Unit 1intercultural communication in the global context

The term “girl” is sometimes interpreted to be demeaning or disrespectful.
一位大学女生对一位30多岁的售货员说： “小姐，把这给我看看。” “小姐” 回答说: “你 没看我多大了，小姐不是随便可以叫的。”
Question: Why was the shop assistant angry with the university student?
For most people, “woman” means someone who is married and who probably is not young. In fact, most single Chinese females, such as university students, would be insulted to be called “women”.
The remedy, according to Dr. Strenger, is a process that he calls “active self-acceptance” through a sustained quest for self-knowledge through life. The fear for insignificance can only be overcome through strong individual and cultural identity over and above measurable achievement. He believes that people need to invest as much time in developing their worldview as their careers.
“In the States, we call ourselves ‘women’ if we’re old enough to go to the university, calling us ‘girls’ is insulting.”
Chinese perspective
In china, “girl” means someone who is young and single. In a way, it makes a female sound more desirable to be called a girl rather than a woman.
Dr. Strenger advises, “Stable meaning cannot be found in cheap paperbacks. People should invest time and thought to their worldviews and self-understanding in the same way they invest in medical studies and law school.”
1. What do you think are the reasons for young people’s yearning to be a celebrity today?
2. How can today’s people find their own selfworth and real meaning of life?
Case 2
A multinational Dutch firm that outsourced（外包）the development of a new global information technology service platform to an Indian company. When the Dutch head of the IT group met with the programming team in Bangalore to discuss the core platform on which to build the application, he casually suggested that the Indians use a well-known, commercially available platform. This was only one of many platforms that could be used but one with which the manager was familiar. He asked the lead on the Indian team if they could build the application on that platform.
“You asked us to build it on a very unfriendly platform for this application,” was the reply. “It would have been better doing it in a different way.” The Dutch technology manager was astonished.
Analysis
Just as Dr Strenger notices that over the recent years people around the world have been suffering from an increasing fear of their own “insignificance”. As humans we naturally measure ourselves to those around us, but now we live in a global village we are comparing ourselves with the most significant people in the world—and finding ourselves wanting. In the past being a lawyer or doctor was a very reputable profession. But today, even high achievers constantly fear that they are insignificant when they compare themselves to success stories in the media.
Case 1
A generation ago young people aspired to become lawyers and doctors. Now they yearn to be the next Oscar winner or celebrity pop star. Bur Dr. Carlo Strenger, a university psychologist warned that this is weakening havoc (大破坏，浩劫) with our self-image and undermining our sense of self-worth.
He began an interdisciplinary project on the phenomenon ten years ago. By using a wide-ranging framework he thinks that he has pinpointed（准确找到） the cause. “The impact of the global infotainment（资讯娱乐）network in the individual is to blame.”
American perspective
What to call females is a sensitive and sometimes confusing issue in the west.
In formal, public settings, it is customary to call any woman who is pen though she may not be legally old enough to vote, marry, purchase alcoholic beverages, drive a car, or sign a contract. This terminology became widespread during the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s.
Unit 1
Intercultural Communication in the Global Context
Warm up
As a visiting professor in an American university, Chunghwa was invited to give a lecture to a group of American students; he talked about university students in China. During the question-and–answer period after the lecture, one female student asked a question that surprised Chunghwa “when you talked about female students, you referred to them as girls. Why?”
“Yes,” the team leader replied, “we can do it.”
After six months of delay and cost overruns （超支）in excess of $10 million, the job was finished. The IT manager of the Dutch firm asked the Indian team why it had cost so much more and had taken so much longer than they had originally estimated.