There are four building blocks to understanding intercultural communication: culture, communication, context, and power.
Culture can be viewed as Learned patterns of group-related perceptions. Contextual symbolic patterns of meaning. Heterogenous, dynamic, and a site of contestation.
Communication is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed.
The relationship between culture and communication is complex: Culture influences communication and is enacted and reinforced through communication. Communication also may be a way of contesting and resisting the dominant culture.
The context also influences communication: It is the physical and social setting in which communication occurs or the larger political, social, and historical environment.
Power is pervasive and plays an enormous, although often hidden, role in intercultural interactions.
