Final Thoughts

And so another end to another semester, what a relief! By far, I can say that my most enjoyable class this semester in Singapore was GEK 1036, Cross Cultural Communication and Discourse! When signing up for this class at the beginning of the semester, I had a somewhat rough idea of what to expect…I was not close at all. I predicted a lot of reading and writing as well as an in-depth analysis of past literatures (boring!) Not only was this class stress-free and hosted every Friday in a stress-free lecture environment, but it was also a very useful class. Each aspect of this module (blogging, lectures and research project) was effective in aiding me to acquire a better knowledge of communications across cultures. As opposed to some classes, I will be able to take the information learned from this module and apply it directly to my real world life. I can say that very few other classes can offer the same thing.

Lectures this semester were a great experience. Never have I positively interacted in a class and had so much fun! The numerous activities that we did throughout the semester kept me involved and attentive to the material being taught. The class size was perfect for close interaction. In addition, I was able to get to get to know my peers, which was not the case in some of my other modules. Having the luxury of just sitting and listening in class without having to worry about taking notes for exams and quizzes allowed me to enjoy the class and more specifically the material being taught. One may think that with no tests there is no incentive, which is true, but in this module it allowed for the material being taught to sink in a lot easier. Never have I enjoyed the lecture material and environment so much in a course before!

Being able to express and reflect my opinions of the lecture material in an informal manner is a first for me. I really enjoyed it! Not having to worry about proper sentence structure and formatting and being able to freely write was wonderful! There was no pressure and stress to complete the weekly blogs. Moreover, I believe that the blogs allowed for more realistic feedback on the material being taught. It gives the professor a better understanding of how well students know the material as opposed to a formal paper where students obviously have to read and study to prepare. I would definitely recommend blogging for future students taking this course!

I would finally like to comment on the final project for this class. Even though collecting the data and analyzing it was quite tedious, it was a great opportunity to take what I’d learnt in class and apply it to real life situations. Moreover, the research question we posed and answered provided me with an insight to gender differences across instant messaging. Listening to peer presentations on other topics was also quite interesting as their results were sometimes surprising.

Overall, I really enjoyed this course including the lecturer. Not only because it was stress free and did not have a heavy work load, but because of the material and creative way it was taught. This module could not have been any different or else it would not even be considered a course. If there as any more freedom and flexibility in this module it would just be WAY TO ENJOYABLE for school! haha

I would finally like to thank Dr. Deng for structuring such a great module and making everything so enjoyable! Thank you!

Cross Gender Interaction

Why do guys speak and interact like "guys" ? (for the most part)

Most often guys talk about the SAME things. I'm sure there are girls who over hear guy conversations and just roll their eyes because of the conversation topics. Why do guys talk about the same "manly" things all the time such as sports, business, money, cars and women? Moreover, why do men tend to talk with certain tendencies and slang terms? One of these tendencies is the lazy, and I just don't care enough attitude.

From my experiences with friends, guys do like to "conform" to guy talk for two reasons. The first is that they want to feel like they are a part of the group and that they can associate and relate to everyone else. The conversation topics mentioned above are easy ways to relate and converse with other males. Most guys have a fair amount of knowledge on these topics, unlike shopping, cosmetics and tv dramas. (not saying that this is all females talk about) The second reason males like to talk about the same "manly' things is so that they can look "cool" infront of females. No males likes to be embarrassed or not "one of the guys" when there are girls around. Each male likes to show off his masculinity and toughness to females. This reason covers the point of, why do guys not cry openly?

Males behave and use certain speech acts to feel connected to other males. Being able to swear and use the same slang makes every male feel like they are a part of something. Knowing inside jokes and stories plays a large part in a group of males. From my experience, when a male misses out on a joke or event, it makes that male feel more excluded and not as close to everyone else.

Here are a couple short clips I found on youtube about men being "men"

Video 1: This is a video trying to explain why guys don't cry and possible reasons why is it or isn't allowed.



Video 2: This video is just a collage of clips, where guys reveal situations in which they have cried. The video puts the interviewed males in some really awkward situations, when they are questioned.



One question I have after writing this blog is: do females even find it attractive when males act all friendly in their own group? what about when guys act tough?

Computer Mediated Communication

Sometimes people believe that talking through CMC affects the way we communicate with other when we are face-to-face. This is especially convincing when we hear people out in public saying things like OMG, LOL, LMFAO, BRB etc. which are very commonly used CMC terms. When asking people why they use CMC terms, they often say that its short form and quicker, which I guess is understood since Sinaporeans do the same thing by talking really quickly and shortening words.

However , I do not think that CMC affects the way we talk face-to-face. Even though we tend to use some "lingo" from our CMC because we actively use that method of communication, I think that people who use both methods are completely aware of when to use the norms of each. When we are in face-to-face communication situations we do not even consider responding in ways that we do over CMC communication. (eg. one word answers with lots of smiley faces and exclamation marks)

Here is a rather funny clip about using computer lingo in person.



If we did decide to talk face-to-face using CMC lingo and norms we perhaps would sound like the following... (watch second half of the video)

Face and Politeness - Off Record

After reading the lecture the most interesting ideas that caught my attention were "on" and "off the record" conversations. I always knew that these types of conversations existed, but had no idea that they were categorized. I myself probably use both types, even though I do not like it when people are off the record. I prefer it when people are direct and forward with their conversations, especially when they want something from me. I have a friend that is ALWAYS off the record whether it is a favor or object that he wants from me or attention.

Some examples,
He would walk into my room and say to himself "I'm soooo lonely... (sigh)" expecting me to give him attention and ask what is wrong.

If we were in the kitchen, he would say "Who had pasta for dinner and left their dishes in the sink? I hate it when people do that" This is when he fully knew that I had pasta for dinner.

If I ever wanted to drive his car to school, he would say "The car is a little low on gas, and I was going to fill it up the next time I went out... (pause)" and wait till I would say that I would fill it up

Initially, I tried to please my friend giving him the attention or other request he wanted, but more recently I have begun to ignore those "hints." What I'm getting at is, what is the polite way to respond to someone who is annoying you because they are always indirect and can never ask a direct question? Since a lot of the time, they are only hinting at a question, do you avoid it and go along with their "off the record conversation"?

Components and Representation

Yet again this week we were introduced to another aspect of communication that I would have never thought was given much thought or research. After this lecture I realized the importance of the "macro" look to communication and how cultural traits can influence communication.

Hofstede's model of cultural variability does a good job at using the proper dimensions to evaluate culture differences. In general, the results did not shock me as I had already had some idea where counties would place on the spectrum. I knew that Americans and Caucasians would place in the category of "low context cultures" and Orientals would place in the "high text cultures", but did not have expectations for Latin Americans, Greeks, Spanish and the French. (Not having any good friends in any of these cultures) Therefore this lecture helped show me the differences between the cultures that I am not very familiar with. It was very surprising to me to see the Latin Americans at the higher end of the continuum as I never knew that Latin Americans were homogeneous in their experiences and have not changed very much over time.

Through personal experience I can easily see why Americans are placed on the lower end of the spectrum. For example, I can come up with an instance where individualism is shown in the American culture. When students move onto university and college, the majority of them will look into schools that are away from home. (too far to commute) This is because most students want to get away from home to live by themselves and "party" without the rules of their parents.
I would say that moving away from home to go to university is more of the "in" thing to do as you get a lot more freedom. With my parents, moving away was primarily to help me to become more independent as a student, to help me "survive" out in the real world. This meant getting up for class on my own, doing my own laundry, cooking for myself, cleaning, paying bills etc.

Since there are so many different cultures it is quite amazing how they all communicate and get along with each other regardless of the many differences they have. I wonder if the trends that we see now will continue to exist of will they all eventually blend into one?

Written Discourse

Coming from a Canadian (North American) up bringing, I had no idea how different written discourse could be across different cultures. From the lecture notes, I have learned quite a bit about Chinese discourse and its several different tenancies. I had always questioned some of the writing styles of my Chinese friends, but never mentioned anything. I now know the reason for their "obscure" writing styles. Being in Singapore, I hope to come across more experience with Chinese written discourse, so that I can learn more about the culture.

The notes cover several different tenancies for Chinese writing, however I wonder what the influences of these written discourses are. How is it that across cultures, written discourse can be so different? I'm sure they must all have different influences from different cultural backgrounds. Being a Japanese Canadian, I wonder at which point did my family switch from Japanese written discourse to Canadian (North American) written discourse and why?

Like several other people have mentioned, how have people from different cultures avoided confusion when reading each others literature? I can't even imagine the frustration and confusion that arises.

As we have now passed the half way mark in our semester, I have come to realize that I have learned several different aspects of communication that are common everyday. This class has shown me a whole new aspect to analyzing communication across cultures. I have learned that there is a reason for everything that I would have never suspected in communication, such as written discourse. Up until now I just accepted communication and had not questioned it at all, but this course has so far really been beneficial to understanding cultures.

Spoken Discourse: Phone Openings

For myself, phone openings tend to vary A LOT depending on who it is, what time it is, and where I am.
For the most part, I like to be a very social and polite person on the phone although is always isn't the case.

Strange enough as it is, when starting a conversation on the phone, I always try to fit in a couple routine questions before the actual conversation starts. Questions such as, "where are you?", "how have you been?", and "what have you been up to?"
I will even ask the questions if I don't care about the answer at all. Does that make me a terrible person? haha
Does anyone else do the same thing?

However there are instances where all my social phone behavior goes right out the window. When I get a call early in the morning or when I'm out at night with my friends I tend to skip the introduction questions and try to get the conversation over with as fast as possible so that I can get back to what I was doing. In other cases, I will skip a phone opening if I was just talking to the person a minute ago or if I'm in a rush.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, my phone behavior and phone openings completely change when I am on the phone for a job interview. It's almost like I'm a new person and have complete interest in EVERYTHING the other person has to say. I am very attentive and respond with a listener response after almost every sentence. I wonder whether phone interviewers know that I'm not being myself 100%? and if they even take into consideration my extreme politeness and attentive behavior?

Do you guys do the same, and have several different "personalities" or behaviors on the phone depending on certain situations?
or... am I the only one?

Speech Events - The Lack of Speech

hey guys, check out this video,
i thought it video was really interesting and connected to our lecture we had last week!

watch from 2:00 minutes - 4:00 minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hzCfOvsq64

To summarize, this clip shows how even without speech in communication, speech events are still governed by rules. This clip also demonstrates that without speech, communication can still be accomplished with gestures.

This video demonstrates the offer/appeal of a good, the acceptance of a good, and a thank you all through gestures.

At 3:05, Creature "5" gives creature "9" a light bulb and is able to demonstrate that he is giving "9" a gift and insists that he/she accepts it.

At 3:30, "5" again is able to alert "9" and make sure that he/she takes cover for safety as "5" will protect them.

As I watched the video, I could imagine the exact words that would have been spoken, even though no words were spoken at all. I guess this video goes to show that even when speech is not used in communication, speech norms are still followed through a series of gestures.

To end this post, I would like to challenge some of you to go out and try to converse with someone without speech and use only gestures, but at the same time follow the norms of speech events as we have learned in class.

Speech Acts

As a Canadian (North American) in Singapore, I have to somewhat agree with the research done on the speech acts/responses from Singaporeans and Americans (Westerners). From what I’ve experienced so far in Singapore, I find that the a lot of Singaporeans are conservative and try to “save face.” I often get confused, awkward responses from locals after giving a simple complement. Earlier this week, I complimented a fellow student on his haircut and asked where he got it from. In return, I was given an awkward stare like I was invading his personal face. After an awkward pause, he uneasily muttered out the name of the barber shop/salon. In another case, I complimented a girl on her outfit for the night, and in return the girl turned away from me, looked down and quietly thanked me. I’m not sure if I have been conversing with the small population of Singapore that is shy or if that is the more actually the more common response I will get.

In North America, complimenting people is taken very well. People will often respond with an enthusiastic thank you, and return the compliment or agree with the one you made. Rarely will a compliment be turned down or unnoticed.

Please do tell me if I am “judging” Singapore by the wrong individuals! haha