people prefer to say “fine” even it is not so or they just thank to the person who asks them this
question.
Another misunderstanding has occurred when Turkish businessman had thought about
making a birthday present to his colleague and gave the present one day before the real
birthday date. His Russian colleague did not accept the present and behaved strangely. When
the reason of his act has been asked, he had explained that in Russia it’s believed that taking
birthday presents before or after the real date, brings bad luck.
Turkish businessman also experienced the punctuality problem for the meetings. He also got
surprised because on their msn session or e-mail replies, his colleague was very punctual. But
then he understood that it’s a cultural habitude to be late for the meetings in Russia.
Results of Analyses:
As a result, three main points merit to be mentioned here. First of all, interpersonal
communication through internet between people coming from different cultures can be
captious. Like our case study showed, Turkish businessman thought that he could manage to
communicate easily with Russian people because of his first impressions which took place on
the internet. Internet communication surely differs from other types of interpersonal
communication. It reduces misunderstandings between two cultures because while
communicating through internet, the participants are aware of internet rules and habitudes.
Instead of putting cultural perceptions and beliefs in the first place, participants simply act in
the logic of internet, like a global citizen.
Secondly, the communication act in our case study has passed between two businessmen. The
language, they use on msn sessions, was English but moreover it was business English.
Therefore in the first part of analyze, no big misunderstandings has been noted. However, on
their face to face communication, Russian participants use his cultural gestures in the
conversation and also superstitious behaviors were come out, such as the birthday present.
Convention