Jessica Baeza: Response Paper 2-September 28, 2014
1. Understanding Identity
a. Identities that are created through communication are identities that you communicate to others. They are identities that you express about yourself while you are communicating with others. It is also how other people see you through your actions, ideas, and thoughts. It is how we define ourselves through our communication with others and how our communication defines us (Martin & Nakayama, 2011.) When I am communicating with a stranger, my identity is as a Mexican American. When I communicate with a friend, my identity is as a kind and caring friend. When I communicate with a teacher, advisor, other student, or professor, I am identified as a student. When I communicate
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Identities that are dynamic are identities that are always changing through our experiences and communication (Martin & Nakayama, 2011.) One of my dynamic identities is my ethnic identity. When I lived in Mexico, Spanish was my only language and I only communicated with the Mexican community. Moving to the United States, I communicated with mostly only American citizens that spoke English. I had to adapt and learn the language, English, and learn to communicate with the new culture.
f. Identities that are developed in different ways in different cultures are cultures learned through your culture (Martin & Nakayama, 2011.) My Mexican culture has taught me that family is the most important thing in my live. I depend on all my family and trust in each and every one of them. I am really close to all my family and even my extended family. Especially now that I am a mother, I hope to aspire that value in my daughter’s life.
g. Since we all learn and develop different identities trying to communicate with people of different identities is difficult and has its implications. We often try to communicate with others the way we would communicate with ourselves. In order to interact with other cultures and identities, we must learn those identities and learn to adapt to those other identities. In order to have successful intercultural communication, we must accept our differences but discover our similarities, as
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I chose to pick the TV show scene “How I Met Your Mother,” Season 8: episode 23. All throughout the show, Ted, the male character, had been relying on the universe to give him signs about the future and his future love life. Robin, the female character, had always thought Ted was dumb for looking for signs. Robin lets herself find her our destiny. In this scene, Robin and Ted are at the park where Robin is looking for her locket. Years before she had buried her locket in the park for when she got married. When she was finally engaged, she looked for that locket for hours and asked for Ted to help but they cannot find it anywhere. Robin finally gives up and states that maybe it is a sign from the universe telling her not to get married. This scene has five important intercultural communication components; identities created through communication, identities created in spurts, identities of different cultures, gender identity, and national identity. It has identities created through communication because Robin knows how to identify Ted, as a believer in the universe and destiny, through their friendship. Ted identifies Robin as a skeptic. Identities created in spur are in this excerpt because Robin finally realizes that maybe she had been wrong all along and should believe in signs from the universe, especially considering something as important as her wedding. The scene incorporates the identities of different cultures and national identity because Robin as a Canadian and
Although the concept of identity is recurrent in our daily lives, it has interpreted in various ways.
What is identity? Often, people confuse identity with personality. While personality describes your personal qualities such as being shy or outgoing, identity involves a combination of different aspects. Culture, language, family, friends, and society are a few of the aspects that helps shape a person's identity. For a person to feel identified, they must share similarities or differences with others. Sharing personality traits is effortless, but identity requires active engagement. Identity also involves a combination of how you see yourself and how others see you. How others see you can be influenced by economic, social, and physical constraints. These constraints cause a tension between how much control you have in constructing your own
In the world there are around 7 billion people. Each one of these people has characteristics of who they are that are unique to them. In turn, the way we see our peers, and people we interact and communicate with is unique to us. Every moment, each person on earth performs an identity. In Human Communication in Society by Jess K. Alberts, Thomas K. Nakayama and Judith N Martin (2016), identity is defined as “…individual and social categories a person identifies with, as well as the categories that others identify with that person.” (p. 47) During an average day we preform many identities at once. Without these identities, 7 billion people would be carbon copies of each other. Communication with others and identity are symbiotic. As humans we derive meaning for the world around us through “…social or symbolic, interaction.” (Alberts, Nakayama, Martin, 2016, p. 50) In the modern age we live, some of our most prevalent forms of communication, are through media. Media will always shape our identities, as we are constantly surrounded by it.
Furthermore, identity comes from how people choose to comprehend and perceive their own self. The elements of identity are limitless because you can choose to be whoever you want to be, despite the opinions of others. Thus, one’s identity tends to be unique, in a sense, compared to other
Culture and identity are two very strange ideas. They are received at a very young age, yet they are very hard to give to someone else. They will affect you for the rest or your life, yet for the most part you are born into them. However, they soon become very important to us and we cannot, no matter what we do, live without them. They are a part of us, and a vital aspect of society. However, it took me a very long time to recognize that I had an identity and a little while after that before I knew what it was.
There are three identities that all people have but depending on the culture, they chose one dimension to emphasize and downplay the other two. In the Mexican-American culture, they tend to value the family identity the most. Martin and Nakayama (2013) define familial identity as, “The sense of self as always connected to family and others” (p. 172). This was shown in the film Selena many times. The family was the most important aspect of their lives and that is the way they wanted it. Every decision that was made revolved around the family and how it would affect it. A specific example that illustrates this from the movie is when Selena married her guitarist, Chris. Her father had told her s...
Identity is the condition of being oneself regardless of variation in an individual’s surroundings that provides sameness in their distinctive qualities over time. No two individuals are the same, therefore, no two identities are the same. Every aspect of their past, present, and future molds their being into something never seen before. Each identity is extremely intricate and ever changing so truly understanding another’s identity is an astonishingly difficult task. Identity can be described in all of these ways, but language - the system of communication, diction, and connotation of the form in which an individual speaks - is the backbone of identity. Conforming language to the words someone hears around them instead of truly allowing their
Through the past of the time I embraced Mexican history, and understood the life style in Mexico. In my opinion, people often identify themselves to a specific ethnicity when they fully un...
“Every culture has a unique set of values, traditions, and norms. The general culture of Mexican American families have a strong foundation of unity”(Garcia). Mexican Americans value and it gives a sense of strength. Overall, Mexican American families have role that are always changing, values that are always true, the number of members in each household and all the unique celebrations. All bring out the cultural identity and individuality of Mexican culture.
Identity is a word that is used very commonly and regularly by people in their daily life. Identity formation is a process of developing distinct, separate identity. “A person’s identity has many attributes. It is a representation of one’s unique personal experience, memory, ethnicity, culture, religious orientation, gender, occupational role, amongst various other factors. Erikson refers to identity as “some belief in the sameness and continuity of some shared world image.”Identity may be defined as one’s consciousness of one self and others’ perception of one’s individuality”, (Yamin, 2008).
There are two papers to be investigated in this essay which deals with the (re)construction of identities due to linguistic practices and spatial movements across boundaries. The first paper is a research done by De Fina (2013) who focused on the investigation of top-down and bottom-up strategies manifested in the construction of identities of participants taking part in an interaction. In her introduction, she highlighted that these identities are constantly negotiated when one interacts with one’s surroundings. It was pointed out that traditional forms and ideas on identity construction and analysis has undergone massive changes due to the pervasive nature of modern technology and ease of mobility which defies the rather stationary nature of human beings in the past. Needless to say, interactions that shape and frame identities now occur more constantly and are less predictable than it had been previously. In addition, De Fina differentiated between top-down and bottom-up strategies in identity construction. The former is performed by those who are observers of a particular interaction, or outsiders looking into a conversation while the latter is carried out by the participants in the interactions in question, or the interlocutors of a communicative act. The interactions investigated were extracted from ‘the Spanish radio station El Zol…broadcasting in the greater Washington-Baltimore area’ (De Fina, 2013, p. 556).
My cultural identity is heavily influenced by my family. My family is the biggest factor in shaping my cultural identity. Without them I would be a completely different person. My likes and dislikes, the way I react to things, what I say, what I do, and my overall personality is influenced by my family. My family has influenced my entire personality.
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.
There are a lot of different cultures in the world we live in today. Finding the place you belong and discovering your own culture can be a challenge. This is especially true when you look at culture as an individual versus culture in your family, or even within your community. I’ve always been very family oriented, so that plays a big part in who I am and how my family’s dynamic works. I believe that my family has had a huge impact on the development of my culture, and I hope that I have had the same impact on theirs.
In the modern society, the concept of identity is gaining much attention from both scientists and the wide public. The idea of identity is connected with the issues of identification and determining one's role in the society. However, the problem with the identity concerns the idea that it is perceived through numerous external factors that tend to determine the social status of a person and his or her belonging to a certain group. With regard to this, very often the identity of every particular person tends to be misinterpreted and perceived incorrectly. The incorrect interpretation of a person's identity usually comes as a result of cultural differences. The aspects that define the person’s identity usually include the labels that tend to be imposed on people due to their world-view, the language they are speaking, the racial belonging, or even the clothes they are wearing.