Question

What are the strengths and limitations of using only the social science approach to studying intercultural communication?

Answer 1

Firstly, Social science method allows to study the human beings as part of the greater race and hold almost uniform emotions and feelings for different events, thus making it easy for them to universalize the communication process. Secondly, Social science approach helps the researchers understand the cultural differences in different parts of the world. Thirdly, it helps the researchers identify various verbal, non-verbal and language parts of the communication.

One of the most important limitations is that communication is very dynamic and it cannot be predicted exactly as claimed by the social science approach. Secondly, the content that’s shared among different cultures should mean same to all the cultures and it would require massive effort to make the language meaningful to all the cultures. Thirdly, problem solving or conceptual equivalency as it is called will be missing as different cultures will approach the same concept in different ways.