2．What have you learned from those definitions about culture?
Many things can be learned from those definitions, for each definition, though not without its limitations, tells us something very important about culture or certain aspect(s) of culture. 3. Do you agree that our lower needs always have to be satisfied before we can try to satisfy the higher needs?
Even though this is generally the case, there will still be some exceptions. Sometimes people might prefer to satisfy higher needs, for instance, esteem needs, before their lower needs, such as certain physiological needs or safety needs, are satisfied.
4. What examples can you give about how people of different cultures achieve the same ends by taking different roads?
For example, everyone has to eat in order to live and this is universally true. However, to satisfy this basic need, people of various cultures may do it in very different ways: what to eat and how to eat it vary from culture to culture.
5. What behaviors of ours are born with and what are learned in the cultural environment?
Instinctive behaviors are behaviors that we are born with and ways of doing things in daily life, such as ways of eating, drinking, dressing, finding shelter, making friends, marrying, and dealing with death are learned in the cultural environment.
6. What other cultural differences do you know in the way people do things in their everyday life?
We can also find cultural differences in ways of bringing up children, treating the elderly,
greeting each other, saving and spending money, and many other things people do in everyday life. 7. In what ways are the Chinese eating habits different from those of the English-speaking countries?
We Chinese may enjoy something that is not usually considered as edible by the
English-speaking people. Generally we prefer to have things hot and lay much emphasis on tastes. We tend to share things with each other when we are eating with others.
Fill-in Task
Fill in the following blanks with at least five things in our life that you think are above and five that are below the “water”, the level of our consciousness.
Those that are above the ―water‖ are _what to eat and how to ; eat it
_how to keep healthy__________; _how to raise children__________; _how to participate in ceremonies ; _how to introduce and greet people .
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Those that are below the ―water‖ are _what is good or bad___________;
_what is right or wrong_______ _; _what is beautiful or ugly_______; _what is clean or dirty_________;
_how is an individual related to others .
Then compare your fill-in items with those of your classmate, and try to decide which of the things are more likely to cause problems in intercultural communication.
Generally speaking, differences in those things that are usually outside of our conscious awareness, i.e. the so-called ―deep culture‖, are more likely to cause problems in intercultural communication. The reason is that this part of culture is internalized in people‘s mind and thus is hard to be perceived. For example, in intercultural communication, it is easy to find out what and how people from another culture eat. Just have a look at their dining table, and we will know it. However, it is much more difficult to find out or understand the values that underlie the phenomena.
To enhance the possibility of success in intercultural communication, it is crucial for us to know not only the hows but also the whys. The Muslims do not eat pork because they worship pigs; the Hindus do not pass dishes with left hand because they think it is impolite since the left hand is used to touch dirty things; the Masai people from Kenya like drinking fresh blood of cattle because they believe that cattle is the cleanest creature in the world. Unaware of the whys, we may regard other people‘s eating habits as strange or unreasonable or even ridiculous, which may prevent us from truly understanding people of other cultures.
Sharing Knowledge: More about Culture
Exploration
Try to find more examples in our life to show the characteristics of culture and what culture does. Culture is what we share with some but not with all other people; it is common to people belonging to a certain group or category, but different from people belonging to other groups or categories. In our life, culture is everywhere and determines how we usually behave. It includes the language in which we express ourselves, the way we raise our children, the deference we show to our elders, the physical distance from other people we maintain in order to feel comfortable, and the way we perceive general human activities such as eating, making love, having a conversation, forming a friendship with someone, etc. and the ceremonials surrounding them.
Writing
Read the following quotation and think over the point the scholar tries to make. Write a short essay to further explain it.
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There are a few very important points that we have to understand and keep in mind when we are involved in communication between cultures:
1. Cultures may have been classified as primitive or sophisticated, traditional or modern, and they may be more or less powerful and influential, but no culture is perfect, bias-free or complete in its view of the world.
2. It follows that there is no ―best‖ culture suitable for all peoples in the world, In comparing cultures, we can hardly say which culture is definitely better than the other, for each culture can be appropriate to certain group of people living in a particular geographic and social environment.
3. A culture should therefore be judged and interpreted in its own context. Without considering the environment in which people of a particular culture live, it would be impossible for us to really understand and appreciate what is significant and meaningful in that culture.
Reading II
Elements of Communication
Comprehension questions
1. What are the aspects of context mentioned above?
One aspect of context is the physical setting, including location, time, light, temperature, distance between communicators, and any seating arrangements. A second aspect of context is historical. A third aspect of context is psychological. A fourth aspect of context is culture.
2. In what ways would your posture, manner of speaking or attire change if you move from one
physical setting to another, for example, from your home to a park, to a classroom, to a restaurant, to a funeral house, etc?
One‘s posture, manner of speaking or attire change from being casual to formal gradually from home to a park, to a classroom, to a restaurant, to a funeral house, etc, according to different formalness and seriousness of these situations.
3. How do people acquire communication norms in their life?
People acquire communication norms from their experiences in life.
4. What examples can you give to describe some Chinese norms in our everyday communication?
For example, it seems to be a norm in China to address one‘s boss by his or her title and never to express one‘s disapproval directly to him or her.
.
5. How can we play both the roles of sender and receiver in communication?
As senders, we form messages and attempt to communicate them to others through verbal and
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nonverbal symbols. As receivers, we process the messages sent to us and react to them both verbally and nonverbally.
6. Does the sender plays a more important role than the receiver in communication?
No, they are equally important for both of them are essential in the process of communication. 7. In what ways do the differences between participants make communication more or less difficult?
Three especially important variables affecting participants which are relationship, gender, and culture make communication more or less difficult.
8. What is a symbol and what is a meaning?
The pure ideas and feelings that exist in a person‘s mind represent meanings. The words, sounds, and actions that communicate meaning are known as symbols because they stand for the meanings intended by the person using them.
9. How can meanings be transferred from one person to another? What problems may arise in this process?
A message from one person is encoded into symbols and then decoded into ideas and feelings to another person. In this process of transforming include nonverbal cues, which significantly affect the meaning created between the participants in a communication transaction.
10. When are unintended or conflicted meanings likely to be created?
Unintended meanings are created when the decoding person receives a meaning unrelated to what the encoder thought he or she was communicating. Conflicting meanings are created when the verbal symbols are contradicted by the nonverbal cues.
11. Which channels do you usually prefer in communication? Why?
Of the five channels, some may prefer sight. As the old saying goes, ―words are but wind, but seeing is believing.‖
12. What examples can you find to show that one channel is more effective than others for transmitting certain messages?
For example, when asking a lady for a date, a young man may wear an immaculate suit and spray some perfume to show that he highly values this date with her. In this case, sight and smell are definitely more effective than words for conveying that particular message.
13. What are the things that can create noises in the process of communication?
Sights, sounds, and other stimuli in the environment that draw people‘s attention away from intended meaning are known as external noise. Thoughts and feelings that interfere with the
communication process are known as internal noise. Unintended meanings aroused by certain verbal symbols can inhibit the accuracy of decoding. This is known as semantic noise.
14. What should we do to reduce the interference of noise in communication?
When communicating with others, we should pay undivided attention to communication itself,
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avoiding being distracted by any external or internal noise. Besides, we should make sure that what we say is correctly understood by others and vice versa to prevent semantic noise from generating. 15. Why is feedback a very important element of communication?
Feedback is very important because it serves useful functions for both senders and receivers: it provides senders with the opportunity to measure how they are coming across, and it provides receivers with the opportunity to exert some influence over the communication process. 16. What will you usually do when you receive negative feedback in communication?
Open.
Discovering Problems: Misleading Commercial Signs
Questions for discussion
Have you ever found some similar cases of mistranslation in our life? If you have, what are they? Can you work out some improvement on these mistranslations?
It will be not be difficult for us to see what is wrong with each of the commercial signs in its use of English. Some of them are grammatically incorrect; some others, though without grammatical mistakes, use English in a strange way, probably influenced by the native language of the countries in which they are found.
More cases of misuse of English in our life: 地面光滑，小心摔倒 The Ground is Smooth, Carefully Throws Down (in a hotel) 售票房 Sells the Box Office (at a cinema) 熟食计价处 The Familiar Food Makes Sure the (in a supermarket)
Price
话梅糖 Saying Plum Candies (on the package of the candies)
Matching Task
In communication, the sentence meaning and the speaker?s meaning may not be exactly the same. What is important to successful communication is not just knowing the sentence meaning but knowing what the speaker actually means by the sentence said.
In the following there should be ten short dialogues. Try to make a proper match between each of what the first speaker says on the left and what the second speaker says on the right to form a
dialogue that will make sense, and then decide what is possibly meant by the second speaker in the dialogue.
1: Let‘s go to the movies.
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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
