Communication within one culture can often be difficult, convoluted and result in many misunderstanding, this process can be significantly exacerbated however when communicators are from different cultures. With the world becoming smaller day by day due to globalization and cultures converging from all corners of the globe, communication and culture as we know it has drastically evolved and become very complex. Examples of this can be seen right here as people from all over the world immigrate to America. Throughout history as people from around the globe made America their new home they have had to address and overcome the looming issues of intercultural communication and acculturation. According to Webster.com acculturation means; cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture; also: a merging of cultures as a result of prolonged contact (Webster…..). Beyond having to learn a new language which is difficult enough but through the process of acculturation they have to learn social values, norms, rules that very often is entirely different that that of their native culture.
In order to successfully thrive and survive people have had to master a language while navigating through a society that often looks, behaves, sounds and fundamentally believes differently than they themselves do. Making this process even more difficult is always the prevailing desire to hold true to native customs values and traditions which may not be accepted practice in the new society. For example in America we believe in and exercise freedom of religion however in a predominantly Christian society practicing other faiths such as Muslim of Buddhism may prove more confined and contained than in ones home land where the majority practices their religion. Further examples of this point may stem to the work place where women are treated equally and their ideas and opinions are accepted and sought after but in other nations women are treated as second class citizens and therefore have no voice in public environments. These instances can require great adjustment on the part of individuals who may not be familiar with American customs and treatment of women in the workplace or otherwise. Also the inability to find adequate words from a native tongue may pose a problem and great frustration if there is no literal translation in the new language. Although acculturation does not require complete assimilation and abandonment of one’s beliefs or culture it does require embracing and adopting practices of the new culture.
Ting-Toomey, Stella., & Chung, Leeva C. (2012). Understanding Intercultural Communication. Oxford University Press. 43, 159-160.
The process of globalization has affected all society issues, such as science, economics, politics, culture and obviously, influencing all types of societies, from the most complex to the simplest.There are theories that postulate that will emerge a global or universal culture, but this theory is extreme in that it provides a homogeneous culture and unique worldwide. This is nothing new, instead it has been part of our societies since history can recall it. Acculturation is a process by which a receiving culture assimilates and incorporates elements from another culture or another group that has been in direct and continuous contact for some time like the Mexican indigens. Mexican Indigens have been submitted to drastic changes throughout history, since even before the Spanish conquest through the present day. Although, acculturation is something that we all have experience somehow in our life, this can have either a good or bad reactions to the society in general.
Park and Burgess define assimilation as, "a process of inter-penetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons and groups and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them in a common cultural life." (Alba and Nel, 1997).
“The Contact Zone”, is defined by Mary Louis Pratt as “the space in which transculturation takes place – where two different cultures meet and inform each other, often in highly asymmetrical ways.” Pratt describes what she calls ‘contact zones’ and elaborates on the pros and cons of these cultural interactions. She sees the contact zone as a place that allows people to exchange cultural ideas and break down the dividing cultural borders. When a contact zone is started, people are able to interact on new levels gaining a new perspective because they are able to collaborate with people from foreign cultures. If you are always with people of the same culture as you, you become used to hearing everything from the same perspective. With a new perspective, you can see your culture from a different point of view and reanalyze the logic behind your cultural traditions. Every ethnic/ religious/ regional/ cultural group has its high and low points, and it is just as important to learn about the low points as it is to learn about the highs. Gloria Anzaldua’s essay, “how to tame a wild tongue”, focuses on the ideas of losing an accent or native language to conform to the dominant culture.
Acculturation and assimilation are treated as complex, multifaceted phenomena. The acceptance of new cultural traits or social associations and retention of traditional cultural traits and social associations are viewe...
Back to the American history, "assimilation" policy was introduced to the Native Americans during the earliest colonial times. During that time, all American Indians must either adopt the White's lifestyles or perish. With the declaration of the Dawes Act, a goal of destroying all tribal structure and their communal life were summoned. Tribal lands were divided among natives and the Westerners, leaving the natives, a land surrounded by the foreigners. With such acts, the American Indians were slowly assimilated into the White's culture and without their own people around them, they will have to communicate with the Westerners with their language instead of their indigenous languages; they ...
Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2013). Intercultural Communication in Contexts (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Martin, Judith N., and Thomas K. Nakayama. Intercultural Communication in Contexts. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print.
One of the most important concepts that I have learned from class is Assimilation Theory. This theory is based on the adaptation that a certain ethnic group goes through in order to fit in and survive in the new dominant society. For example, according to the book the United States in known to be a predominantly white cultural society, therefore many ethnic groups from all over who choose to come to the U.S often have to assimilate and adapt to the social and cultural norms. Assimilation theory affects many ethnic groups in sense that it can change the way they behave and live in a society. Whenever another ethnic group immigrates to a place where there is a dominant ethnic group they often have to assimilate to the dominant group’s social, economic, and cultural behaviors and customs to survive. For example in the U.S, there are many minority groups from all over the globe who immigrated to this country and they often have to go through various changes and adaptations to fit into society and gain citizenship in the country. These changes can be a challenge for them because they have to choose between their own cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors and assimilate to the U.S’ cultural values and customs. In the book it states that “their cultural ancestry is English, Scottish, Dutch and German which is the Anglo-Saxon core.” Therefore, the culture that immigrants in the U.S. have to adapt to is the Anglo-Saxon culture/ “American culture.” For most minorities immigrating to the U.S, one of the major factors that affected them is language barrier. In the United States English is the dominant language, many ...
Teske, Raymond H.C., Jr., and Bardin H. Nelson. Acculturation and Assimilation: A Clarification 1.2 (1974): 351-67. Jstor.org. Jstor.org/journals, Feb. 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
Hall (as cited in Würtz, 2006) defined high context cultures have a preference for Nonverbal communication (p. 55). High context culture website uses implicit information, in which it is important to have related news information and some signs. Nonverbal communication mainly the emphasis on visual effects which are images, animation, links, buttons, music, video, symbols and messages related to particular topics (p. 274). A Nonverbal communication is one in which most of the information is in the physical forms, while very little is in the text. Singh, Zhao & Hu’s (as cited in Ahmed, Mouratidis & Preston, 2009) demonstrated that "the use of symbols and icons is more important, in Nonverbal communication" (p. 55). For instance, Indian websites regularly use Color, symbolism, animations, images and sometimes video clip and music also. According to Evers (as cited in Ahmed, Mouratidis & Preston, 2009) found that the 86.5 % of Asians strongly liked sound effects (Evers, 2001). In short, the high context culture country uses nonverbal communication which is India, China, Mexico, Brazil and Japan.
With an increase in globalization, many people venture into other countries to seek employment and education opportunities. The United States-based corporations employ over 100 million overseas workers. They also hire a large number of locals who then move to take roles in other countries where the company has operations (Reichard et al. 2015). This means that Americans are exposed to a high number of people from other nations with diverse cultures in their workplaces, schools, neighborhoods and other social places. Therefore, people need to improve their intercultural communication skills to enable them to interact efficiently with people with diverse cultures. The improvement of technology has made the media an agent for enhanced
Effective communication with people of difference cultures can be especially challenging. The way people interpret the world can be strikingly different between cultures. Intercultural communication occurs when a member from one culture produces a message that is absorbed by a member of another culture. How that message is understood by the communicating party is a vital part in intercultural communication. For example, in Cambodia it would be considered rude to discuss business in a social setting (Language, culture, customs and etiquette, n.d.). However, in the United States this is a common practice and is almost an encouraged event. Another important factor and consideration in intercultural communication is the importance of understanding cultures, values, history and beliefs. For instance, in Cambodia, if you deliver a present that is wrapped in white paper, this is considered to represent mourning. This is one of the many reasons why it is important to assimilate into a culture and be mindful of communication between cultures (Language, culture, customs and etiquette, n.d.).
At some point in our lives we experience a culture as an outsider by moving from one culture to another.In the world today there are so many different cultures and not one of them is found to be the same.Instead they all have something that makes them unique, whether its language or even the clothes they wear and their behavior as well.The differences they have is what separates them from one another and who ever joins that particular culture must get accustomed to their way of life.In the society today we have many people immigrating to the United States to start a new and better life but what they soon begin to realize is that it’s a whole new world out there and in order to survive they have to get accustomed to the new way of life which is much different from their lives before.
Humans have been communicating since four million years. On the other hand, the birth of culture is estimated to have taken place about 35,000 years ago. Today, both culture and communication have evolved considerably and have become interdependent of one another, to the point that communication is considered to be a product of culture. Thus, our own culture has a deep impact on our thoughts and behaviors. Since each culture has its distinct aspects, intercultural communication can be the cause of conflict and disorder. There are three main issues which are at the root of the problem of intercultural miscommunication : language as a barrier, cultural diversity and ethnocentrism. I will analyze these three notions in situations in which intercultural communication is frequent such as : the workplace, the classroom and vacation trips.