Unit 1
Communication Across Cultures
Warm Up Questions
1. Why is it difficult to explain to a blind person what colors are?
2. Do you sometimes find it hard to make yourself properly understood by others? If you do, why do you think it is hard? It is very difficult for people to understand one another if they do not share the same
experiences. Of course, we all share the experience of being human, but there are many experiences which we do not share and which are different for all of us. It is these different experiences that make up what is called ―culture‖ in the social sciences － the habits of everyday life, the cues to which people respond, the automatic reactions they have to whatever they see and hear. These often differ, and the differences may introduce misunderstandings where we seek understanding.
Reading I
Intercultural Communication：An Introduction
Comprehension questions
1. Is it still often the case that “everyone?s quick to blame the alien” in the contemporary world?
This is still powerful in today‘s social and political rhetoric. For instance, it is not uncommon in today‘s society to hear people say that most, if not all, of the social and economic problems are caused by minorities and immigrants.
2. What?s the difference between today?s intercultural contact and that of any time in the past?
Today‘s intercultural encounters are far more numerous and of greater importance than in any time in history.
3. What have made intercultural contact a very common phenomenon in our life today?
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New technology, in the form of transportation and communication systems, has accelerated intercultural contact; innovative communication systems have encouraged and facilitated cultural interaction; globalization of the economy has brought people together; changes in immigration patterns have also contributed to intercultural encounter.
4. How do you understand the sentence “culture is everything and everywhere”?
Culture supplies us with the answers to questions about what the world looks like and how we live and communicate within that world. Culture teaches us how to behave in our life from the instant of birth. It is omnipresent.
5. What are the major elements that directly influence our perception and communication?
The three major socio-cultural elements that directly influence perception and communication are cultural values, worldview (religion), and social organizations (family and state). 6. What does one?s family teach him or her while he or she grows up in it?
The family teaches the child what the world looks like and his or her place in that world. 7. Why is it impossible to separate our use of language from our culture?
Because language is not only a form of preserving culture but also a means of sharing culture. Language is an organized, generally agreed-upon, learned symbol system that is used to represent the experiences within a cultural community.
8. What are the nonverbal behaviors that people can attach meaning to?
People can attach meaning to nonverbal behaviors such as gestures, postures, facial expressions, eye contact and gaze, touch, etc.
9. How can a free, culturally diverse society exist?
A free, culturally diverse society can exist only if diversity is permitted to flourish without prejudice and discrimination, both of which harm all members of the society.
Discovering Problems: Slim Is Beautiful?
Questions for discussion
Which do you think is the mark of beauty, thin or fat? Why is it often said that beauty is in the eye of beholder?
One sociologist once said that with the greater influence of American culture across the world, the standard of a beauty is becoming more and more Hollywood-like, characterized by a chiseled chin and a tall, slim figure. One can see such beautiful images in almost any American movie. We Chinese also share the notion that the standard idea of beauty includes being tall, thin, and light skinned. It seems that with the process of globalization, eastern and western beauties look more and more alike.
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But we have to remember that the definition of beauty differs from culture to culture. For example, Hispanic standards of female beauty are to have big hips, a moderate tan, and a short height. As is described in the article, in southeastern Nigeria, Coca-Cola-bottle voluptuousness is celebrated and ample backsides and bosoms are considered ideals of female beauty.
What‘s more, the ideal standard of beauty varies from time to time. For instance, during times of famine, the ideal standard of beauty for women is a much larger body size. Larger size and more body fat may reflect one‘s status; for it suggests that the person is well fed and healthy. Thinness then would reflect malnutrition. However, during times of plenty, plumpness is not a reflection of status. People may easily associate fatness with hypertension, heart disease or other potential diseases. Likewise, during eras in which lower-class labors had to toil predominantly outside for hours a day, tanned skin was an indication of lower status, and therefore the ideal standard of female beauty was very pale skin; women during those times actually used a lot of white powdered
cosmetics to exaggerate the paleness of their skin. Now, however, tan is a reflection of having more leisure time spent on seashores instead of working in an office all the time, and therefore it may suggest higher status, so women strive for darker skin tones.
It is true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder because people of different cultures and in different situations may have different ideas about what is beautiful and what is not.
Group Work
First share with your group member whatever experiences you have had in communication events that can be considered as intercultural. Then work together to decide whether each of the following cases of communication is possibly intercultural or not and, if it is, to what extent it is intercultural. Try to place all the cases along a continuum of interculturalness, from the most intercultural to the least intercultural.
All the cases may seem to be intercultural but they differ in the extent to which they are
intercultural. However it may be very difficult for us to place all these cases along a continuum of interculturalness from the most intercultural to the least intercultural, for many other factors have to be taken into consideration if we have to decide which is more intercultural than another. For
instance, whether communication between a male manager and a female secretary is intercultural or not and, if it is, how intercultural it may be, may depend on the cultural and social backgrounds of the two persons. If they are from drastically different cultures, communication between them is surely intercultural and may be very intercultural. If they are from the same culture, communication between them may be little intercultural.
The following is tentatively suggested for measuring the interculturalness of the cases of communication, and the cases are presented from the most intercultural to the least intercultural:
Communication between a Chinese university student and an American professor; Communication between a Canadian girl and a South African boy;
Communication between a first-generation Chinese American and third generation one; Communication between a businessperson from Hong Kong and an artist from Xian; Communication between a teenager from Beijing and a teenager from Tibet;
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Communication between a father who is a farmer all his life and his son who works as an engineer;
Communication between a software technician and a fisherman;
Communication between a male manager and a female secretary (supposing they are of the similar cultural and social backgrounds) .
Debate
The class is to be divided into two groups and debate on the two different views mentioned in the following on intercultural communication. State your point of view clearly and support your argument with convincing and substantive evidence.
Pro: People are people; more interactions would lead to greater understanding of each other. （Commonality precedes）
Con: People are shaped by different environments they find themselves in, therefore, the difference overrides. (Differences precedes)
Possible Arguments for Pro:
1. Human beings tend to draw close to one another by their common nature. We all share the common basic needs.
2. Rapid expansion of worldwide transportation and communication networks have made it far easier than ever before for people throughout the world to contact with one another.
3. The process of globalization may reduce the regional differences between people all over the world. We are all members of the ―global village‖.
4. Economic interdependence in today‘s world requires people of different countries to interact on an unprecedented scale, and more interaction will result in more similarity among people. 5. More and more people from various cultures have to work and live together and they will adapt to each other to such an extent that cultural differences between them may no longer matter. Possible Arguments for Con:
1. People throughout the world may be similar in many aspects, but differences in habits and customs keep them apart.
2. Though the basic human needs are universally the same, people all over the world satisfy their basic common human needs in different ways.
3. As our society is becoming more and more diversified, differences between people tend to grow larger in some aspects.
4. It is differences between people that underlie the necessity of communication, and it does not follow that communication which may increase the possibility of understanding between people will always reduce differences.
5. People nowadays are more likely to try to maintain their unique cultural identities when they find themselves living closely with people of other cultures.
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From the two seemingly opposite viewpoints, we can learn something that we should keep in mind when we are involved in intercultural communication. First, all human beings share some
common heritages that link us to one another. To some extent, people throughout the world are pretty much alike in many aspects, and that has formed the very basis on which it is possible for people of various cultures to communicate. However, what we have to realize is that there are also vast differences between people from various cultural groups. To really understand a person whose cultural background is different from yours can be very difficult, for both you and that person may be subconsciously influenced by each one‘s own cultural upbringing. In a sense, what we should do in intercultural communication is to treat people of other cultures both as the same with and as different from us.
Reading II
The Challenge of Globalization
Comprehension questions
1. Why does the author say that our understanding of the world has changed?
Many things, such as political changes and technological advances, have changed the world very rapidly. In the past most human beings were born, lived, and died within a limited geographical area, never encountering people of other cultural backgrounds. Such an existence, however, no longer prevails in the world. Thus, all people are faced with the challenge of understanding this changed and still fast changing world in which we live.
2. What a “global village” is like?
As our world shrinks and its inhabitants become interdependent, people from remote cultures increasingly come into contact on a daily basis. In a ―global village‖, members of once isolated groups of people have to communicate with members of other cultural groups. Those people may live thousands of miles away or right next door to each other.
3. What is considered as the major driving force of the post-1945 globalization?
Technology, particularly telecommunications and computers are considered to be the major driving force.
4. What does the author mean by saying that “the ?global? may be more local than the ?local?”?
The increasing global mobility of people and the impact of new electronic media on human communications make the world seem smaller. We may communicate more with people of other countries than with our neighbors, and we may be more informed of the international events than of the local events. In this sense, ―the ?global‘ may be more local than the ?local‘‖.
5. Why is it important for businesspeople to know diverse cultures in the world?
Effective communication may be the most important competitive advantage that firms have to
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跨文化交际英语教程答案-新编跨文化交际英语教程
