Gaining Knowledge of Others' Cultures: My Journey of Understanding - Essay Sample

Introduction

Having no much experience with other people's cultures, I can attest that I have understood my own, and therefore there are some of the possible disparities that my culture has with those of others. From the interviews I had, I identified that there are a lot of inconsistencies within my perceptions. With this, therefore, I advanced my knowledge by getting to know more about the two other people's cultures. In relation to the statement in the book Think communication by Engleberg and Wynn (2015), the authors clearly describe the transformation of the ethnocentric society by showing that one will only fool himself or herself if they believe that it is possible to live a life where other people's cultures are completely avoided. For instance, most of the remote, as well as the all-white towns, have undergone some of the major influxes of the migrant and immigrant workers (Engleberg, 2015).

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Therefore, the influx of the migrants and the immigrants is what allowed me to identify two of the cultures which I saw were the best in doing the interview. The interviewees were the Caucasian Melinda age 60, who was born and grew up in a small town in KY called Hartford and also Justin Addison, aged 28, who was born and raised in Louisville, where he spent almost his entire life there. The two interviewees exhibited both internal as well as external cultural differences. The first of the interviewees, i.e., Melinda, who was a Caucasian and used to work as a nurse in a local hospital he also worked in a coffee shop and used to serve meals to the employees. She came from a very humble background, where they used to help themselves with her mother to provide for the other siblings. Eventually, he got a job at a Jewish hospital downtown in the ICU, where he stayed working for about twenty years interacting with people with different cultures from diverse backgrounds. The second interviewee was a black African-American who grew up in a religious background; hence most of the family traditions they normally had were the Christian holidays only. She did not like other people's cultures as she only sticked into his Christianity. Therefore concerning this, with the use of the five cultural dimensions presented by Engleberg and Wynn, I will work on the analysis of the dimensions of the culture and their possible impact on intercultural communication.

Individualism-Collectivism

This aspect is defined in the book as the extent to which any culture depends on and also has allegiance to the group or self (Engleberg, 2015). Therefore, it can be evident that the relationship from the people can be related to the way they build their perceptions as well as their beliefs. In my culture, for example, it mainly focuses on self where people are compelled to do things that will, in the end, yield some of the benefits. For instance, in comparing the parents to Melinda, her dad was the provider, and he worked very hard. He worked the farm & took on a full-time job at a factory producing aluminum.

On the other hand, her mum was a homemaker where she did grow vegetables to sell in town & she sold eggs in town & to neighbors & the only job she had outside the home was cleaning our church & mowing the grass at church. For Justin Addison, he also valued his family, which he described as the most critical part of his life. Therefore, in this sense, it is seen that their cultures mainly valued collectivism. Through being together, providing for tier family and also the support is shared, although for the benefit of the whole family. Hence such values have the same impact on the intercultural communication. The people, especially those from individualistic cultures, do not value building relationships as compared to those from collectivist cultures. The individualistic will only show interest in receiving or giving the informational context while the individuals in the collectivist may try building relationships while transferring information.

Power Distance

According to Engleberg and Wynn (2015), the power distance entails the physical as well as the psychological distance between the powerless and those who have power. Thus, in this sense, I came from a distance culture that was somehow low-powered. Therefore, I usually see some of the subordinates working together with their supervisors in addition to the situations whereby the students can even question their instructors openly. When I question the two on their history and also where they grew up, their responses merely showed that the two interviewees valued high power distance. Thus has an effect on the aspect of intercultural communication, especially if traveling to a high power distance culture to a low power distance culture. Melinda used to closely interact with several of the employees in her work while working in an ICU unit. Hence having the knowledge of how the people interact with the individual prevents offense and catastrophe when considered a higher rank.

Gender Expectations

This brings about the roles for every gender and the preferred differences, as well as the similarities in feminine and masculine values. The feminine values involve being modest and nurturing, while the masculine values incorporate being assertive, success-oriented, and also tough. In my culture, there are no specific gender roles since both men and women will exhibit the values in the two genders; hence is termed as an egalitarian society. When I interviewed the two interviewees, it as seen that the male almost play the same roles as the females' counterparts, for instance, in Melinda's case where the parents were both breadwinners of the family and the two of them acting as the disciplinarian within the family. Justin Addison responds that he didn't even believe in specific roles. He only believed that anyone has the right to fight and also try to achieve anything. This has an impact on intercultural communication since they may result in the presumption confusion and barriers.

Time Orientation

The aspect of time orientation can be described as the past, present, or even future-oriented mainly concerning both short term and long term importance. Basing on my culture, the short term orientation is what is usually focused on. When I asked the interviewees on the issue of the history to their current lives, and as also how it was for them to grow in the family, Melinda's response showed that she holds her culture's short time orientation. This is becoming while working as a nurse at the ICU for about 20 years; there is no case where she could save her money from the income. This is also similar to Justin Addison, who also used to earn without saving. This can have an adverse impact on intercultural communication. There is a possibility of conflict if someone from the short term orientation values punctuality (Chen, 1996). After viewing both sides of the interviewees, I came to understand that there is always a pluralistic point of view where no side can be judged as wrong.

High-Low Context

Engleberg & Wynn describes high-low context as the degree in which the message is verbally or non-verbally expressed. The low context mainly refers to the most meaning under the language expression, while the high context is expressed mostly through the body language as well as gestures (Martin, 2013). In determining the context of each of the interviewees, there was no need for any other question since it was very much clear from their previous responses as well as their actions. In this judgment, it can be analyzed that both come from a collectivist culture, implement great use of some of the non-verbal communication, and also have reserved reactions and also were much more flexible when identifying a time to meet. Therefore, by the high risk of communication, this will have an impact on intercultural communication. There might be misunderstandings in case a person to a low context culture speaks to someone from a high context culture.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while working on these interviews and analyzing them, there were many of the new perceptions as well as cultural understandings on cultures other than my own. For effective communication, therefore, it is essential to know the crucial competencies. The aspect of knowing oneself and connecting with others determines the purpose, and adapting to the context is important. This also includes; selecting the message's structure and also how to make an expression of the word. Knowing thyself is the most important for one to have a strong sense of the concept before deepening the knowledge of other people's cultures. Besides other people's diversity, there is a possibility of implementing several strategies for improving intercultural communication. A great sense of cultural sensitivity is also developed if we solely familiarize ourselves with the given diverse cultures. This will also enhance the receptiveness of any given message.

References

Chen, G. M., & Starosta, W. J. (1996). Intercultural communication competence: A synthesis. Annals of the International Communication Association, 19(1), 353-383. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23808985.1996.11678935

Engleberg, I. N., & Wynn, D. R. (2015). THINK communication (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.

Jones, A., & Quach, X. (2007). Intercultural communication. The University of Melbourn. https://library.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/1924095/Intercultural_Communication2.pdf

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.