Extra Credit Blog

Kirsti Davis


This is an example of seeing things that are
uncommon from where you're from, even if
it is literally another planet.

From chapter 12 in Fred Jandt's book he talks about culture shock ( on page 292) and how is affects many immigrants in new countries. There are 5 stages in culture shock: honeymoon period, culture shock, initial adjustment, mental isolation and acceptance and integration. When I was younger I went to Europe on vacation for about three weeks with my family. The culture there is very different than ours here in the US. I was able to see how other people live and what they value. I realized that things don't move as fast in the sense that people aren't as rushed there as they are here. Also when I went each country still had separate currency, so everyday we were in a different country and we were constantly changing currency and it got pretty confusing and annoying. I also experienced a smaller dose of culture shock when I moved to Redlands from Fontana. I had grown up in Fontana and was 14 when we moved. So I left all my friends and had to start fresh at a new high school. In Fontana I stuck out since there were not as many white kids in my schools. So I was use to being different than everyone else, even though I loved my friends and got along with everyone. So when I moved to Redlands and started at REV ( Redlands East Valley High School) my first day I realized that I blended in more then usual. It wasn't a bad culture shock, but it was different than how I had grown up. Culture shock can happen to anyone who visits a new place or for me who moves 20 minutes away and feel like you're in a different world.



These are all popular "slang" verbiage used in everyday talk
that is common knowledge to most Americans.



In Jandt's chapter 14 page 354 he talks about argot which is a specialized vocabulary of a subgroup, such as jargon, cant and slang. Jargon refers to a more technical language that professionals use, such as doctors and lawyers. Cant is more used to talk about truck driver language, or nonprofessional language. Slang refers to gangs, drug dealers and prostitutes, also refers to how teenagers talk to each other. I work in a restaurant so I feel we have a certain jargon spoken that only our employees would understand. For example we use the term "bump and run" when we need to run food in the kitchen, or "table touches" just means to check on your table to make sure everything is going well, or to greet your table for the first time and get them started. We also call our costumers "Guests" and our employees are "Team members". Another example is when our managers say "full hands in" that means that we have to grab any dirty plates off of tables and bring them into the kitchen. One last example is the term "sidework", this refers to what you must do before leaving, such as what you have to clean or restock before you get to clock out. We have many other terms that are used daily in our work environment that would not make sense to new comers who have no knowledge of the way we do things.

This is a fun illustration of
the typical "rough" image
of the Chicken-Haulers.

In chapter 13 page 200 of the Fong and Chuang's book they talk about the speech community of Chicken-Haulers and High Liners on CB radios.  There are many speech communities out there whether its through your job, sports, a sorority or fraternity. Within each subgroup there is a different way of communicating with different meanings for words and phrases. Many truck drivers use the CB radio as a way to communicate with one another while driving long distances across the United States. Many truck drivers that drive along the I-40 are called Chicken-Haulers and are considered to be unprofessional with there CB radio talk. While the drivers who drive on I-90 are called the High Liners and they tend to talk more professionally across the radio and find it insulting to be asked if they are a Chicken-Hauler. I think it is funny to think that truck drivers can have rivals depending on their speech community. But if you think about it, every subgroup has its competition or rival, whether its sports or work. There is a constant competitive nature and longing to be in one speech community or another.



This is the symbol for the
Chicken-Haulers.




This is the Deadhead symbol showing
light and dark colors, which can
also symbolize the yin and yang
from the ancient Chinese culture.

In chapter 16 page 242, of  the Fong and Chuang's book they speak of the term Deadhead.  The deadhead community is a great example of people wanting to be associated with a certain type of people or certain image. The Deadheads are extreme fans of the rock band Grateful Dead. In this subgroup they have a speech community and a loyalty to the band and the other fans. The Deadheads carry a certain stereotype that suggests all members are potheads and hippies that are free spirits and tree huggers. Since this is the case some Deadhead members will try not to show their true loyalty to the band, since they don't want to be thought of in the stereotypical way. By looking at the way Deadheads dress and speak you can see that they see life as a way to live in the moment and not think about the future all the time, which is a great way to look at life. Not everyone can see it that way since most of us worry about the future and certain deadlines or appointments or any future events. The Deadhead community often show their loyalty by wearing the band logo of a skull with a lightening bolt through it.

The last topic I will cover will be on the idea of third culture kids. This is what Jandt's talks about in chapter 12 on page 294 of his book. Third culture kids are kids who grew up in many different countries. Living possible 6 months to one year at a time or shorter and associating themselves with many cultures. This in a way allows third culture kids to create their own culture and therefore creating a subgroup within their many other subgroups of cultures. Third culture kids have a higher interest in traveling and wanting to learn new things and new languages. They can also be more accepting of new cultures since they are so use to having to adjust, so change comes more naturally to them than it would to someone who was not a third culture kid. I for one have only lived in three houses my entire life. I have traveled to many states, Mexico, Europe but not for more than three or four weeks at a time. So I don't feel I am one with any other culture than being a southern Californian. Although I would love to travel more one day, I would love to visit Australia, Spain, Egypt, Rome and many others. So hopefully one day I will get a sense of what the third culture kids have experienced their entire lives. 

 

While some third culture kids consider
themselves as having a piece of 
culture from every inch of the earth.



Third culture kids can
sometimes not be sure what
culture to identify with.







Blog Assignment

Group Members:
Alex Cannady
Dalton Riehl
Kirsti Davis

In Chapter 3 of Jandt's book on pages 63-70 he talks about perception. Perception has three parts to it: selection, organization and interpretation. I chose perception as one of my concepts because it is a big part of communication. Selection is one of the parts of perception that deals with focusing our attention to only certain things we are focusing on. This means that we are not always using the maximum amount of our senses if we are just focusing on one specific thing. When trying to communicate with someone this can be a major factor that creates tension if one person feels the other is not giving them their full attention. I have always tried to be a good listener, but have not always been the best at it.

In this image at first glance you may see a vase,

but when you look again you may see two faces

looking at one another. This image is a great example

of our perception and what we may see at first glance

versus what we see when we take our time and really

look at the situation or image. 



Organization is another part in perception which

is a way for people to plan out the way in which

we think and how we physically see images, and

how those images are categorized in our minds.

For instance if you look at an object your mind

with categorize it in a certain part of the brain as

a desk or a piano or a chair. We can then

communicate to each other by each knowing

what these objects are and what they do. We

don't focus on the details of the draws of the desk

or the keys on the piano, we see the object in its entirety. This can also be shown by not seeing the whole picture when looking at certain situations, or not judging too quickly. I also have tried to never judge people before I know everything there is to know. Finally interpretations is the last part of perception, where we attach meaning to the information we perceive in the world. We interpret things on a daily basis even if we don't realize it at the time. We are constantly receiving information, processing it, categorizing it, and finally interpreting  into what we think it means. This can be interpreting pictures of art or the meaning of a persons tone of voice. I am bad at assuming things too quickly and not fully thinking things through before I interpret things in the wrong way. 

Another interesting concept is also in Chapter 3 of Jandt's book from page 75. Talking about the Chinese culture and the belief of yin-and-yang. I have always looked at the symbols as having a sense of harmony and meaning of peace. The Chinese meaning for this symbol is a little more detailed. First the symbol was meant as he yin meaning the shady side of a hill and a yang meaning the sunny side of a hill. Their are many other meanings of the symbol such as yin is dark part of the cosmos and the yang is bright and dry. Woman are compared to the yin. And men are compared to the yang. This is interesting to think that men and woman have always been seen as complete opposites, never sharing anything in common or having anything similar to one another. Never allowing the two genders to related to one another. Also yin-and-yang represents certain types of food in the Chinese culture. Yin is usually a symbol for cooling foods such as beans. Yang is a symbol for fried or oily foods. It is interesting to look at the difference in the way we, as Americans, look at the Chinese interpretation of yin-and-yang and don't see all the same meanings the way they do. Looking at other cultures is a great way to learn their ideas and thoughts of common objects in order to relate and understand each others point of views and beliefs. This will make communication with one another much easier.

   

The yin is the dark side while

the yang is the light side.

This is the typical symbol

 that is shown to represent the

idea of yin-and-yang.



This is one example of the

yin-and-yang symbol

 showing the idea of night

and day, or dark and bright.

  Another interesting concept is Nonverbal Communication from Jandt's Chapter 5 pages 105-106. When dealing with nonverbal communication people don't realize how much is said with body language or facial expressions. There are 5 parts to nonverbal communication: proxemics (which deals with personal space), kinesics (which deals with body language: facial expressions, body movement, gestures, etc.), chronemics (which is the study of our use of time), haptics (which is touch as a way to communicate) and clothing and appearance (first impressions and first judgements). A great part of our communication comes from the things we don't say to one another. For example if you are having a conversation with one of your friends and they are telling you a very important story but you are sitting on your phone, then your friend will fill ignored or not cared for or unimportant. Also nonverbal communication can be seen in the work place. I work in a restaurant and you can tell when you go to greet a table if they are having a good or bad day just by the way they say hello to you and by their mannerisms and gestures toward you. The same goes for you, if a guest can see you are not smiling and not acting like you are wanting to be at work, then they will feel awkward or uncomfortable around you since they can tell you really don't want to be giving them your attention. Nonverbal communication is a big deal when to comes to making business deals and working with others. If you are working on a big presentation for work that will hopefully get you a promotion you would be expected to "put your best foot forward" and do a good job on the presentation in order to get the best feedback possible.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0TW-18jUlf0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
In this video you will see the 5 parts of nonverbal communication. Each type of nonverbal communication it represented by a video and it helps us to understand the meanings of the different areas we are talking about here. 

Another interesting concept from the Jandt's book is from Chapter 4 pages 86-93. In this chapter it is interesting to look at the terms stereotype and prejudice. Stereotypes are made everyday in our conversations to one another. They are ideas that we as  whole have made up as to what we think each group, gender, culture or ethnicity is likely to do. Stereotypes are sometimes true and sometimes aren't true, but saying that all Americans do this or all Asians do that is not accurate at all. But this doesn't seem to stop the idea of stereotyping people. Overall stereotype tend to be pretty harmless. While on the other hand prejudice is a more serious matter. Prejudice behavior is an irrational perception of another culture, race, gender, etc. I feel that have prejudice is unacceptable, especially now a days. It is a type of behavior that needs to be corrected, but of course I know this will never happen. There will always be someone who has a prejudice idea about someone else, this fact is sad but true. I understand peoples inability to completely connect with others that are 100% different than they are, but the idea is to have respect for one another regardless if you have the same beliefs, or are the same race, or gender.



This is a cartoon of prejudice behavior and showing
how silly it really is to be prejudice.




This is a cartoon of a typical stereotype about how nurses can only be female.



A final concept that I found to be interesting was the idea of individualism versus collectivism. Individualism is when an individual does things for themselves by themselves in order to get what they may want or need. While collectivism is when each person does things together to benefit the group. This idea of collectivism is mostly seen in other cultures, and not so much in the American culture. In other cultures collectivism is a way of life, the entire family has to help with projects and making money in order for everyone to live and have food on the table. In an individualist society, like in the U.S. we are all use to getting out and doing things for our selves by ourselves because no one else is going to help us get what we want. An individualist society could be seen as a little cold or unwilling to help. While the collectivist society is more of a united way of living. There are pros and cons to both sides. Since collectivist societies are more united there would seem to be less freedom to be able to go out and do things you want to do on your own, but you would always have each other no matter what. In an individualist society you get the freedom to do what you want, but may not always have a good support system behind you. I personally was raised to be an individualist but I always knew if I needed that support I would always have it, so I got the best of both worlds when I was growing up. 



This is an example of collectivism, and how all these little
girls are working as a group to do a performance and
if one of them decided to be different, then their show would
be ruined.


 

This is an image of individualism,
its shows how one person is
breaking out of the crowd to be
themselves.