Summarize some of the main ideas behind Figuring Foreigners Out and the Hofstede Dimensions of Culture. Do you predominantly agree with these assessments? Are there any statements, generalizations, and opinions expressed in the reading that you find problematic? How do these ideas relate both to your own native culture, and the target culture associated with the language you are studying?
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Based on the reading "Figuring Foreigners out", analytical studies on communication indicates there exist various gestures are capable of expressing distinct meanings in the context where two people are from two different background. This relates to me a lot since growing up I had met many exchange students and international students. The matter is that, even when it comes to two people from the same country, customs and culture could vary within just a hundred miles. Needless to say, when two are from a different continent. I had a French pen pal who lives in Paris and with him, I have encountered plenty of situations where we misinterpreted each other. Also, in my Italian class, we were told that ciao is not really used when it comes to strangers which I said quite often when I was in Italy because I adopted how it was used in American movies. As for Hofstede's Dimensions of Culture I grew up speaking two languages, Mandarin and English, and dedicated a lot of time in how to cooperate well with both speakers. It is definitely not effortless when I had to switch from one to another but it certainly made me more flexible when it comes to different cultures.
Figuring Foreigners Out discusses the differences in the ways that cultures communicate verbally and nonverbally. I was intrigued by the discussion of monochronic and polychronic as well as high context vs low context. I feel like the cultures that I have been immersed in thus far have been primarily high context, but that also contributes to a lot of the miscommunication between parties. I feel that the reading does a good job in emphasizing that no culture will be completely monochronic, polychronic, collectivist, individualist etc. I have viewed the word through a lens of individualism, but I feel that exposing myself to more collectivist perspectives could be very important in my studies of Dutch or other languages in the future. I am looking forward to learning more about the Dutch culture, whether perspectives are more internal vs external, and how the people in the Netherlands communicate.
I quite enjoy exploring Hofstede's Dimensions of Culture and the country comparison tool. Last semester, I spent a lot of time analyzing these cultures in my International Marketing course where we had to think about how different marketing efforts would be received in cultures with different power distances, tendencies, uncertainty avoidances etc. I find that it is wildly beneficial to look at these measurements before trying to learn a language or even understand a culture's perspectives. I find that in the United States, it is difficult for people to understand alternate perspectives, so these tools are useful in realizing that perspectives from different cultures are a culmination of many internal and external factors.
The main idea behind both Figuring Foreigners Out and the Hofstede Dimensions of Culture is that cultures have differing notions of personal identity, conception of time, humans’ ability (or lack thereof) to control the world/their destiny, level of directness in communication, level of equality/inequality, degree of individualism, degree of masculinity, tolerance of uncertainty, and orientation for long/short term. Inherently, these studies suggest that culture can be empirically studied, measured, and placed within two poles of any distinction. I strongly disagree with both studies. Culture is not static. It is dynamic and ever-changing according to many different factors such as politics, economics, demographics, etc. “American” culture has changed throughout the decades – which is why if I heard a man with a paisley shirt and pink-tinted circular sunglasses complaining about “the war,” I would think he was a remnant of American culture in the 1960s. Secondly, culture is not dichotomous. Both studies attempted to fit culture within two poles – yes, they acknowledged a gradation; but they still classified cultures as inherently one thing or the other. Any study of culture needs to be nuanced and, therefore, should not attempt to “empirically” measure complex phenomena nor only create two poles for cultures to fit into. Also, I do not fully understand Hofstede’s metrics. For Individualism/Collectivism, I understand why the U.S. is individualist – the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” rhetoric remains culturally hegemonic. Yet, for Power Distance, the United States is measured as having a very low Power Distance, meaning the country is great for equality. While the U.S. certainly does not have the same barriers as India does – because of its caste system, it maintains severe socio-economic inequality due to its neoliberal economic policies, and racial and gender inequality persist due to the country’s failure to deal with the remnants of Jim Crow and, indeed, the original ideas enshrined in the Constitution. As for Morocco, the country mimics all the Arab countries – according to Hofstede, of course – in being more collectivist, having a higher power distance, being more “masculine,” and being somewhat tolerant/somewhat avoiding of uncertainty. The very fact that all the Arab countries are nearly identical according to Hofstede’s study shows the influence of Orientalism and a proto-“Clash of Civilizations” conception of the world on Hofstede.
Across the world there are different cultures and each one has its own identity that makes them different from each other. In ‘Figuring foreigners out’ it is shown the problems of communication that can come due to the existence of different cultures, what causes the appearance of different languages.
Some of the differences between cultures are those which are individualistic, in which it is the individual the first survival unit and you only need yourself to form an identity. However, there are other collectivistic cultures in which the individual is not conceived without the existence of a group. For example, in my home country (Spain) we have a more individualistic country, which focuses on the self defense of each one, without prioritizing the group goals. There are also monochronic and polychronic cultures, however, I don't really agree with this aspect since I consider more than cultures, are the different individuals, those who can be monochronic or polychronic. I consider myself monochronic since for me time is something really valuable and I would pay for it, however, I know other Spanish people like my brother who are not afraid of not having time because they see it limitless.
The texts also mentioned the differences between internal and external cultures. In internal cultures, the individual is able to control everything while in external cultures you have to accept that things are beyond our control. And, as I said before I consider this more related with the personality of each individual than implicitly related with the culture because it will depend on how you want to face everything that is occuring you, but it is true that it was traditionally more linked to cultures as the Indian.
Lastly, there was another cultural distinction between the direct and indirect one, which depends on the way in which things are said. Those direct cultures need a more explicit communication, normally related with individualistic cultures, while in indirect cultures, we have to infer what the other is trying to communicate.
Moreover, I have known the existence of the cultural framework ‘Hofstede’, which classifies the different countries according to different parameters. I personally consider a really useful tool that can help you to understand better a culture, and I am sure it will make easier the process of learning a language by knowing certain aspects as the degree of individualism of a culture or the ‘uncertainty avoidance’. I have looked at this tool 3 different countries: Portugal, since it is my target language, US, since it is currently where I am living, and Spain which is my home country.
In the “Figuring Foreigners Out” reading, the author highlighted some of the noticeable differences between cultures by analyzing nonverbal communication, monochronic versus polychronic, and direct or indirect communication. When the author mentioned how different gestures convey different meanings to two people from two different cultures, I agree with their claim. My Mandarin teacher wanted to say the number ten （十）and she crossed two index fingers to make that character. However, I thought she wanted to tell me “No” because the two index fingers crossed together meant “X” or “No” to me. Another example of cultural differences is eye contact. My dance professor lived in South Korea for about four years, and when Koreans speak to elders or people older than them, it is polite to not look directly at the person’s eyes. Whereas in America, strong eye contact signals to the other person that you are listening and attuned to the conversation.
The world maps were an interesting feature to explore because it broke down cultural importance among nearby countries and cultural differences between countries. One feature I found interesting was the individualism map where the USA, Australia, Canada, and European countries emphasize individualism much more than some of the Asian countries such as China and South Korea. The reasoning behind the trend would be of interest to explore because I believe it has to do with the cultural values passed down from previous generations.