| Gender Identity | The identification with the cultural notions of masculinity and femininity and what it means to be a man or a woman |
| Identity | The concept of who we are. Characteristics of identity may be understood differently depending on the perspectives that people take- for example, social science, interpretive, or critical perspectives |
| Impression Management Theory | The ways by which individuals attempt to control the impressions others have of them |
| Individualized Identity | The sense of self as independent and self-reliant |
| Familial Identity | The sense of self as always connected to family and others |
| Spiritual Identity | Identification with feelings of connectedness to others and higher meanings in life |
| Identity Negotiation Theory | A theory that emphasizes the process of communicating one's own desired identities while reinforcing or resisting others' identities as the core of intercultural communication |
| Avowal | The process by which an individual portrays himself or herself |
| Ascription | The process by which others attribute identities to an individual |
| Core Symbols | The fundamental beliefs that are shared by the members of a cultural group. Labels, a category of core symbols, are names or markers used to classify individual, social, or cultural groups |
| Interpellation | The communication process by which 1 is pulled into the social forces that place people into a specific identity |
| Minority Identity | A sense of belonging to a nondominant group |
| Majority Identity | A sense of belonging to a dominant group |
| Cisgender | A person whose gender identity matches the biological sex that she or he was born into |
| Transgender | Identification with a gender that does not match one's biological gender |
| Sexual Identity | One's identification with various categories of sexuality |
| Age Identity | The identification with the cultural conventions of how we should act, look, and behave according to our age |
| Racial Identity | Identifying with a particular racial group. Although in the past racial groups were classified on the basis of biological characteristics, most scientists now recognize that race is constructed in fluid social and historical contexts |
| Ethnic Identity | 1- A set of ideas about one's own ethnic group membership and 2- A sense of belonging to a particular group and knowing something about the shared experience of the group |
| Hyphenated Americans | US Americans who identify not only with being US citizens but also as being members of ethnic groups |
| Religious Identity | A sense of belonging to a religious group |
| Class Identity | A sense of belonging to a group that shares similar economic, occupational, or social status |
| National Identity | National citizenship |
| Stateless Person | Someone who does not hold citizenship in any country |
| Regional Identity | Identification with a specific geographic region of a nation |
| Personal Identity | Who we think we are and who others think we are |
| Global Nomads | People who grow up in many different cultural contexts because their parents relocated |
| Culture Brokers | Individuals who act as bridges between cultures, facilitating cross-cultural interaction and conflict |
| Encapsulated Marginal | A person who feels trapped by their marginalization |
| Constructive Marginal | A person who thrives in their marginalization |
| Stereotypes | Widely held beliefs about a group of people |
| Model Minority | A stereotype that characterizes all Asians and Asian Americans as hardworking and serious and so a "good" minority |
| Prejudice | An attitude (usually negative) toward a cultural group based on little or no evidence |
| Microaggression | Subtle insults directed toward cultural groups often unconsciously |
| Nominalist Position | The view that perception is not shaped by the particular language one speaks |
| Relativist Position | The view that the particular language individuals speak, especially the structure of the language, shapes their perception of reality and cultural patterns |
| Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis | The assumption that language shapes our ideas and guides our view of social reality. This hypothesis was proposed by Edward Sapir, a linguist, and his student, Benjamin Whorf, and represents the relativist view of language and perception |
| Language Acquisition | The process of learning a language |
| Qualified Relativist Position | A moderate view of the relationship between language and perception. Sees language as a tool rather than a prison |
| Communication Style | The metamessage that contextualizes how listeners are expected to accept and interpret verbal messages |
| Metamessage | The meaning of a message that tells others how they should respond to the content of our communication based on our relationship to them |
| High-Context Communication | A style of communication in which much of the information is contained in the contexts and nonverbal cues rather than expressed explicitly in words |
| Low-Context Communication | A style of communication in which much of the information is conveyed in words rather than in nonverbal cues and contexts |
| Co-Cultural Groups | Nondominant cultural groups that exist in a national culture, such as African American or Chinese American |
| Social Positions | The places from which people speak that are socially constructed and thus embedded with assumptions about gender, race, class, age, social roles, sexuality, and so on |
| Bilingual | The ability to speak 2 languages fluently or at least competently |
| Multilingual | The ability to speak more than 2 languages fluently or at least competently |
| Interlanguage | A kind of communication that emerges when speakers of 1 language are speaking in another language. The native language's semantics, syntactics, pragmatics, phonetics, and language styles often overlap and create a 3rd way of communicating |
| Translation | The process of producing a written text that refers to something said or written in another language |
| Source Text | The original language text of a translation |
| Target Text | The new language text into which the original language text is translated |
| Interpretation | The process of verbally expressing what is said or written in another language |
| Equivalency | An issue in translation, the condition of being equal in meaning, value, quantity, and so on |
| Code Switching | A technical term in communication that refers to the phenomenon of changing languages, dialects, or even accents |
| Language Policies | Laws or customs that determine when and where which language will be spoken |
| Lingua Franca | A commonly shared language that is used as a medium of communication between people of different languages |
| Cultural Space | The particular configuration of the communication that constructs meanings of various places |
| Relational Messages | Messages (verbal and nonverbal) that communicate how we feel about others |
| Status | The relative position an individual holds in social or organizational settings |
| Deception | The act of making someone believe what is not true |
| Expectancy Violations Theory | The view that when someone's nonverbal behavior violates our expectations, these violations will be perceived positively or negatively depending on the specific context and behavior |
| Facial Expressions | Facial gestures that convey emotions and attitudes |
| Proxemics | The study of how people use personal space |
| Contact Cultures | Cultural groups in which people tend to stand close together and touch frequently when they interact- for example, cultural groups in South America, the Middle East, and southern Europe |
| Noncontact Cultures | Cultural groups in which people tend to maintain more space and touch less often than people do in contact cultures. For instance, Great Britain and Japan tend to have noncontact cultures |
| Eye Contact | A nonverbal code, eye gaze, that communicates meanings and respect and status and often regulates turn-taking during interactions |
| Paralinguistics | The study of vocal behaviors includes voice qualities and vocalization |
| Voice Qualities | The "music" of the human voice, including speed, pitch, rhythm, vocal range, and articulation |
| Vocalizations | The sounds we utter that do not have the structure of language |
| Chronemics | The concept of time and the rules that govern its use |
| Monochronic | An orientation to time that assumes it is linear and is a commodity that can be lost or gained |
| Polychronic | An orientation to time that sees it as circular and more holistic |
| Discrimination | Behaviors resulting from stereotypes or prejudice that cause some people to be denied equal participation or rights based on cultural group membership, such as race |
| Semiotics | The analysis of the nature of and relationship between signs |
| Semiosis | The process of producing meaning |
| Signs | In semiotics, the meanings that emerge from the combination of the signifiers and signifieds |
| Signifiers | In semiotics, the culturally constructed arbitrary words or symbols that people use to refer to something else |
| Signified | In semiotics, anything that is expressed in arbitrary words or signifiers |
| Regionalism | Loyalty to a particular region that holds significant cultural meaning for that person |
| Postmodern Cultural Spaces | Places that are defined by cultural practices- languages spoken, identities enacted, rituals performed- and that often change as new people move in and out of these spaces |
