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Intercultural communications between Lebanon and Turkey:

Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It is used to describe the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. Intercultural communication is sometimes used synonymously with cross-cultural communication. In this sense it seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate and perceive the world around them. Many people in intercultural business communication argue that culture determines how individuals encode messages, what medium they choose for transmitting them, and the way messages are interpreted.

With regard to intercultural communication proper, it studies situations where people from different cultural backgrounds interact. Aside from language, intercultural communication focuses on social attributes, thought patterns, and the cultures of different groups of people. It also involves understanding the different cultures, languages and customs of people from other countries. Intercultural communication plays a role in social sciences such as anthropology, cultural studies, linguistics, psychology and communication studies. Intercultural communication is also referred to as the base for international businesses. There are several cross-cultural service providers around who can assist with the development of intercultural communication skills. Research is a major part of the development of intercultural communication skills. 

Since the ottomans have occupied lebanon for more than 400 years, lebanon and turkey have obviously many things in common:

Similarities:

-the food: many recipees in lebanon are originally turkish.
       

                                     My mother prepared me a delicious plate of MASHAWI.


                                                        This is FATAYER BI LEFET.
-the shisha:
              

                                                  Shisha in Lebanon        


                                                   shisha in Turkey

 -the backgammon game. Here in lebanon we call it “tawlé”, it means table.

                           This is me playing tawle with my friend.

- turkish Coffee. You will find a turkish coffee pack in each Lebanese house. We drink that coffee every single day and many times a day too.


This is my grand-mother serving turkish coffee to the family.


-language: tottaly diferent languages but there are few similar words, like “aslan”. I heard it a lot when i went to istanbul, but i don’t know if it has the same meaning.
And there are also words like Merhaba, fatura and mesafe, in arabic it’s the same. It’s Marhaba, fetura and masefe or masafa. And they also mean the bill and the distance.
-the people: i realised that turkish people are good in business and work hard just like Lebanese.
-the music: there are some similarities with the sound of the songs anf the rythm but of course they are not the same.
-looks: turkish men look a lot like Lebanese men.

 -turkish and lebanese still consider family as an important thing.

As we talked about the similarities, there is obviously some differences:

  • The languages are different
  • Not all the religions that are practiced in Lebanon are practiced in Turkey 
  • The national clothing in Turkey is the Turkish salvar (baggy trousers) with a jubba (coat) whereas in Lebanon the clothing worn in mainly Western clothing, and European style clothes.
  • The holidays celebrated in Lebanon are Muslim and Christian holidays, such as Christmas, Eid Al-Fitr, Eid Al-Adha and national holidays such as Workers Day, Independence Day, Rafik Hariri Memorial Day, Feast of the Annunciation, Easter, Assumption day, Hijri New year, and Prophet Mohammad’s birthday. Many music festivals are also hosted in Lebanon. 
  • Whereas in Turkey, they celebrate national sovereignty and children’s day (which is the anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Grand National Assembly), Ataturk Commemoration, Youth & Sports Day, Democracy and Freedom Day, Victory Day, and Republic Day.
  • Football and Basketball are the most popular sports in Lebanon, whereas the most popular national sport in Turkey has been Oiled Wrestling since Ottoman times. 

This is the national team of Lebanon.

This is the famous oiled wrestling in Turkey.




Since Turkey and Lebanon are very ancient countries, there is an important study I want to show you. It's about the tourism in both countries.



This is the tourist arrivals to Lebanon statistics.





                           This the tourists arrivals to Turkey statistics.
 
As you can all notice, that the amount of tourists in Turkey is twice the amounts of tourists in Lebanon.


To finalize it, I would like to show a video that summarize all that we talked about.





                                                                                                                      Thank you.

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