Part I: Approach and Principles

The terms intercultural and cross-cultural are both used in the concepts in this book, but they are treated differently. Cross-cultural refers to comparative studies of behaviour across different cultural settings, whereas intercultural refers to interaction between people from different cultural backgrounds within a particular context. For example, a cross-cultural analysis of how meetings are conducted might identify different forms of address, levels of formality or status, the use of non-verbal cues and so on, in different cultural contexts. However, an intercultural analysis would focus on how individuals from different backgrounds actually behave and interact with each other when they meet and would analyse the outcomes of intercultural contact. In this sense, both levels of scrutiny have relevance depending on the focus of analysis.