Saturday, November 14, 2015
Intercultural Communication
Intercultural communication is the study of differences and similarities of cultural content and its influence on persons within and across different cultures (156). Therefore, its ethics focuses on promoting and protecting the good of cultures, taking account for the fact that the cultures shape different social practices and backgrounds in each communities and countries. One of the interesting concepts to me was "inarticulate", which refers when we can't appropriately describe our experiences and feelings to others. For example of mine, I am the first who study abroad in foreign country among my family and many friends of mine in Korea also never experience it. Once I came here, I had hard time dealing with so many difficulties from different cultures, language barriers, and feeling homesick. At first, I tried to talk about it to my mother and she seemed to understand me first. However, as time went by, I realized that it's hard to describe my whole situation and feeling because it was also hard to her, who never had same experience with mine, to fully understand me as well. I felt the same way with my friends in Korea too. What they were struggling with as domestic students in universities in Korea was too much different from what I was dealing with as international student in US.
The other fascinating point in the book was about individualism. From the mores of the United States, the assumption is that individuals are central, particularly when the individual is "me" (161). When I first went to the class in United States, how I felt was that American students were so individualistic. I didn't see it in a negative way though. I saw a huge difference from Koreans especially when American students in my previous school in Seattle voluntarily handed up, freely spoke up their opinions and asked questions while professor was talking. When I thought about Korean students, including me, we didn't express our thoughts or ask any questions until a professor appointed us. I think this difference is because American students were raised up in a culture that values the freedom of each individuals; On the other hand, students from Asian countries, including South Korea, were raised in communal culture where they more cared about community or unity rather than individual or themselves, so that we never spoke up while lecture, not to interrupting the class.
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Hi Jeehyo,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your experience with intercultural communication differences, I found it to be very interesting. Having grown up in America I am used to sharing my opinions freely, and I can see how much of a culture shock it would be if you had not had this expectation before and were suddenly placed in an environment with this expectation. I do think that it is important to note that the expectation to share your opinions in a classroom setting is much stronger in college than in high school (in my experience), so perhaps this says that culturally Americans value opinion-input when it comes from those who are viewed as adults more than those who are viewed as children (I would considered teenagers under the label of children here).
If you are comfortable sharing, I would be interested in hearing if you feel that you are more assertive as a result of attending college in the U.S.,and if you have thought about how this study abroad experience will impact your assertiveness when you are back in Korea?
This question relates the the textbooks' discussion of "indwellers," a cultural guest who has developed enough of an understanding of a cultures' communication patterns and habits and has taken these on as a participant in the culture to which they are a guest (p.169). The authors say that "The difference between a converted indweller and someone born into the culture is that the former will often have better articulate knowledge of the 'why' and the actions of a culture than the person who was born into the culture and lives within the depths of the inarticulate" (p.169).