LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 14:6 June 2014
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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M. S. Thirumalai
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Some Lessons from Intercultural Living and Communication

Steve Eliason

Our Life in the Philippines

Many years ago, my wife and I chose to go to the Philippines as religious and social workers. We were young and were full of hope, love, enthusiasm and humility to serve people in a far off land. Hailing from the cold and snow-bound Minnesota to go and live in the salubrious as well as hot climate Philippines was indeed a challenging task. In addition, people looked different, spoke a language not familiar to us, and ate the food we were not used to. Everything was “strange”, but fortunately our God-given commitment to the people was very strong and this made it possible for us to make friends and live in remote parts of the Philippines.

Decategorization

William B. Gudykunst and Young Yun Kim write, “Decategorization occurs when we communicate with strangers based on their individual characteristics, rather than the categories in which we place them… In order to effectively communicate with strangers we must understand their behavior, and in order to understand their behavior we must be able at least to suspend, or manage, our stereotypes, ethnocentrism, and prejudice.” (p.106)

Three Psychological Influences

We all enter the communication arena with three psychocultural influences: expectations, stereotypes and attitudes. Being aware of this will help us understand someone from another culture. Nurturing mindfulness of these latent influences explains much of the confusion one encounters in a cross cultural conversation.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Steve Eliason
Faculty
Bethany Global University
6820 Auto Club Rd.
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
steve.eliason@bethanyfellowship.org
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