跨文化作业7

Chapter 7 Cultural Patterns

Text A

1.Why understanding differences in cultural patterns is extremely important for effective

intercultural communication?

Because cultural patterns are the basis for interpreting the symbols used in communication. If the cultural patterns between people are different, the symbols used in communicating will be interpreted differently and may be misunderstand.

2.How is cultural patterns defined?

Cultural patterns can be defined as following: shared beliefs, values, norms, and social practices that are stable over time and that lead to roughly similar behaviors across similar situations.

3.What are other factors besides culture that influence how we see the world and

communicate the world?

These are both influenced by factors, including age, gender, status, occupation, etc.

Case 40

1.What different views do Fua and Hettie hold on the issue of lending money, especially to

family members?

Hettie became very upset. She never heard of parents asking children for money. She thought it was children who were supposed to borrow from parents and parents borrow from banks.

Hettie thought it was unreasonable to lend money to family member. But Fua thought to lend money family member is very common, and it was also kind of honor.

2.What do you think causes the differences?

It is caused by different cultural patterns. Different cultural patterns are provided people different ways of thinking. Cultural patterns provide the basic set of standards that guide thought and action. Fua come from Laos ,and Hettie come from German, so they have different cultural patterns. So in this situation, they have different thoughts.

Text B

1.What are the components of cultural patterns?

Beliefs, values, norms and social practices together constitute the components of cultural patterns.

2.And how is each of the components defined? Support with examples.

Beliefs: a belief is an idea that people assume to be true about the world. For example, a widely shared belief dates back to the time when Europeans believed that the earth was flat.

That is ,people “knew”that the earth was flat. Most people now “know”that the earth is basically round and would laugh at any suggestion that it is flat.

Values: involve what a culture regards as good or bad, right or wrong, fair or unfair, just or unjust, beautiful or ugly, clean or dirty, valuable or worthless, appropriate or inappropriate,

and kind or cruel. For example, Americans value youth rather than old age. In Korea, however, respect for elder is a positive value.

Norms: are the socially shared expectations of appropriate behaviors. For example, the greeting behaviors of people within a culture are governed by norms.

Social practices: are the predictable behavior patterns that members of a cultural typically follow. For example, in the United States, lunch is usually over by 1:30 pm. But in Italy, lunch hasn’t even begun by 1:30 pm.

3.What are the value types proposed by Schwartz?

Schwartz’s value types: power, achievement, Hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, security, benevolence, tradition and conformity.

4.What values do Chinese cultures stress? And what values do westerners stress?

Chinese cultures stress power, conformity, universalism, security, benevolence, and tradition.

Westerners stress achievement, self- direction, hedonism, stimulation.

Text C

1.What is context according to Hall?

Hall defines context as the information that surrounds an event. It is inextricably bound up with the meaning of the event.

2.What are the main features of high-context cultures?

In high-context cultures, people are very homogeneous with regard to experiences, information networks and the like. Information is provided through gestures, the use of space, and even silence. It tend to be more aware of their surroundings and their environment and do not rely on verbal communication as their main information channel.

3.What are the main features of low-context cultures?

In low- context cultures, the population is less homogeneous, the verbal message contains most of the information and very little is shown in the context or the participants. Member of low-context cultures expect messages to be detailed, clear-cut, and definite.

Text E

1.What are the four value dimensions of cultural variability of Hofstede?

Individualism and collectivism, uncertainly avoidance, power distance, masculinity and feminity.

2.What is the main difference between individualism and collectivism?

1.The individual is the single most important unit in any social setting, regardless of the

size of that unit, and the uniqueness of each individual is of great value, give more importance to individual’s needs when they do things such as setting goals.

2.Collectivism is characterized by a rigid social framework that distinguishes between

in-groups and out-groups. People count on their in-group to look after them, and in exchange for that they believe they owe absolute loyalty to the group.