Student Resources: Chapter 2

Reflection Questions

1. What are four of your own personal worldviews? How do they manifest in your life? In other words, what are one or two examples of each worldview you identify with? Try to be as specific as possible in your examples.
2. Similar to your own personal worldviews, can you identify four values that you strongly feel are important for you? Do you hold others to the same degree of adherence to those values? Do any of your worldviews and values coincide? How might your communication differ once you realize others hold different worldviews and values?
3. In the same way you reflected on worldviews and values, identify four norms you adhere to in your own life. Do you know others who do not abide by those same norms? Are any of your personal norms connected to the worldviews and values you most identify to be true for you?
4. Do you recognize how worldviews, values, and norms are connected to communication? What are some ways that you recognize their influence on your own communication with others? Do you feel more open-minded about differences you encounter in others now that you realize each of us operates with unique ways of viewing the world based on these cultural communication influences?
5. Are the worldviews, values, and norms you most identify in yourself “fixed” or do they depend to some extent upon context?

Online Enrichment Activity

Develop your own personal montage of worldviews, values, and norms using your photo collection of people, places, and things that you have experienced. Arrange the photos in a PowerPoint or other type of photo computer program that you could share with others. Note where your opinions or attitudes have changed over time or depending upon the context in which you find yourself. Do you think your worldviews, values, and norms will continue to change over time? Or have they been established since childhood and will remain the same throughout your lifetime?

Additional Reading

Hall, E., & Hall, M. (1990). Understanding Cultural Differences (Part One). Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press. Hall and Hall discuss both time and context as a point of cultural difference. What differences have you seen in your own life? Which worldview would be the most difficult for you to adjust to? Why?

Student Resources: Chapter 3

Reflection Questions

1. What cultural rituals have been important in your life? What did you learn from them? Is there anything you would like to change about them?
2. If you could create a ritual that would become part of your community’s practices, what would it be? Explain the components of the ritual and the particular values you would want it to contain and convey to cultural outsiders.
3. What stories or narratives that you grew up with would you like to pass on to your children, friends, or coworkers? What stories or narrative would you not like to pass on? Why or why not?
4. What social dramas have you witnessed or engaged? What did you learn about culture and the way people create, challenge, affirm, or change culture via public discussions of events that affect the citizenry?
5. Why is it important to understand a culture on its own terms? What are the benefits and risks? How do key terms help us understand culture?

Online Enrichment Activity

Using online news sources, find and select articles pertaining to the controversy regarding then 49-year-old President Bill Clinton and a 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Using the material in the text, analyze how this situation is a social drama. Alternative topics to explore social drama include a variety of environmental concerns such as climate change, coal mining, or the spotted owl controversy in the U.S. Pacific Northwest between local loggers and environmentalists. Identify the key cultural beliefs, values, and norms that are at stake. How do you think that public discussion affects people’s understandings of social dramas? How do these public discussions reinforce and/or challenge cultural ideals?

Additional Reading

Bell, E. (2006). Social dramas and cultural performances: All the president’s women. Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 2, 1, http://liminalities.net/2-1/sdcp/sdcp1.htm.

How do social dramas serve as cultural artifacts? How can social dramas be used to study gendered intercultural communication?

Carbaugh, D., Berry, M., & Nurmikari-Berry, M. (2006). Coding personhood through cultural terms and practices: Silence and quietude as a Finnish “natural way of being.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 25, 3, 1–18.

How does this article demonstrate the communicative practice of silence as a way of crafting socio-cultural identity?  How do the communicative practices you learned growing up define, at least in part, your identity today?

Covarrubias, P. (2017). Respeto [respect] in disrespect: Clashing cultural themes within the context of immigration. In D. Carbaugh (Ed.) The Handbook of Communication in Cross-cultural Perspective. International Communication Association Series (pp. 208–221). London: Routledge.

Have you ever thought about the idea that terms that seem like they should be very similar if not identical in meaning can connote important differences? How might ignorance of nuanced differences trip up intercultural communication?

Goddard, C., & Cramer, R. (2017).  “Laid back” and “irreverent”: An ethnopragmatic analysis of two cultural themes in Australian English communication.In D. Carbaugh (Ed.) The Handbook of Communication in Cross-cultural Perspective. International Communication Association Series (pp. 89–103). London: Routledge.

How might key terms inadvertently promote inadequate stereotypes? Could the identity markers addressed in this article be used for other populations?

Student Resources: Chapter 4

Reflection Questions

1. The authors argue that all identities are based on similarities and differences. Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?
2. What examples have you seen where people are challenged in regards to their avowed identity? Have you ever challenged anyone’s identity (directly or indirectly)? What makes an identity authentic? Some of the examples used in this chapter indicate that others discount another person’s identity based on their communication. Do you think this is valid? Why?   
3. Which idea seems more accurate based on your own experiences, that communication constitutes our identities or that it reflects our identities? What examples can you think of to back up your opinion?
4. Are there other options than those described in the Social Identity Theory for dealing with an unsatisfactory identity, such as being part of certain minority groups? What are they? What are your impressions of a White identity? How does it relate to minority identities?

Online Enrichment Activity

Select a Ted talk on the concept of identity. Possible examples include: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxssL3yo0E4 (Cultural Identity by Ali Al Saloomv) or
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1dFU4ktNfg (The Modern Maze of Cultural Identity by Mashaal Hijazi). Examine it in light of the concepts discussed in the chapter. Does the speaker adopt a constitutive or reflective perspective on identity and communication? What expectations for communication are associated with the identities discussed? What identity is the speaker avowing? What identities is the speaker ascribing to others?  How do their experiences with cultural identities fit with your experiences?

Additional Reading

Johnston, J. (2001). The battle for local identity: An ethnographic description of local/global tensions in a New Zealand advertisement. Journal of Popular Culture, 35, 2, 193–205.

Do you agree with the authors’ concerns? What examples of identity struggles occur where you live?

Kim, Y. Y., Lujan, P., & Dixon, L. D. (1998). “I can walk both ways”: Identity integration of American Indians in Oklahoma. Human Communication Research, 25, 2, 252–274.

Yun Young Kim, Philip Lujan, and Lynda Dee Dixon claim they can walk both ways. What different identities do you have to manage? How do you manage to walk both ways?

Student Resources: Chapter 5

Reflection Questions

1. Can you think of any conflicts you have had with another person that turned out to be a consequence of each of you framing the situation differently?
2. Can you think of an instance where using an inappropriate term of address resulted in a difficult or tense intercultural encounter?
3. If you are a speaker of multiple languages, reflect on a time when it was difficult for you to translate what you wanted to say into another language. What was difficult? How did you work out the difficulty?
4. Think of a time in your life when you nodded in agreement with someone even though you could not understand him or her because of language difficulties, but you didn’t want to keep asking the person what he or she had said. How did you feel in that situation? What was the outcome?
5. How do you think enacting gratuitous concurrence could disadvantage some people during police interrogations or defendants in courts of law?

Online Enrichment Activity

Use YouTube to look up Liz Lochhead performing her poem, “Men Talk,” and see how many concepts from the text you can identify and explain: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKkZ-nbj3kg

Additional Reading

Covarrubias, P. (2005). Homemade talk: Language, identity, and other Mexican legacies for a son’s intercultural competence. In Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz (Ed.) From Generation to Generation: Maintaining Cultural Identity Over Time (pp. 29–47). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. 

What were some of the rules about communication that were taught to you as you grew up? For example, were you allowed to call elders by their first names? Or, were you taught that people with college degrees should be addressed by their educational title? How were these rules taught to you and by whom? Why do you think it matters what we call one another? What cultural differences in address practices have you noticed? How do you think address practices affect human relationships?

Kvam. D. (2017). Supporting Mexican immigrants’ resettlement in the United States: An ethnography of communication approach to building allies’ communication competence. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 45, 1, 1–20.

How do you think gratuitous concurrence might help and/or hinder immigrants’ resettlement efforts? How might positive and/or negative face influence an immigrant’s interactions in a social support organization?

Student Resources: Chapter 6

Reflection Questions

1. How universal do you feel that emotions are? Does every smile convey the same emotion? Have you ever misinterpreted a smile? Or misinterpreted another facial expression or gesture? Are there ways that you can minimize misinterpretation for you and/or for others when it comes to nonverbal communication?
2. Substitution and accentuation are two ways that nonverbal communication are commonly used. What are two examples of each that you commonly use to convey meaning without the use of words? Have you been misunderstood?
3. Use of emojis is a type of nonverbal communication. Which do you most commonly use? Were there any misinterpretations that you cleared up with words, or questioned if your message was received as you intended?
4. Emblems are commonly used in daily life, but not universally understood the same way. What emblem do you use most frequently? Recall an instance when an emblem you used was misunderstood. Describe how you might have clarified your intent or improved your nonverbal communication.
5. Do you know anyone who does not adhere to your use of regulators in conversation? Is there anyone you are acquainted with who speaks over you or always seems to interrupt in conversations? In what way could you exaggerate your personal use of regulators to be an example or help that person (or multiple people) learn how to participate in conversations more equally?

Online Enrichment Activity

Watch a video clip of at least 10 minutes in duration that has human interaction among a minimum of three people. While you watch the video look for uses of nonverbal communication: Repetition, Contradiction, Substitution, Accentuation, Complementary, and Regulation. Note which were easiest for you to identify. Are there specific uses of nonverbal communication that you realize you use? Do you use some nonverbal messages more frequently than others? Did any nonverbal messages in the video clip seem more effective than others? Are there others that seemed very ineffective? Do these observations alter how you might view your own nonverbal communication in the future?

Additional Reading

Covarrubias, P. O., & Windchief, S. R. (2009). Silences in stewardship: Some American Indian college students’ examples. Howard Journal of Communications, 20, 4, 333–352.

How does silence constrain and empower the Native American students discussed in this article? What role does silence play in your own culture?

Stivers, T., Enfield, N. J., Brown, P., Englert, C., Hayashi, M., etc. (2009). Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS),106, 10587–10592.

How do regulators impact the communication under study in this research and your own communication? What other nonverbal communication differences have you seen in intercultural interactions?

Student Resources: Chapter 7

Reflection Questions

1. Why are so many stereotypes negative? Are these stereotypes harmless or dangerous? Explain your answer. What impact do stereotypes have in your life?
2. Ethnocentrism is sometimes linked to patriotism. Is it possible to be patriotic without being ethnocentric? Explain your answer.
3. Prejudice is grounded in an emotional reaction and cannot just be gotten rid of by simply being told that it is not a good idea. What are some ways you would suggest that a person could get rid of prejudice in their own life?
4. What examples of the different forms and functions of prejudice can you identify in your community? What negative consequences are suffered by the specific individuals and the community as a whole as a result of the manifestations of prejudice?
5. Which of the rationalizing narratives do you recognize in your own life and in the lives of those around you? How could you change these narratives so as to avoid the negative impacts of prejudice in your own life?

Online Enrichment Activity

Often our biases or prejudices are at an unconscious level. Researchers at Harvard have developed an online test that is intended to measure these often unconscious thoughts. These tests are free to take and can allow you to do a self-test for your own reflection and information. Remember as you take the test to move along quickly as the idea is to get at your initial reactions. You can find the tests at: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html. Just click on the “I wish to proceed” link and then select any of the tests. We suggest you start with the one on race and then any of the others that appear interesting to you.

Additional Reading

Bell, G. C., & Harris, T. M. (2017). Exploring representations of Black masculinity and emasculation on NBC’s Parenthood. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 10, 2, 135–152.

The authors pose three types of questions for considering media representations of various social groups. These include: What do the images convey? How do I respond to the images? How do these images impact the way I would communicate with members of this group? Apply these to the different images you see conveyed in one of your favorite shows. What do you learn from this?

Zhu, L. (2016). A comparative look at Chinese and American stereotypes: A focus group study. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 42,November, 1–17 (www.immi.se/intercultural/nr42/zhu.html)

How do these stereotypes fit with your own stereotypes of people from China and the United States of America? Why is it so easy to stereotype other groups?

Student Resources: Chapter 8

Reflection Questions

1. What are the most recognizable differences for you among the three types of intercultural conflicts: Object conflicts, relationship conflicts, and priority conflicts? Give an example of each as it occurs in your life today. If you do not currently have one of these conflicts in your life, did you experience one in the recent or distant past? How was it resolved?
2. Which approach to conflict do you most typically use? Is that your consistent approach, or is it contextually driven? In other words, are there situations where you use avoidance? Situations where you use accommodation? What factors determine your approach to conflict?
3. Describe the differences between intercultural and intergroup conflicts. Give an example of each that you have experienced and/or observed. How was the conflict managed? Would awareness of the “other(s)” have minimized the conflict?
4. Is the concept of forgiveness a practical one? Why or why not? Does it depend on the situation? If so, how? Does a person have to be religious for this concept to have any value?
5. What is the “trigger” that you notice most frequently leads to intergroup conflict? Is there a way to minimize the impact of the trigger? Is there a way to move toward less “othering”? What strategies are you willing to try in your life to minimize being influenced by triggers that could lead to intergroup conflicts?

Online Enrichment Activity

Watch a video clip of at least 10 minutes in duration that has human interaction among a minimum of three people. While you watch the video, look for instances of conflict. Is it intercultural, intergroup, or another type of conflict? What “triggered” the conflict? Was an attempt made to deal with the conflict? Did you recognize avoidance, accommodation, competition, collaboration, or compromise? Did you agree with the reasons for the conflict? How about the outcome? Do these observations alter how you might approach conflict in your life?

Additional Reading

Hall, Bradford J. (1994). Understanding intercultural conflict through an analysis of kernel images and rhetorical visions: The case of treaty rights. International Journal of Conflict Management, 5, 63–87.

Why do people seem to have trouble understanding or accepting that an opposing side in a conflict also has a reasonable way of viewing the world? How does this tie back to the “pie mentality” discussed in Chapter 8? The idea of “rights” serves as a kernel image in the conflict discussed by the author; what are some kernel images in conflicts you are familiar with?

Student Resources: Chapter 9

Reflection Questions

1. Reflect on a time in your life when you had to acculturate to a new environment (e.g., a new neighborhood, new school, or new country). How did Maslow’s hierarchy of needs play out (or not) in your personal experience?
2. How do you think reverse culture shock might be experienced by people who served abroad in the military? A religious organization? A student exchange program?
3. Which (if any) of the different acculturation models in the text reflect your personal experience? Why? Why not?
4. In detail and using concepts from the text, discuss your experiences with culture shock and/or reverse culture shock. How did you manage things? What was the outcome?
5. Consider and describe a time in your life when your transition to a new culture in your own country felt like you had moved across the world.

Online Enrichment Activity

Look up the Global Nomads Group online and explore how you might become a global nomad. Their posted vision statement says: “We believe in a generation of global citizens who are empathetic, aware, and taking action to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues during these transformative times.”  How might you contribute to this type of mission either with this or another organization of your choice?

Additional Reading

Chaplin, M. (2015). Returning Well: Your Guide to Thriving Back “Home” After Serving Cross-Culturally. London: Newton Publishers.

Have you ever experienced being gone from home for a long time and returning only to find that you don’t “fit” in the same way you used to? Or, perhaps you know people who have served in the military or the Peace Corps. Maybe you have friends who have been missionaries or fellow students studying abroad? If you haven’t had the experience of returning home yourself, what do you imagine it is like for others? What could you do to make their “resettling” easier? How does communication come into play in your efforts to help others resettle or manage re-entry?

Spatariu, A., Peach, A., & Bell, S. H. (2012). Enculturation of young children and technology. In S. Blake, D. Winsor, & L. Allen (Eds)Technology and Young Children: Bridging the Communication-Generation Gap (Chapter Two). Hershey, NY: Information Science Reference: IGI Global.

How can the world of technology be treated as a culture? For example, when you engage in social media, what are some shared values among users? What are some of the rules informing you how to communicate on the Internet? How would you describe Internet culture to someone who has never heard of the Internet?

Student Resources: Chapter 10

Reflection Questions

1. Reflect on the words you use to describe a park or an environmentally protected area near where you live. How might the way you talk about nature (your choice of communication resources) link you and disconnect you from others?
2. How do terms such as “endangered species,” “global warming,” or “nuclear fallout” shape how we interact with nature and with each other?
3. Have you ever been in a medical or dental situation where the healthcare provider tried to explain things to you, but you didn’t understand what was said? How did you feel? How did you manage the situation? How did it affect your compliance with the instructions given to you by the healthcare provider?
4. Looking into the future and assuming your profession calls for you to step into a managerial role, what kind of leadership approach(es) would you exercise? Would you draw on different approaches based on the particular situation(s)? Explain.
5. Would you ever seek a job in ecotourism? Would you ever seek a job in the medical field? What concepts from the text do you hope to remember in your chosen profession? Explain.

Online Enrichment Activity

Consult several online web pages pertaining to the environment (i.e., The Eden Project) or healthcare (i.e., Obamacare). How easy was it to navigate the sites? What would you change and not change? Would you change the language used? The images? The information presented?

Additional Reading

Basu, A., & Dutta, M. J. (2009). Sex workers and HIV/AIDS: Analyzing participatory culture-centered health communication strategies. Human Communication Research, 35, 1, 86–114.

If you were in charge of designing a campaign to raise awareness about lung or breast cancer, what cultural communication considerations would you consider in devising your strategies? How do you think a culture-centered approach to health communication would lead to meaningful change?

Fadiman, A. (1997). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, her American

Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

What are some of your own cultural beliefs surrounding medical issues? For example, do you gargle with salt water when you have a sore throat? Have you ever had encounters with medical personnel that contradict or diminish your well-grounded health beliefs? What was the outcome?

Hendry, J. (2010). Communication and the Natural World. State College, PA: Strata Publishing, Inc.

Think about the ways that nature is represented in your society’s children’s books or greeting cards, and by popular culture, news sources, or theme parks. How does the language differ (or not) across various contexts? What are some outcomes of each approach to communicating about culture? Now compare and contrast those ways with similar contexts in other societies. What similarities and differences did you encounter? How might those similarities and differences contribute to cultural (mis)understandings about how to treat nature?

Student Resources: Chapter 11

Reflection Questions

1. Which of the three perspectives makes the most sense to you? Do you tend to think quantitatively? Do you gravitate toward power struggles and forms of injustice? Are you more interested in understanding others and recognizing why people do what they do?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of the major perspectives on culture reviewed in this chapter? On what different types of problems does each perspective focus our attention? Which do you feel is most important? Why?
3. In what ways have you been influenced by popular culture? Is it possible for someone living in today’s media-saturated world to not be influenced by popular culture? What impact do you think popular culture is having in your own community and around the world? Is there something that can or should be done about this?
4. What are four items that you use in your daily life that were purchased because of influence from popular culture? What was most influenced from pop culture: need for the item or brand? With realization of the influence of pop culture and media, do you feel differently about those items? Why or why not?
5. What influence does the media have on your own culture? Is it a positive influence? Does media help different cultures get along better or does media create more strife and/or division? Give specific examples and make suggestions for changes that you envision would be more positive.

Online Enrichment Activity

Watch a video of one of your favorite television shows that has human interaction among a minimum of three people. What is the ethnic makeup of the stars in the show? Is that representative of other television shows that you or your friends enjoy? (Yes, you might need to ask a few friends to see what they watch.) What about your favorite video game? What range of ethnicities are represented?

Additional Reading

Neeley, T. B. (2013). Language matters: Status loss and achieved status distinctions in global organizations. Organization Science, 24, 2, 476–497.

What are some of your own uses of language that are specific to your own culture? What are language choices that others have used that you are not familiar with? How did you learn the intended meaning behind the words or phrases?

Student Resources: Chapter 12

Reflection Questions

1. What are the benefits or weaknesses of the five golden ethical approaches? Which do you feel is the best approach for intercultural interactions? Why?
2. In the text it is argued that ethics both constrain and empower an individual’s communication. Do you agree with this? What examples in your own life support both the constraining and empowering functions of ethics?
3. What should be our attitude toward people who act and think differently from ourselves? Does it make any difference whether they are living in our cultural community or we are living in theirs? Should we try to blend in with their way of doing things, demand they conform to ours, or just do our own thing and tolerate them doing theirs?
4. The United States and other governments often put political pressure on outer communities to adhere to what most Americans feel is ethical behavior in areas of human rights and so on (such as the economic boycotts of South Africa). Is this kind of pressure appropriate? On what sorts of factors does your answer depend?
5. The three ethical principles that are discussed at the end of this chapter sound good to many people, but are often difficult to put into practice. Why? Is it worth even thinking about these sorts of things if we don’t seem to be able to really put them into practice? How could one better put these principles into practice?

Online Enrichment Activity

There are many international conflicts that can be found on the Internet. We suggest going to a news site such as http://abcnews.go.com/international or any other news source with a focus on international news. Select one of the current stories that you find interesting. After reading it, lay out all the possible ethical considerations you can think of relevant to this conflict. Then explore other news sources (hopefully ones originating from different countries). What new perspectives can you discover from these other news sources and how does this change your ethical considerations? Taking the six golden approaches to ethics discussed in Chapter 12, what different recommendations would you make for how to resolve this conflict and why?  

Additional Reading

Mutua, E. M. (2015). Deconstructing the refugee body: Toward an intercultural understanding of refugee and host communities. In Our Voices: Essays in Culture, Ethnicity, and Communication edited by A. Gonzalez and Y. Chen (6th edition). New York: Oxford University Press.

Based on what the author argues, how do we begin to understand the interactions between refugee and host communities? Which of the concepts from Chapter 12 best helps us to understand ethical issues associated with immigration?

Ucok-Sayrak, O. (2016). Attending to the “face of the other” in intercultural communication: Thinking and talking about difference, identity, and ethics. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 9, 2, 122–139.

The author discusses the role of cultural humility in terms of ethical behavior. What examples of cultural humility have you seen in your own experience? What is meant by “absolute otherness”? What are the pros and cons of a term like “otherness”?