. With cultural barriers broken down, you will be able to hire good people despite their differences. Also, you will avoid problems stem­ming solely from misinterpretations. Your attention to communicating clearly with people from other cultures will enrich both your business and your personal lives.

A study of the role of culture in international communication properly begins with two qualifying statements. First, culture is often improperly assumed to be the cause of miscommunication. Often it is confused with the other human elements involved. We must remember that communication between people of different cultures involves the same problems of human behaviour that are involved when people of the same culture communicate. In either case, people can be belligerent, arrogant, prejudiced, insensi­tive or biased.

Second, one must take care not to over-generalise the practices within a culture. We say this even though some of the statements we make in the following paragraphs are over-generalised. But we have little choice. In covering the subject, it is necessary to make generalisations such as “Latin Americans do this” or “Arabs do that” in order to emphasise a point. But the truth of the matter is that in all cultures, subcultures are present; and what may be the practice in one segment of a culture may be unheard of by other segments. Within a culture townspeople differ from country dwellers, the rich differ from the poor and the educated differ from the uneducated. Clearly, the subject of culture is highly complex and should not be reduced to simple generalisations. Keep this point in mind as you read the following material.

Culture has been defined in many ways. The classic definition is derived from anthropology: culture is a way of life of a group of people, the stereotyped patterns of learning behaviour which are handed down from one generation to the next through the means of language and imitation. A more con­temporary definition is that “Culture is an agreed-upon set of rules that consists of components ranging from seemingly inconsequential edicts about how to shake hands or dress on a date to more cosmic ideas about the existence of God or the nature of man”. In other words, people living in different geographic areas have developed dif­ferent ways of life. They have developed different habits, different values and differ­ent ways of relating to one another.

These differences are a major source of problems when people of different cultures try to communicate. Unfortunately, people tend to view the ways of their culture as normal and the ways of other cultures as bad, wrong, peculiar or such. Specifically, communication between people of different cultures is affected by two major kinds of differences:

· differences in body positions and movements and

· differences in attitudes toward various factors of human relation­ships (time, space, intimacy and so on).

Task 25. Translate the sentences into English:

1. Прогрес комунікаційних технологій і подорожі сприяють роз­витку міжнародного бізнесу. 2. Очікується, що ця тенденція про­довжуватиметься в майбутньому. 3. Багато підприємств продають свої товари та послуги на внутрішньому і міжнародному ринку. 4. Здатність спілкуватися з іншими людьми допомагає краще розуміти потреби клієнтів. 5. Подолавши бар’єри в культурі, ви зможете наймати на роботу людей, незважаючи на їхні культурні відмінності. 6. Непорозуміння призводить до виникнення проб­лем у бізнесі. 7. Спілкування з іноземними партнерами сприяє розвитку бізнесу і збагаченню життєвого досвіду. 8. Вивчення ролі культури в міжнародному спілкуванні починається з двох тверджень. 9. Відмінності в культурі різних народів часто є при­чиною непорозуміння. 10. Ми повинні пам’ятати, що спілкування з представниками інших культур передбачає, насамперед, дотри­мання загальнолюдських правил поведінки. 11. Взаєморозуміння між представниками різних культур ґрунтується на повазі один до одного. 12. Для налагодження зв’язків із партнерами з інших країн необхідно ознайомитись з основами культури цієї країни. 13. Існують відмінності у культурі міських та сільських жителів, багатих та бідних, освічених та неосвічених. 14. Вивчення куль­тури інших народів є дуже важливим для ведення бізнесу на міжнародному ринку. 15. На жаль, люди мають тенденцію розг­лядати характерні риси своєї культури як нормальні, а риси інших культур – як погані, неправильні, дивні.

Task 26. Make up a plan of the text “PROBLEMS OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES” in writing.