Learning Journal #10: Cross-Cultural Experience and 260-282
I had numerous cross-cultural experiences that reinforced the major differences between text analysis and discourse analysis. Text analysis requires excellent reading capabilities and a background knowledge of the language and culture being studied. Discourse analysis, on the other hand, requires a certain sense of familiarity with the customs, beliefs, and expectations of a place and a people that allows you to react properly in social situations. This is especially difficult in scattered dialogues, as opposed to monologues, when multiple individuals take turns in contributing to a conversation. There are certain bodily clues and cultural nuances that allow one to fit properly in this type of conversation. Many times during my stay in Thailand I felt as though I understood much of the vocabulary and sentences being spoken around me. But at times, during a meal for example, I still felt entirely lost in conversation and unable to contribute.
The cross-cultural experiences were most difficult for me not at the outset, rather after I had already displayed a level of language and cultural competence. A prime example of this is when I sat down for a meal with a Thai family having already had short introductory conversations with many of the individual family members. As the food was passed around, the “scattered dialogues” began and I was not able to keep up. All of the sudden everyone is looking at me and I have no idea what they want or how they expect me to react. It is at this point when I learned to admit failure and simply laugh in hopes that they would laugh along with me. Luckily, they usually did.
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