CROSS CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING: A HANDBOOK TO UNDERSTAND OTHERS' CULTURES PDF

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CROSS CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING: A HANDBOOK TO UNDERSTAND OTHERS’ CULTURES Umi Pujiyanti & Fatkhunaimah Rhina Zuliani CV. Hidayah Yogyakarta CROSS CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING : A HANDBOOK TO UNDERSTAND OTHERS’ CULTURES Penulis Umi Pujiyanti & Fatkhunaimah Rhina Zuliani Copyright@2014, Umi Pujiyanti ...

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CROSS CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING: A HANDBOOK TO UNDERSTAND OTHERS’ CULTURES

Umi Pujiyanti & Fatkhunaimah Rhina Zuliani

CV. Hidayah Yogyakarta

CROSS CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING : A HANDBOOK TO UNDERSTAND OTHERS’ CULTURES

Penulis Umi Pujiyanti & Fatkhunaimah Rhina Zuliani Copyright@2014, Umi Pujiyanti & Fatkhunaimah Rhina Zuliani Hak Cipta dilindungi undang-undang. Dilarang mengutip, memperbanyak dan menerjemahkan sebagian atau seluruh isi buku ini tanpa izin tertulis dari penerbit. All right reserved

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Penerbit CV. Hidayah Jl. Nagan Lor no. 14 Yogyakarta 55133 Telp. 0274 584227, 7830011 Email : [email protected] | [email protected] Cetakan pertama, 2014 Dimensi buku A5, 21 x 15 ix, 166 halaman Softcover ISBN 978-602-1230-55-8

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Foreword In teaching English as second language or foreign language, students are usually confronted with so many ideas of strange cultural items. This condition somehow also influences their motivations, their willingness and their interest in studying the language. We consider this condition as a drawback we should omit. As teachers, then, we compose this book as a means to help students understand western cultures. This book consists of eleven chapters. Chapter I discusses the relation between Language and Culture which is then followed by General American Values for the Chapter II. Stereotypes comes at Chapter III where we can find discussion about certain ‗label‘ given to certain people from certain country. Chapter IV shares Intercultural Communication and Non-Verbal Communication is for Chapter V. Culture Shock as the initial feelings we find when touching other cultures‘ environment. It is continued by Cultural Conflict as Chapter VI. Male and Female Relationship, Table Manner and Hotel Tour are the rest of the Chapters. Regards, Umi Pujiyanti dan Fatkhunaimah Rhina

Cross Cultural Understanding | iii

TABLE OF CONTENT CHAPTER I LANGUAGE AND CULTURE .................. 1 A. Culture .......................................................................... 1 1. Definition of Culture ................................................ 1 2. Cultural Universal .................................................... 5 3. Types of Culture ....................................................... 7 4. Cultural Patterns of Behavior ................................... 7 B. Language ...................................................................... 8 C. The Relationship Between Language and Culture ......... 9 EXERCISES ....................................................................... 10 CHAPTER II GENERAL AMERICAN VALUES ........... 13 A. Freedom ........................................................................ 13 B. Individualism ................................................................ 14 C. Punctuality .................................................................... 14 D. Volunteerism ................................................................. 15 E. Equality ........................................................................ 16 F. Informality .................................................................... 17 G. Idealizing what is practical ........................................... 17 H. Mobility ........................................................................ 18 I. Progress......................................................................... 18 EXERCISES ....................................................................... 19

iv | Cross Cultural Understanding

CHAPTER III STEREOTYPE .......................................... 21 A. Kinds of Stereotypes ..................................................... 26 1. Nationality stereotypes ............................................. 26 2. Racial stereotypes ..................................................... 31 3. Political stereotypes .................................................. 32 4. Gender stereotypes ................................................... 32 B. Stereotypes in Media ..................................................... 33 C. Positive and Negative Side of Stereotype ....................... 35 D. Dealing with Stereotypes ............................................... 36 1. Between Individuals. ............................................... 36 2. In the Media ............................................................. 38 3. In Education............................................................. 39 EXERCISES ....................................................................... 41

CHAPTER IV INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ........................................................ 43 A. Barriers to Intercultural Communication ........................ 48 1. Attitude ................................................................... 48 2. Perception ............................................................... 50 3. Stereotype ............................................................... 50 4. Interpretation .......................................................... 51 5. Culture Shock ......................................................... 53 6. Non-Verbal Behavior .............................................. 53 B. Cultural Learning ........................................................... 55 C. Dealing with Difference .................................................. 56 Cross Cultural Understanding | v

D. Improving Intercultural Communication ........................ 57 1. Break the Assumptions ............................................ 58 2. Empathise ............................................................... 58 3. Involve .................................................................... 59 4. Discourage Herd Mentality ..................................... 59 5. Avoid Insensitive Behavior...................................... 59 EXERCISES ....................................................................... 61 CHAPTER V NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION...... 65 A. Body Language (Kinesics) .............................................. 65

B.

1.

Body movement (gesture) ........................................ 66

2.

Body Position .......................................................... 71

3.

Facial Expressions ................................................... 71

4.

Dress ....................................................................... 88

Eye Contact (Oculistics) ............................................... 89

C. Touch (Haptics) ........................................................... 91 D. Body Distance/Space (Proxemics) .............................. 93 E. Paralangue .................................................................. 96 F.

Turn - taking ............................................................... 97

EXERCISES ....................................................................... 98 CHAPTER VI CULTURE SHOCK .................................. 103 A. Cause of shock culture ................................................. 104 B.

The symptoms of shock culture .................................... 105

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C. The Stages of Shock Culture ........................................ 106 D. Coping shock culture.................................................... 108 EXERCISE ......................................................................... 109 CHAPTER VII CULTURAL CONFLICT ....................... 111 A. The Cause of Cultural Conflict ..................................... 112 B.

Dealing with Cultural Conflict ..................................... 113

EXERCISE ......................................................................... 114

CHAPTER VIII MALE AND FEMALE RELATIONSHIP .............................................. 117 A. Stereotype about American Men and Women .............. 117 B.

Women and Gender Discrimination ............................ 118

C. Women Liberation ....................................................... 119 1. Women working and househusband ........................ 120 2. Single parent ........................................................... 121 D. Sexual Revolution .......................................................... 122 EXERCISE ......................................................................... 123 CHAPTER IX TABLE MANNER .................................... 125 A. Etiquettes ...................................................................... 128 1. Starting to eat ........................................................... 128 2. Napkin ..................................................................... 129 3. Fork ......................................................................... 129

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B. World Table Manner ..................................................... 133 1. United kingdom ...................................................... 133 2. India ........................................................................ 133 3. China ...................................................................... 135 4. South Korea ............................................................ 136 EXERCISE ......................................................................... 138 CHAPTER X HOTEL TOUR ........................................... 139 GLOSSARIES .................................................................... 149 REFERENCES .................................................................. 165

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LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 : the Iceberg Analogy of Culture ....................... 3 Figure 3.1 : Levels of uniqueness ...................................... 22 Figure 3.2 : How attitudes and belief are distributed .......... 24 Figure 3.3 : Racial stereotypes ........................................... 31 Figure 3.4 : Gender stereotypes ......................................... 33 Figure 4.1 : Communication model .................................. 43 Figure 4.2 : Phases of cultural learning ............................. 55 Figure 5.1 : space pattern .................................................. 93 Figure 6.1 : The Stages of Shock Culture and Cultural Adjustment ................................ 106 Figure 10.1 : Dining setting ................................................. 128 Figure 10.2 : Fork handling ................................................. 130 Figure 10.3 : Continental fork signal ................................... 131 Figure 10.4 : American fork signal ...................................... 132

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CHAPTER I CULTURE AND LANGUAGE Many people who go abroad encounter features in their host culture that they may find disturbing. Reaction to these alien aspects of the new culture can dampen the entire experience in the country, resulting in various kinds of negative reactions. Learning another culture, developing relationships with people you meet, communicating efficiently, and adapting to the environment is a complex task of cross-cultural understanding. Cross-cultural understanding is concerned with understanding people from different cultural backgrounds/culture of the people so we can construct our attitudes and world view, more tolerable and generous toward strange ways that may be shown by other citizen of another country. If a person from an alien culture misinterprets a complex pattern of culture, then cross cultural misunderstanding arise.

A. Culture 1. Definition of Culture Culture comes from Latin cultura, means cultivation. British

anthropologist Edward

Tylor first

gave

the

definition of culture which is widely quoted: ―Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs,

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arts, morals, law, custom and any other capacities and habits acquired by man as a member of society‖. Newmark describes culture as a way of life of a certain society which is expressed by certain language. Clifford Geertz stated that culture is a symbolic meaning system. It is semiotic system in which symbols function to communicate meaning from one mind to another. Cultural symbols encode a connection between a signifying form and a signaled meaning. Culture might also be defined as ideas, customs, skills, arts, and tools which characterize a given group of people in a period of time Culture as described by Larson and Smalley is ―blue print‖. It guides the behavior of people in a community and is developed in family life and helps us to know what we can do as individuals and what our responsibilities as a member of a group. From the standpoint of contemporary cultural anthropologists, culture is characterized by the following four basic features: 1)

Culture is a kind of social inheritance instead of biological heritage;

2)

Culture is shared by the whole community, not belonging to any particular individual;

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3) Culture is a symbolic meaning system in which language is one of the most important ones; 4) Culture is a unified system, the integral parts of which are closely related to one another. In general, culture can be divided into three categories: -

Material

culture

as

the

product

of

human

manufacture -

Social culture as the people‘s form of social organization

-

Ideological culture including people‘s belief and values. Culture itself is like an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg is

the smallest part. Most of the iceberg is submerged.

(Figure 1.1: the Iceberg Analogy of Culture) Cross Cultural Understanding | 3

The same is true for a culture. That which we can easily see, the external part of a culture including behavior, clothing, food, is the smallest part. Meanwhile the internal part, including beliefs, values, norms, and attitude, is beneath the water level of awareness. It is inside people‘s heads. In every society there is a set of cultural beliefs which in large measure defines the implicit culture of that society and set if off from another society. The belief system of a society includes all the cognition namely ideas, knowledge, superstitions, myths, and legend, shared by most members of society. Cultural norms are rules of standard behavior accepted by members of society. Norms are divided into folkways and mores. Norms are called folkways when conformity to them is not considered vital to the welfare of the group and when the means of enforcing conformity is not very clearly defined. In American folkways specifies that on formal occasion, a man should wears a tie. The punishment of this conformity is that he may be flowned upon,or talked about. Mores are norms which specify behavior of vital importance to the society and which embody its basic moral values. The example of a more is that a man must provide for his wife and children. When he fails to do so 4 | Cross Cultural Understanding

can be a cause for a legal action. The mores are actively enforced by the members of the society either through legal action or through social sanction.

Sanction is a

penalty, or some coercive measure, intended to ensure compliance. Value is a collection of guiding principles; what one deems to be correct and desirable in life. Cultures have values that are largely shared by their members, which identify what should be judged as good or evil. Values tend to influence attitudes and behavior. For example, American values human equality. (Further discussion about American values will be in the next chapter).

2. Cultural Universal Cultural universals are elements common to all human

cultures,

regardless

of

historical

moment,

geography, or cultural origin. There is a tension in cultural anthropology and cultural sociology between the claim that culture is a universal (the fact that all human societies have culture), and that it is also particular (culture takes a tremendous variety of forms around the world). Koentjoroningrat (1990) categorizes cultural universal into seven, namely: 1. Language 2. Knowledge system Cross Cultural Understanding | 5

3. Social organizations 4. Life tool system 5. Livelihood system 6. Religion system 7. Art The idea of cultural universals itself runs contrary to cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is the idea that all norms, beliefs, and values are dependent on their cultural context, and should not be used in the study or description of another culture. The way to deal with our own assumptions is not to pretend that they don't exist but rather to acknowledge them, and then use the awareness that we are not neutral to inform our conclusions. Cultural relativism is, in part, a response to Western ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture. judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one's own culture. Ethnocentrism may take obvious forms, in which one consciously believes that one people's arts are the most beautiful, values the most virtuous, and beliefs the most truthful.

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3. Types of Culture The word ―culture‖ doesn‘t mean just national culture, but the whole range of different types of culture. These include: 1. Corporate culture (for example, the culture of Apple, Microsoft) 2. Professional culture (for example, the culture of doctors, lawyers) 3. Gender (different cultures of men and women) 4. Age ( the different cultures of young, middle-aged, and old-people) 5. Religious culture (for example, Catholicism, Islam, Budha) 6. Regional culture (for example, Western, Eastern) 7. Class culture (for example, working class, middle class, upper class)

4. Cultural Patterns of Behavior Cultures have widely characteristics, but such patterns for living according to some anthropologists have universal characteristics. George Peter Murdock in Tomasow (1986) mentions seven cultural patterns of behavior, namely: 1. They originate in the human mind. 2. They facilitate human and environmental interactions. Cross Cultural Understanding | 7

3. They satisfy human basic needs. 4. They are cumulative and adjust to changes in external and internal conditions. 5. They tend to form a consistent structure. 6. They are learned and shared by all members of the society. 7. They are transmitted to new generations.

B. Language According to Sapir (1921), ―language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desire by means of voluntarily produced symbols.‖ Language is a part of culture and a part of human behavior. It is often held that the function of language is to express thought and to communicate information. Language also fulfills many other tasks such as greeting people, conducting religious service, etc. Language and culture are intertwined because language is an outcome or result of a culture as a whole and also a vehicle by which the other aspects of culture are shaped and communicate. Three major functions of language are: 1. Language is the primary vehicle of communication;

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2. Language reflects both the personality of the individual and the culture of his history. In turn, it helps shape both personality and culture; 3. Language makes possible the growth and transmission of culture, the continuity of societies, and the effective functioning and control of social group.

C. The Relationship Between Language and Culture It is obvious that lan...