I remember when I first came to Singapore, I had a rough time communicating with people as i was not used to their accent and they were not used to mine. As I just started to get over this problem I was faced with another one; and that was the different usage of the same word. Once I had visited my dad in his office and to pass my time I offered to help with any minor task they had to offer. At this offer a guy comes to me and asks me to chop some papers for him and hands me a stack. Thinking that by 'chopping' he probably means that he wants me to shred some papers i asked for a paper shredder. Looking at his puzzled look i ask him what did he mean by "chop papers"? Handing me some official stamps he tells me that by "chopping" he meant "stamping" the papers!!!! That is when I realized that in Singapore 'chopping' means 'stamping' whereas in India (that is where I come from), by 'chopping' we mean cutting(in case of vegetables) and shredding(in the case of papers). This is a good example of how in different cultures the same words have different meanings and this could result in faulty communication. Had I not asked him for the meaning of 'chop' i probably would have cut those important documents into small pieces!!!
Culture and perspective influence each other to a great extent. A perspective is defined in the book 'Thinking through communication' by Sarah Trenholm as a coherent set of assumptions about the way a process operates. And these assumptions that one makes about a certain process might differ from culture to culture.
Culture is one of the major factors that defines a persons thought process, hence influencing a persons psychological perspective. As written in 'Thinking through communication' by Sarah Trenholm, psychological perspective focuses on what happens "inside the heads" of communicators as they transmit or receive messages. If the communicators are from different cultural background the sender might send the message from a certain psychological perspective but the reciever being from a different cultural backgroung might interpret differently. This could result in faulty communication.
Culture and perspective influence each other to a great extent. A perspective is defined in the book 'Thinking through communication' by Sarah Trenholm as a coherent set of assumptions about the way a process operates. And these assumptions that one makes about a certain process might differ from culture to culture.
Culture is one of the major factors that defines a persons thought process, hence influencing a persons psychological perspective. As written in 'Thinking through communication' by Sarah Trenholm, psychological perspective focuses on what happens "inside the heads" of communicators as they transmit or receive messages. If the communicators are from different cultural background the sender might send the message from a certain psychological perspective but the reciever being from a different cultural backgroung might interpret differently. This could result in faulty communication.
8 comments:
haha... i have to agree that many expressions we use in S'pore tends to give different people different ideas. I have seen some Amercians having a tough time understanding what the vendor was telling them since he was using 'Singlish', which only locals would undersatnd and they looked really lost.
helloo shivani!
well i guess culture really does affect everyone in various ways.
don't worry, i'm sure you will get used to it and in no time be able to understand what "jargons" (which have likened to the form of "Singlish") the local culture here practices.
it takes time, but don't we all learn to adapt ourselves to such environments? :D
Each country and culture has their own distinct language, accent, and practices. Therefore there is the existence of cultural barriers when we try to communicate with someone of a different culture. Misunderstandings occur.
And it would take a deeper understand of the singaporean culture and its languages to understand singlish. =P
Hey Indira,
Yeah see there is another example of how people from a certain cultural background have problem when they go to a country with a different cultural background than theirs. Another point would be that the problems that the Americans might face would be different from the one that Indians might face regarding Singlish. Again a result of difference in cultures.
Hey Amelia,
Yeah its very true that we learn to adapt ourselves in different cultures. Here again we can say that this adaptation is only possible due to our ability to communicate. It is because we communicate we people with different culture that we learn about their culture and adapt to it when we go to a place with that culture.
And now its been a little over two years in Singapore and I am slowly getting used to the "jargons"(as you put it)here. And I think that even people I interact with quite often are also getting used to mine!
hey Rach,
As I mentioned earlier that when we communicate with people from different cultures, we slowly get used to their language, accent and practices. And its not only in Singapore. If you come to India, you will be exposed to a language called "Hinglish"!! It is basically the use of some Hindi words while talking in English. So those who don't know Hindi will take some time getting used to Hinglish.
hey there is another point that i would like to make is that, these days it has become so much more easier to adapt or understand other cultures and it is all thanks to television. due to television we are these days exposed to a lot of different cultures, no matter where you stay!!
yeah well that's the magic of mass media. we learn to anticipate what the other culture is all about before we step into that cultural setting.
Post a Comment