Comm: Cultures Essay

Assignment 1: Essay

Length: 1000 words
Weighting 35%
Due: Week 4
Essay Topic:
There are two ways we can distinguish between cultures in relation to their communication strategies: Collectivist cultures and Individualist Cultures.
China is an illustration of a Collectivist culture; Australia epitomizes the values of the Individualist culture.
In Individualist cultures self-preomotion is viewed as a positive attribute, whereas in Collectivist cultures, self- promotion is eyed with distrust( the Chinese character for “I’ looks very much like the word for selfish).
A self-concept that includes “assertive” might make a Westerner feel proud, but in much of Asia it would more likely be cause for shame.
What other relations between cultural style and communication follow from these kinds of distinctions?
Discuss the above statements in an essay of 1000 words.
Discuss the topic of Intercultural Communication (start with your text… Chapter 3)
Include in your essay the issues that have been discussed in your lectures and tutorials in relation to this topic.
Compare and contrast the communication styles of different cultural groups. Also discuss how these differences can impact on the self- esteem of groups and individuals from different cultural group when they are in a cultural context different from the one they originally come from.
Research beyond your text.

The word “ culture” can be defined by many meaning but the most common definition for culture are arts, literature, languages and music. Sam, Porter, & McDaniel (2009) explores that in a society, culture can be understood as a system of beliefs, attitudes and shared value among group of people. People believe that culture is a way of life, it will affect a person personality, habits, languages, and attitudes and the way they live, therefore every culture is unique and different to another. Values are the main key for any cultures therefore a culture must have both ideal values and real values run along with each other. Because of the unique and different to each culture, intercultural communication which mean communication between 2 people who have different cultures might be hard sometime (Samovar, Porter,& McDaniel, 2009). To get deeper, this topic will focus to explain why intercultural communication is so difficult? What are the barriers in intercultural communication? And how to improve intercultural competence?
Culture can be separate into two types, Dominant Culture and Co-Cultures. A dominant culture is a culture that held by group of people who have the most powerful, widespread and influence in a society in which multi cultures are present( Folb, 1994). In a community where Dominant culture is exist, people who have same personality, skin color and languages with these powerful people are treated better than people who have co-culture. For example, back there in America, when dominant culture was still strong, people privileged the values of white, western European, English- speaking and heterosexual men ( Bonvillain, 2003). The reason for doing this because dominant culture people give them the right to think that they are the best, they skins color and they languages are standard therefore they treated other co-culture in an unfair way. Unlike dominant culture, co-culture is a group that held by a smaller number and they share common values, beliefs, attitudes and customs that different from those of the dominant culture (Verdure, & Sellnow 2014). Communication behavior also be influenced by co-culture by sometimes co-culture people use code switch to conform to the dominant( Bonvillain,2003) which is a co-culture person may speak their native- language when they are at home and when they are in work area or school area, they speaks the language that the dominant culture people required.
Intercultural communication is difficult because it requires communication between two or more people who have different cultures. The barriers that make intercultural

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