Verbal and Nonverbal Communication in American Culture and Its’ Implications for BIPA Teacher’s Intercultural Competence

Abstract

Intercultural misunderstandings can lead to communication failures. Communication failure between BIPA teachers and students can also result in BIPA learning failures. Therefore, BIPA teachers must understand the culture of their students, including American culture because there are quite a lot of BIPA students in America. In America BIPA is studied as an elective subject at and Wisconsin University. Cross-cultural communication in the context of American culture discussed in this article includes verbal culture and nonverbal culture. The verbal and nonverbal culture in question is the habit of American communication strategies, both in using verbal and nonverbal language. Qualitative descriptive method was used because this study describes the habits of the American verbal strategy including (1) verbal communication which includes direct communication, language style, intonation and voice volume, politeness, silence, and (2) nonverbal communication which includes eye contact, physical contact, space personality, gestures, smiles, and basic etiquette. The data collection uses literature studies and interviews, and the analysis uses the theory of Samovar. The results show that verbal and nonverbal communication in American culture tends to be concise and to the point, and highly respects individual freedoms and boundaries. The implications for BIPA learning are related to increase intercultural competence of BIPA teachers.