Teaching Transracial Communication in an Advanced Business Communications Course

Abstract

Because today's emphasis on equal opportunity employment has created a multiethnic business community, every advanced business communications course should include a unit on transracial communication. Arthur L. Smith's Transracial Communication is a useful text for such a three-week unit [1]. Supplemented with several additional articles, it provides material for individual projects and for class discussions on Black dialect, slang, and body language; symbolic imperialism in America; and interracial credibility blunders. While participating students will not immediately become skilled transracial communicators, they will become more aware of the assumptions underlying their words and less likely to reveal ethnocentrism in their business communications.

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References

Smith

A. L.

, Transracial Communication, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1973. All quotes taken from this edition.

Bentley

R. H.

and Crawford

S. D.

, (eds.), Black Language Reader, Scott, Foresman and Company, Glenview, Illinois, pp. 80–84, 1973.

Johnson

and Dalby

, The African Element in American English, Rappin' and Stylin' Out, Kockman

, (ed.), University of Illinois Press, Urbana, pp. 140–152, 170–189, 1972.

Dillard

J. L.

, Black English, Random House, New York, pp. 39–72, 1972; the translating exercise appears in the Black Language Reader, pp. 180–184.

Hall

E. T.

, The Silent Language, Doubleday and Company, Inc., New York, 1959.

Horton

Time and People

Cool

, Rappin' and Stylin' Out, pp. 19–31, 1972.

Daniel

J. A.

, The Facilitation of White-Black Communication, Journal of Communication, 20, pp. 134–141, June, 1970.

Johnson

, Black Kinesics—Some Non-Verbal Communication Patterns in the Black Culture, Messages: A Reader in Human Communication, Civikly

J. M.

, (ed.), Random House, New York, pp. 103–116, 1974.

Cooke

B. G.

, Non-Verbal Communication Among Afro-Americans, Rappin' and Stylin' Out, Kockman

, (ed.), University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Ill., pp. 32–64, 1972.

10.

Abrahams

R. D.

and Troike

R. C.

, (eds.), Language and Cultural Diversity in American Education, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1972.

11.

MacCann

and Woodward

, (eds.), The Black American, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New York, 1972.

12.

MacCann

and Woodward

, (eds.), Books for Children, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New York, 1972.

13.

MacCann

and Woodward

, (eds.), Readings in Racism, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New York, 1972.