Intercultural Communications Exam #2

On what basis may people define themselves as a culture or a group?

- Nationality, ethnicity, gender, profession, geographical region, ability/disability

What evidence does Gannon present from Ferguson to offer an alternative perspective to Clash of civilizations?

- Niall Ferguson points out that the overwhelming majority of conflicts since the end of the Cold War have been civil wars, not intercivilizational wars. Ethnicity rather than civilization appears to explain the majority of recent conflicts: clash of civilizations is not a major threat but not discredited entirely.

Social Identity Theory ,

- Social identities are made sense of in comparison to other relevant identities. They also maintain that faced with a negative social identity, such as is often subtly attributed to minorities, people will react in one of three ways

What is cultural identity? How is it created?

- cultural identity is enacted and presented through communication. And context affects how we enact/present our identities

Body motions: Kinesics

- including shrugs or blushes, such as giving the A-ok gesture , which is a good thing in some cultures and offensive in others

What are the possible results of increased intercultural contact?

- increased contact could be variously associated with positive, neutral, or negative perceptions, attitudes and behaviors.

Time- chromenics

- keeping a schedule or delaying meetings or giving time to an activity

According to Gannon, when did the notion of "national culture" orginate and where?

- originated in Europe in the 15th century.

What practices does Singapore engage in that Gannon believes have contributed towards the nation's prosperity and lack of conflict?

- the government promotes homeownership with low-interest mortgage loans so that most of their citizens own homes, encourages entrepreneurship with low interest loans to small businesses. This along with the Confucian concept of an inclusive community. The decisions made relative to the manner in which ethnic groups can be inclusive and benefit all.

What is Samuel Huntington's argument about The Clash of Civilizations?

-He believes that people and groups are searching for identities, they always have and that this search is now being acted out at the civilizational level. The world is separated into two camps, an western one and non-western many and that conflicts are the most dangerous when they are between groups from different civilizations

Language is more than ...

...: Words and phrases

Defining who you are tells you what you ...

...should be doing- what is appropriate communication for your group

The use of space - Proxemics

: keeping an office door closed or open to visitors, knocking before you enter, talking easily with someone who's face is inches away.

What is a belief?

A belief is a judgment about what is true or probable

What are the positive and negative features of immigration?: Positive

A positive side of immigration provides a mechanism through which new ideas and practice cross national boarders. Unskilled immigrants from developing nations take jobs that citizens don't want. They also contribute more to the economy with consumption and taxes and often establish new businesses in their adopted nations.

the importance of symbolism/ symbolic meaning,

All cultures possess phenomena that are symbolic in meaning --> the symbolic meaning of anything is that it points to the issue of understanding the culture itself. If you don't understand those meanings you will be lost in the culture. The same phenomenon is subject to different symbolic interpretations but it is also subject to rapidly changing symbolic interpretations

Smelling :olfactics:

Arabs are comfortable speaking face to face and can even smell the other person's breath, but Anglo-Saxan culture doesn't like that

Touching: haptics :

Asian cultures emphasize nontouching but latin American countries emphasize touching.

Speaking: Vocalics:

Cantonese and Mandarin are identical written but mandarin is more formal orally ad Cantonese has slang and is spoken more loudly

Eye movements oculesics-

Chinese and Japanese have a habit of expressing anger only in their eyes but others may not notice and they will only get angrier

Frames and expected actions, frames evoking and assuming informal rules and identities:

Frame of a classroom evoke expectations of how you are supposed to act and how things are going to go, because you've been in this situation before. It evokes rules of how you and the teacher of are supposed to respond. It evokes identities, of teacher and student, and how your identity should be , the Teacher is someone who knows the answer and the student is someone who asks them. each frame could be studied as a series of should and should-not statements.

What is a conceptual frame and how do frames shape meaning? -

Frames provide an assumption that certain communicative actions will be engaged in, framed evoke and assume the legitimacy of certain informal rules. Frames assume and imply certain identities. These may be thought of as frames that help provide meaning and order to our communication with others. : Interviews , dinner, teasing, greeting

Is emotional expression something individuals do to express themselves or is it something else?

ITs not about expressing the self but rather the communal nature of the culture , not demonstrating the self but fitting with the culture.

What are immediacy behaviors? What type of cultures exhibit more immediacy behaviors: Low or high contact? :

Immediacy behaviors are smiling, touching, eye contact, closer distances and High contact cultures exhibit more of them

What are the features of "feminine" and "masculine" communication culture? -

Instrumental/expressive, related to norms, roles and leadership - Instrumental is assertive, seeking advancement, striving for earnings- task oriented. Expressive, nurturing , oriented towards providing service, attuned to interpersonal needs, concerned about physical environment- relationship oriented.

What may trump knowledge of a culture's language , why may fluency in a culture's language be a problem for intercultural communication?-

Its better to understand the culture than the language, to know their values, practices, and norms (and history and current events). Also, if a person is fluent in a language then that country's natives tend to assume the person genuinely understands the culture. They expect that such a person will abide by its norms and the outsider won't recognize them.

Grice's maxims of Manner

Manner : mainly concerned with being clear or lucid given the demands of the situation.

Cultural symbols / norms (Example?) -

Norms tell you who you are and what you should be doing - Symbols : How does this group define the world and its place in the world? -ex: some international students do not expect professors to be as informal as they sometimes are in the USA- expectations for identities vary across cultures.

Difference between reactive and proactive: Proactive

Proactive description can lead us to treat others in ways that pressure them to take up certain identities. We may try to create the social world we perceive by encouraging others to act in ways that fit with our notions of the world and who others are.

Proverbs express cultural :

Proverbs express cultural values, sayings that describe how to live a good life according to a specific culture

Difference between reactive and proactive :Reactive

Reactive : *used to explain past and present behaviors and predict future actions* Because certain types of actors or identities are associated with certain communicative actions, *we naturally try to make sense of what we see others do through the ascription of certain identities*

What has research shown about the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Research has shown that even if you don't have a word for something, you perceive it, it's a need based relationship

What does the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis claim? What is the alternative point of view?-

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: language shapes and even determines a culture's behavior and habits of thinking : alternative view: its a need based relationship, if you need words for a thing you will make them and have multiple categories for things you encounter often. Sapir-Whorf may occur in some circumstances but not in all cases, you can recognize different stimuli even if you don't have a word for it. --> Sapir-Whorf may happen more socially.

What are the positive and negative features of immigration?: Negative

Some negatives are that immigrants resist integration, they experience more unemployment , those that are poor and unskilled , overwhelm the available resources of the towns and cities they are in, including education and health systems and government subsidies , and they compete for jobs

different meanings for the same thing and how meanings even within a culture, change over time.-

There can be different meanings for symbols, a bullfight in Spin is a ritual celebrating death and its supposed to remind people they should live a full life. Portugese bullfighting is a reminder of bravery and serves to unite the audience and the team. - a.* As the world globalizes , interactions from across cultures become more frequent, they influence one another and as a result, symbolic meanings tend to change. A smile in the USA means friendliness but in China it means a lack of self-control.* - Symbols change over time: Female modesty used to be skirts ankle length, now its shorter skirts, Compromise may change in the businesses, more or less is appropriate, Management styles change, yellow ribbon used to be concern and , now its support the troops.

What are the following properties of cultural identity : Avowal and ascription? :

We need others to tell us who we see ourselves as: to ascribe to us who we avow to be

Gratuitous Concurrence:

When people do not understand each other due to language troubles , but for the sake of the conversation agree with the other and try to fill in appropriate answers even when they are unsure of the correct meaning.

What are avowal and ascription (with regard to identities) -

a. Avowal: we try to fit ourselves into our idea of what is allowed and expected of the identities we envision for ourselves. b. Ascription is the process of having an identity assigned to you by others.

Define and recognize experiential, informational and inferential beliefs :

a. Experiential beliefs: From our contact with an object, action or person b. Informational beliefs: From external authority c. Inferential beliefs: Reasoning based on past cases, deduction, "common sense" logic

*Know the five types of problem related to "quick trust" in teams working in a geographically distributed manner*:

a. Failure to communicate and retain contextual information b. Unevenly distributed information c. Difficulty understanding and communicating the salience and importance of information d. Differences in speed of access to information in different locations e. Misinterpreting silence or failure to respond.

What is fatalism? What is Locus of Control? :

a. Fatalism: Something beyond our control is responsible for what happens to us

How do low and high context cultures compare in terms of their verbal and nonverbal behavior and the impressions those might give to someone from the "opposite" type of culture? -

a. High context: communication depends on context and programming of individual for meaning transmission, meaning can come from subtle things, better at picking up on nonverbal - high context people view low context people as too talkative, belaboring the obvious and redundant b. Low Context: less reliance on nonverbal communication: not as good as picking up on nonverbals , more reliant on verbal communication- low context people view high context people as sneaky, nondisclosive and mysterious

Explain how identities involve sets of role expectations?

a. Identities are sets of social expectations related to ourselves and others - you are expected to exhibit characteristics in a certain role - Erin the legal secretary: she didn't enact the identity in the way others thought she should, she wouldn't wear the clothes they did or talk they way they did and others judged her as incompetent. - Expectations others have for us: role expectations.

Grice's accompanying concepts such as idioms

a. Idioms: Saying that have implied meaning, even when people share the same language , they do not necessarily share the same way of speaking

Distinguish between monochronic and polychronic time and between low and high context communication -

a. Monochronic time vs polychronic time are defined as doing one thing at a time and multitasking respectively. Individualistic cultures tend to be monochromic, while collectivistic cultures tend to be more polychronic. Time commitments in Monochronic are important and things are done one at a time, in polychronic time is more flexible and multitasking is favored.

What are personal, relational, and communal identities.

a. Personal identity is our perception of ourselves as unique, idiosyncratic individuals, distinct from all others. b. Relational identity is based on particular relationships we have with others c. Common relation identities within a community are often discussed as related roles, such as student/teacher, boss/employee, parent/child..ect.`

Grice's maxims of quality

a. Quality: implies that things that are said are assumed to be true and accurate

Grice's maxims of quantity

a. Quantity: there is a proper amount of talk for different circumstances. A person may be seen to talk too much or too little

What does it mean to say that communication reflects identity, what about constitutes identity?

a. Reflects identity: assumes that identities are something we have or are and that they are generally stable and consistent. Our communication naturally reflects our identities, just as a mirror reflects the physical item in front of it. b. Constitutes identity: identity is something we do rather than something we inherently are. Right now you are doing an identity, perhaps a diligent student- a person can move from one identity to another directed by our communicative choices.

Grice's maxims of Relevance

a. Relevance: implies that what one has said connects and is meaningful in some way either to what has been previously said or to the purpose of the interaction in general.

What are the features/ characteristics of values , according to lecture?

a. Salience : The importance, is it close at hand, easily called to mind b. Direction: is it positive, neutral or negative c. Degree: the intensity or strength of a belief

According to the Social Identity Theory , what three ways may persons respond to a negative social identity ascribed/attributed to their group

a. They may agree with the negative expectations and seek as much as possible to join the dominate group and distance themselves from their home community b. Minorities may directly fight those in a majority or dominant position. The response of one of a direct conflict- you try to put me down and I'll put you down even more c. Minorities may also try to change the comparison points that have in some way led to the perceived negative identity. One way this may be done is to revalue factors that are seen as negative in the dominant society.

1. Identify the 8 different categories of nonverbal behavior identified by Anderson, with their associated formal terms and identifying definitional characteristics :

a. Time- chromenics b. The use of space - Proxemics c. Eye movements oculesics-. d. Body motions: Kinesics e. Touching: haptics : f. Physical appearance : g. Speaking: Vocalics: h. Smelling :olfactics:

Opposite of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis :

although language and thought are closely related, it's a need-based relationship rather than a causal one that exists between them. Humans categorize their world using language based on their needs. You may not have a word for a color but you will perceive it as different

How do members of a particular group evaluate others? :

based on how someone communicates, the norms they follow, the symbols they use.

The fact that we enact our nonverbal behavior without thinking about it, spontaneously and "unconsciously" suggests that nonverbal communication is part of our :

collective unconscious

Low context communication :

communication that is explicit and expressed orally or in writing or both

Six universal expressions of emotion:

disgust, fear, surprise, anger, happiness, and sadness.

Elaborated and restricted Speech Codes :

elaborated speech relies on the explicit verbal expression to carry the meaning of a comment to the listeners , whereas restricted codes rely on past knowledge and more implicit aspects of the situation to convey their meaning.

What is a "gaman"? what sorts of concerns do the Japanese have about expressing emotion outwardly? :

gaman is perseverance or self-sacrifice to avoid disrupting social harmony . expressing emotion outwardly is burdening others -( displays of irritation or anguish.)

To understand a culture you must learn:

how members use and learn language on a day-to-day basis

Locus of Control: Internal and External

i. External Locus of control: Other things besides my effort shape my existence ii. Internal locus of control: If I make an effort I will be rewarded and I can shape my fate

The importance of context for meaning and for intercultural meaning -

if we were only to take the literal meaning of a given verbal comment, we would often be misunderstood or seen as rude, we learn to understand the connotative or implied meaning by taking into account the context in which the utterance is made.

Display rule :

illustrates the influence on the expression of particular emotions

At a minimum, what should an executive learn of another culture's/country's language? When is it advisable to study a language in depth?-

knowing how to greet, ask for directions, a few hundred words that makes them confident that they can order dinner, walk on the street and go where they need to go. Its advisable to study a language in depth when you are in a place longer than a month.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis:

language determined how we perceive the world, the limits of our language become the limits of our world.

What percent of nations in the world are monocultural?-

less than 10% of the 220 nations in the world are monocultural.

Physical appearance :

need for a proper physical appearance in Latin America and Asia, but USA put less stock in it and Buddhists believe in a physical deformity as Karma from your last life.

What features of speech influence someone's attitude about a person speaking? :

nonstandard accents, speech rates (fast or slow) and speech styles (elevated)

How do Japanese nonverbal behavior relate to the themes found in their culture, how does the smile function? -

not showing emotion relates to the theme of social harmony and collectivist cultures. The bow is showing respect for hierarchy. Space from being far from strangers and close to those you know , its related to in group identity, those who are different should be physically farther from you. If you are forced to be physically close to them, remain calm to keep the peace. The smile is part of social etiquette, it functions to make life pleasant and avoid negative emotion , it can be genuine but must be evaluated in terms of context.

What is the difference between "sex" and "gender" -

sex is biological and gender is social and cultural meaning of sex

What factors influence the salience (awareness of) and intensity of a cultural identity?:

the salience of an identity depends on context - it may be more salient when with others sharing a particular identity IF gathered to share that identity or may be more salient when you are the only person with your identity and the others identities are emphasized

Proxemics:

the study of our use of space, both in our interactions with others and with objects in our environment

According to Gannon, what is vital for an interpreter to know, beyond language skills?-

they have to be responsible for imparting cultural knowledge and facilitating relationships

The fact that we communicate with nonverbal behavior , that we use nonverbal behavior to interpret experience and represent the world to one another suggests that nonverbal behavior is also part of our :

universe of discourse

Code-switching :

when one switches which code or formal language one is speaking. At times this is done in different situations, such that in one setting people may speak English and then in another place speak a different language, such as Spanish.

Can a culture be monocronic and polychronic?-

yes, it is possible to adapt. because executives and managers have to multitask and by polychronic, and globalization is making the characterization between the two more inappropriate in many ways. Japan adapted a different work schedule for its Thai workers who were polychronic.