Transcript Focus Questions

Focus Questions
1. How does cultural membership affect
communication?
2. What are social communities?
3. How do culture and social communities
shape individuals’ communication?
4. How does gender affect communication?
5. How do people commonly respond to
differences in communication?
Adapting Communication to People and
Contexts
1
Adaptation as a Basic
Communication Process
• Sensitive to particular people and contexts
• One-size fits all? (See “Myra & Aaron”
example)
• Other examples (contexts, & people)
– Age / Gender
– Relationship (family, work, negotiation,….)
– Educational background / Social status
– Race / Nationality
Adapting Communication to People and
Contexts
2
Communication is “Systemic”
•
Occurs in contexts, and are affected by
contexts.
• Can’t be understood without examining
contexts
1. All parts of communication systems are
interrelated
2. Communication systems are organized
wholes
Adapting Communication to People and
Contexts
3
Communication is “Systemic”-(2)
3. Communication systems are more than
the sum of their parts
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System evolves, discards, creates
Interactions create new elements
Openness: a system affects and is affected
by outside factors and processes. Systems
vary.
Adapting Communication to People and
Contexts
4
Communication is “Systemic”-(3)
4. Communication systems strive for but
cannot sustain equilibrium
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State of equilibrium (homeostasis)
Routines, rituals, norms, habits, traditions…
No absolute equilibrium. Change is
inevitable.
System members continuously adjust and
change.
Adapting Communication to People and
Contexts
5
A Culturally Diverse World
•
We learn culture in the process of
communication
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•
Culture: Definition…a way of life.
Both conscious & unconscious, continuous
internalization
Multiple cultures and social communities may
coexist in a single geographic location
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Mainstream: dominant
Standpoint: the social, symbolic, and material
circumstances of a particular social group…
Social communities: groups of people within a
dominant culture also belong to another social
group(s)
Subculture; Co-culture
Adapting Communication to People and
Contexts
6
A Culturally Diverse World -(2)
•
Cultures and social communities develop
distinct forms of communication
–
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Eastern-western; boy-girl; men-women (pp. 185-188)
Communication expresses and sustains
cultures
Communication is a source of cultural change
–
Ways of naming things
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Environmental racism; environmental justice
Date rape; sexual harassment
Adapting Communication to People and
Contexts
7
Guidelines for Adapting
Communication
• Engage in person-centered
communication
• Respect what others present as their
feelings and ideas
• Resist ethnocentric bias
– Ethnocentrism
– Cultural relativism
Adapting Communication to People and
Contexts
8
Guidelines for Adapting
Communication -(2)
• Recognize that adapting to diversity is a process
(common responses below…)
– Resistance
• Assimilation ( Surrendering); Melting-pot
– Tolerance
• Open-mindedness, accepting difference
– Understanding
– Respect
– Participation
• Multilingual
Adapting Communication to People and
Contexts
9