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similarities of eastern and western culture
western and eastern culture
the culture difference in East and West
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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).
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.
Deborah Tannen has achieved scholarly and public praise for her conclusions about how women and men differ in conversational styles. You Just Don’t Understand[6] clarifies stylistic differences in how the two sexes communicate with each other.
The book You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, written by Deborah Tannen, is an analytical book offering scientific insights on the conversational differences between women and men. The book is copyrighted 1990 and is still read and widely talked about all over the world. Tannen is a Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Tannen is a graduate of the University of California-Berkeley and has a doctorate’s degree in linguistics. She is a highly creditable author who has written many books on social differences between women and men. Some of her other books include: That’s Not What I Meant: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships and Talking From 9 to 5: Women and Men in the Workplace. Her books have been translated into 26 languages and are still read by thousands of people every year (Tannen 13).
According to Rivkin and Ryan (1998), the word ‘culture’ acquired a new meaning in the 1960s and 1970s. Prior to that time, ‘culture’ was associated with art, literature, and classical music. To have ‘culture’ was to possess a certain taste for particular kinds of artistic endeavor. Anthropologists have always used the word ‘culture’ in much broader sense to mean forms of life and of social expression. The way people behave while eating, talking to each other, becoming sexual partners, interacting at work, engaging in ritualized social behaviour such as family gatherings, and the like constitute a culture. This broad definition of the term includes language and the arts, but it also includes the regularities, procedures, and rituals of human life in communities.
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 ...
In Jessica Butler’s Paper, she claims that Women have a greater usage of Standard English and have greater “linguistic variability” as compared to Men (Jessica Wren Butler, 2009). This phenomenon could be due to the ‘status-consciousness’ of women. Thus, this spurs women to use more standard and formal English in order to obtain a higher societal status (Holmes, 1998). Due to the societal norms being placed on women, it may seem ‘unladylike’ for a woman to use informal language such as profanities as she may be seen to be transgressing the social norms that are expected of women (Butler,
To sum up, culture defines peoples’ identities, and every community or cultural groups of people have their own values, behaviors, and styles of living. Food and styles of celebrations are parts of peoples’ culture as well as heritage. They have their own different practices and unique habits. Indeed, culture influences our views, values and even fears. It is considered a part of a person’s life as well as it shapes the person’s character. It also enhances people’s understanding of their world to see it according to the community where were raised.
In his essay, “What is Culture?”, Kluckhohn explains the differences and similarities amongst world’s peoples. To support his explanation of the differences and similarities he provides the concept of culture. It is difficult to give this concept a precise definition because the word “culture” is a broad term. Kluckhohn allows the reader to understand the concept of culture by providing examples of cultural differences along with some anthropological evidence to support his views.
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.
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.
This paper aims to examine how gender differences are manifested in linguistic behavior. It focuses on the way men and women speak rather than that they are spoken about. Their speech differences in politeness, interaction, style and confidence are socialization practices which connote the power inequality between the two sexes. Examples of genderlects will be presented, and possible explanations from different perspectives will be evaluated before making a reasonable conclusion on the issue.
Wood, J. T. (2011). Gendered Verbal Communication. Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture (10th ed., pp. 118-137). Boston, MA: Cengage.
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.
Culture is the whole system of ideas, action and result of the work of human beings in the frame work of the life of the community. Culture includes everything that is reserved, and his sense of hu...
The book An Intorduction of Sociolinguistics is an outstanding introductary book in the field of sociolinguistics. It encompasses a wide range of language issues. In chapter 13, Wardhaugh provides a good insight to the relationship between language and gender. He explains gender differences of language-in-use with concise examples. Wardhaugh riases questions about sexist language and guides readers to look closer at how people use language differently because of their own gender in daily life. According to the Whorfian hypothesis, which indicates that the way people use language reflects their thoughts, different genders adapt different communication strategies.