Cultural Differences Paper
Jessica Fuentes
COM 360
September 10, 2014
Mary Wardlaw
There are cultural differences within all the communities that make up the world, we are constantly surrounded and reminded of these other cultures. In this paper cultural differences will be discussed from the film “Why Did I Get Married?” which is an African-American movie about the hardships one goes through in marriage, friendships, and trust. This paper is going to give specific examples of Hall’s perspective of culture on the screen and Hofstede’s five dimensions that are reflected in a particular pattern. Examples of both verbal and non verbal intercultural communication and how they relate to particular intercultural
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This movie is targeted for African-American culture, so a lot of the language, slang, and stereotypes were evident in this film and so there wasn’t much explanation, it is simply something that is just known as it unfolds in the movie. If someone is watching this movie and they are Asian they might not understand much of what goes on in the movie, especially if they are unaware of the African-American culture. An example would be when the girls of the group go shopping and they are in a store looking at lingerie and shawls made for winter weather, the shopkeeper came up to them and simply said “we don’t keep cash in the store” now of course one of the ladies went a little crazy because she realized that she had said that because of their skin color. Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture are power distance, individualism v collectivism, masculinity v femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term v short-term time orientation. In the film the five dimensions are present, in the dimension of power distance it clear with the powerful positions that all the characters have within their professional lives. The way they live and own lavish houses leads to believe that they don’t believe they are equals to everyone else because of their status. Most of the couples demand respect and expect not to be question in their motives, which is a higher power context. Next is individualism versus collectivism, in
There’s various things that describes everyone, but there’s only a few things that make each and every one of us unique, which is, our cultural background. As far as cultural background, it defines the individual’s upbringing. The cultural background includes ones religion, race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, linguistic and values. These values can be shaped by family, friends, society, or authoritative level. This paper is a great way for one to define my identity or at least understand who I am.
There are many cultural differences between the United States and France. Some of these are simply social and others are cultural. Hofstede’s Value Dimensions can be used to highlight the differences between the cultures. Individualism vs collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, power distance, and long-term vs short-term orientation are all characteristics that differ between France and the United States.
The aim of this paper is to study the interpersonal communication taking place in a cultured shocked neighborhood. The findings of these studies are applied to the film Grand Torino. In addition, this study will discuss the communication styles applied by the characters of the movie. I believe they are essential to understanding the reasons why in general individuals are racists, stereotypical and unable to adapt to different cultures as well as living with those who are different to us. We will first examine how Walt’s character adapts to the cultural
Numerous studies have been conducted on the need of cultural competency in the profession of speech-language pathology. To ensure correct diagnosis and appropriate services by speech-language pathologist, information and training should be made readily available. This paper examines the availability of culturally and linguistically diverse assessment and intervention information and training for speech-language pathologist.
Over the past 100 years, the United States has changed the way it views other cultures including more respect, equality, and freedom for all people. As much as America has grown, has America really changed that drastically? Across the nation and world, cultural differences still exist, misunderstandings continue, and fighting persists. Recent attacks within the United States that are similar to the conflicts between the Japanese and Americans in the early 1900’s include the 9/11 attack, the bombing at the Boston Marathon, and the mass shooting in Orlando.
Maria Gonzalez is a twenty-one year old psychology major here at Middlesex County College (MCC). She was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and moved from there ten years ago at age 11. Majority of her family comes from D.R while many of them are still there today. Maria has noticed a change between herself and her family members when she visits her country due to the fact she has been in America almost a decade and has experienced different things.
Unfortunately, technology today is helping criminals commit money laundering off of their profits made from drug crimes and prostitution in cyberspace and the ease of transportation and smuggling operations. Drug trafficking is associated with organized crime and violence linked to human trafficking and money laundering schemes that can also support criminal activities in several countries including terrorist activities. The increase of technology is allowing people to shop online and is used for the purpose of exploiting pornographic images and the ease of purchasing and transporting illicit drugs and prostitutes from anywhere in the world. Transactions online cause difficulty in tracing criminal operation because they can be located in the
When comparing cultures, one must form a definition of what culture is. Culture can be easily defined as the social behavior and normality’s found in human societies. It can also be easily made up of a composed arrangement of educated conduct and thought designs. Culture is a sorted out framework since it includes many parts. Throughout the world, there are many cultures that are both very different and also very similar. "Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage, music, what we believe is right or wrong, how we sit at table, how we greet visitors, how we behave and one million other things." (Cristina De Rossi.)
In this essay, I will explain a cultural object from a scene from the movie Girls Trip, which was released on July 21, 2017. Girls Trip is about four women by the name of Ryan Pierce (Regina Hall), Sasha Franklin (Queen Latifah), Lisa Cooper (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Dina (Tiffany Radish), who have been friends for over 10 years, and are traveling to the annual Essence Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana. The cultural subject is Ryan Piece assistant Elizabeth Davelli, who uses terms and body language to define “blackness”. To reinforce and challenge the discourse that is taking place is people of color have to speak up about the discourse and inform people who are not of color, to show how people of color are offended by those actions.
One of the major cultural oppositions in the movie is high context. High context basically means that they don’t put high value on being direct. When someone is speaking the person listening will more than likely have to interpret it. It is found to be rude if you speak too straightforwardly. This could be problematic, and that’s very apparent in this movie.
As a student studying Intercultural Communications, films can be a great resource. Often showing interaction between people from different cultures, the advantage of films is that they can highlight, focus, entertain and inspire us in ways that help us become more thoughtful about the people and cultures that we encounter. (Quast, B.) This is a film analysis of the cultural clashes and communication challenges that exists due to cultural differences between the mothers and their daughters.
Geert Hofstede developed the widely applied Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, which mainly focuses on how different countries with different cultural backgrounds handle different anthropological problems that occur in cross-cultural communication (Hofstede 1980). The first five Hofstede’s dimensions will be discussed in following paragraphs. It should be clear that there is no good and bad between two elements in each dimension since every culture has its unique features and ways to function.
Many criticisms have been voiced about Hofstede’s “Five Cultural Dimensions”, many “irritated, condescending, or ridiculing reviews (e.g. Cooper, 1982; Roberts & Boyacigiller, 1984)”. These comments were not the only, or the harshest, of the reviews Hofstede received – his most frequent and negative critique is Brendan McSweeney, PhD, and his most serious and noteworthy critique is Nigel Holden.
1. Culture is perceived as a way of thinking that influences the behaviors of a group of people.
They emphasized on adaptation and interpretation, as well as finding similarities in their audiences’ cultures. By identifying how western culture and non-western culture fit into each dimension of Hofstede’s original concept, one can better understand how to approach audiences from the audiences’ cultural