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Similarities of eastern and western culture
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Imagine two different people who went to Vancouver Fashion show at the same time. They went to the same places, participated in the same activities and observed the same show. However, their understandings and interpretations of the fashion show should not be the same because their understandings of the event are shaped and influenced by their own culture and traditions. Culture can be regarded as a shared system of meaning and value, which are usually variable, that influences and shapes our interpretations of the world. (Yoshimizu, 2014, p.1).
During my fieldwork at Vancouver Fashion Show, I found that it is sometimes hard for me to completely stand from an outsider perspective of view, questioning and analyzing my own cultural values and identities. Therefore, some of my understandings and assumptions of the research outcomes are shaped and affected by the dominant ideology. In this analysis, I will discuss how my stereotype about the traditional women’s character and identity, especially the talking style, is greatly challenged during my research process.
My view of women’s talking style is influenced by my preexisting schema of the conventional expectations of lady’s talk, which is defined as “reserved”, “soft”, “tolerant” and “ appropriate”. “Cursing” and “humor” are regarded as a normal and appropriate behavior for men but not for women. What impressed me most during the show was two Chinese beautiful girls’ sharp and sarcastic talking style. Their talk style not only involved “insults and personal attacks” but also used excessive amount of curse words. They directly criticized two young guys’ appearance and dressing style as “out of fashion” by using a list of sharp and aggressive words. This made other Chinese audiences...
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...ted due to the rise of women’s social status. Many people are no longer using the stereotyped evaluations towards women’s characters and identity. Overall, modern society has greatly changed in the standards that people normally use to evaluate women’s talking style. This change indicates that modern Chinese women are gaining the right to determine and create their own preferred ways of self-expression. (Almeida, 2002, p.249).
Although culture is regarded as a shared system of meaning and value that influences and shapes our interpretations of the world, it is constantly variable. Our understandings of the world are not only shaped by our previous cultural schemas and traditions, but are also influenced by the new experiences we encounter, the people we meet and the knowledge we learn from these experiences and phenomenon we perceive and observe. (Yoshimizu, 2014).
Her principal was described as "maniacal" (Wong 1). Wong identified speaking Chinese as an "embarrassment" (Wong 2). The words she chose
No matter the society, the way a women verbally expresses her thoughts, whether direct or indirect, is always viewed as inferior to men who are always right. According to Tannen, the style of communication preferred by men is a more direct approach. They call women’s indirect style “‘covert,’ a term suggesting negative qualities like being ‘sneaky’ and ‘underhanded’” (Tannen 3). The way western men view women’s communication style is a reflection of how they view women in general- sneaky and underhanded. For the women this is not the case. They choose to speak indirectly simply because they feel that it is not their right to speak directly male dominated society. This ideology was a continuation from the 19th century in which it was a sin for women to speak directly. Elinor Keenan, an anthropologist found that in a village of Madagascar it is the women who are direct and men who are indirect. According to Keenan, the villagers “regard women’s direct style as clumsy and crude, debasing the beautiful subtlety of men’s language” (Tannen 9). This shows the similarities and differences of societies concerning women. While the preferred form of communication changed from culture to culture, women are still on the bottom of the social ladder when compared to men. When a
Life experiences allow individual to grasp the meaning of culture, people in our surrounding, and value the ethnic diversity into our society. Culture consists of the knowledge people use to live
Culture has been defined numerous ways throughout history. Throughout chapter three of, You May Ask Yourself, by Dalton Conley, the term “culture” is defined and supported numerous times by various groups of people. One may say that culture can be defined as a set of beliefs (excluding instinctual ones), traditions, and practices; however not all groups of people believe culture has the same set of values.
Culture often means an appreciation of the finer things in life; however, culture brings members of a society together. We have a sense of belonging because we share similar beliefs, values, and attitudes about what’s right and wrong. As a result, culture changes as people adapt to their surroundings. According to Bishop Donald, “let it begin with me and my children and grandchildren” (211). Among other things, culture influences what you eat; how you were raised and will raise your own children? If, when, and whom you will marry; how you make and spend money. Truth is culture is adaptive and always changing over time because
Whether you belong to a certain race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, geographical region or you identify with a certain sex you belong to a particular culture. Culture as define by Shiraev and Levy (2013), “Is a set of attitudes, behaviors, and symbols shared by a large group of people and usually communicated from one generation to the next” (p. ). In other words, we are a product of what has been handed down to us from the generations before. However, culture is evolving and it changes all the time. Hence the reason, no one group has a unique culture, since we are all influenced by each other’s way of life. As a result of this influence, we form relationships with people we know little about and share our values and beliefs with each other. Thereby creating a cross-cultural mix.
Cultures are infinitely complex. Culture, as Spradley (1979) defines it, is "the acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experiences and generate social behavior" (p. 5). Spradley's emphasizes that culture involves the use of knowledge. While some aspects of culture can be neatly arranged into categories and quantified with numbers and statistics, much of culture is encoded in schema, or ways of thinking (Levinson & Ember, 1996, p. 418). In order to accurately understand a culture, one must apply the correct schema and make inferences which parallel those made my natives. Spradley suggests that culture is not merely a cognitive map of beliefs and behaviors that can be objectively charted; rather, it is a set of map-making skills through which cultural behaviors, customs, language, and artifacts must be plotted (p. 7). This definition of culture offers insight into ...
I have always been intrigued by other places, people, and cultures. I enjoy learning about their traditions, everyday lives, beliefs, and values. When I study and learn more about different cultures, my interpretations become more accurate and concrete. Fortunately, I have been given many opportunities to travel to different countries around the world such as Armenia, Mexico, Japan, and several European countries. Visiting these places and learning about other cultures has helped expose me to different perspectives, histories, values, and religions. From my real-world experiences and insights that I gained from interpretational research, I have recognized the many similarities cultures share even though each culture is unique and different.
Clifford Geertz once said: “Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete. And, worse than that, the more deeply it goes the less complete it is.” I recently spent a short amount of time at a busy 5-way traffic circle near my residence. While sitting in one spot for about 25 minutes, I observed many people doing many different things (mainly driving). Observing the various people made me think of what their particular cultures may have been, and from there, I began thinking of culture in and of itself. What is culture? Culture is defined as: Ideas and behaviors that are learned and transmitted. Nongenetic means of adaptation (Park, 2008). Culture plays a vital role in anthropology. After all, anthropology is the holistic, scientific study of humankind (Park, 2008). One cannot study humans as a whole without studying and understanding their cultures as well.
Deborah Tannen is a linguistics professor at Georgetown University, and her research specialty is conversational style. Based on her observations, she states, “for males, conversation is the way you negotiate your status in the group and keep people from pushing you around; you use talk to preserve your independence. Females, on the other hand, use conversation to negotiate closeness and intimacy; talk is the essenc...
I also want to analyze other ways of communicating more effectively, ignoring the notion of gendered talk and what implications that may have – what happens when a male or female steps out of their schema and maybe communicates opposite of what is expected of him or her. My transcription contains cross-cultural communication as well, which may suggest other preconceived notions on female communication. Exploring female communication from other cultures and comparing it to our cultured communication may also suggest that communication differences are only situational or contextual.
Culture may be defined as the sum totaltotal of non-biological activities of a people. For anthropologists like Marvin Harris (1974). Culture is directly related to concrete material conditions of existence. It is a set of altitudinal and behavioral tools as well as a map of adapting to one’s environment. Culture is thus essentially adaptive. Following the concept of cultural relativism espoused by Margaret Mead (1968) it is the view of this article that culture must be seen asbe specific and valid in particular circumstances with value judgement as to its relative significance to other groups, even within the same nation-state or society. The point that is therefore being made is that there are some particularities of culture that characterize
In the male-dominant society women prefer to use overtly prestigious forms and men prefer to use vernacular form in order to distinguish the social status between women and men in Joseon Dynasty. Although Confucianism has less influence in today’s South Korea society, we still can find some features when women talk. “Some forms and expression are m... ... middle of paper ... ...of grammatical or lexical forms. To conclude, Korean women tend to use tag question, indirect words and expressions, and negative expression to avoid being conclusive and try to avoid being the dominant of the whole conversation and show the concern about the feeling of addressee.
Culture is an important concept in anthropology. Culture is defined as, "sets of learned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society. Human beings use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which they live." (LS:512). Culture has been used in anthropology to understand human difference, but within this understanding there have been benefits and drawbacks to the ideas of culture. Finally, the study of language and humans as symbol using creatures helps us have perspectives on different parts of the world. All anthropologists share a certain reliance on culture to have a starting point in understanding human experience as a whole.