Week 1 Response

Summary of the Readings:

Essentially, the reading from Intercultural Communication provided an introduction into the Essentialist and non-essentialist definitions and descriptions of Culture. Most of the reading provide a more thorough exploration of information that was alluded to or covered briefly in the previous class. For example, the essentialist views culture as something that people can visit and has clear devisions whereas the non-essentialist view culture as something that has blurred boundaries and is not restrained to a specific language or country.

Kumaravedivelu’s article was essentially a case study about Asian students in an educational setting which responded to essentialist claims about ‘Asian Cultures.’

Atkinson promotes a non-essentialist “middle-Ground” approach to culture within a TESOL setting and provide six principles of culture as supporting evidence (Atkinson 635).

“Culture... comes to be viewed too simply as either behaviour (e.g. people don’t smile in public), or as fixed values and beliefs, separated from social interaction and socio-political realities (e.g. x cultures values the elderly)” (Holiday 71).

This quote stands most salient in my mind after reading the assigned text. I believe it accurately marks how many people define culture and how culture is described throughout the different mediums of communication. Although it may be true that people from different countries or regions smile less frequently, using this sole fact as a determinant of an entire population’s activities is ridiculous simply because finding a behavior that ten people do consistently is nigh impossible. Furthermore, even if the inhabitants of a region appear not to smile in public, it is probably not true in all situations. (Kumaravedivelu makes a similar point with ‘Asians’ in education) Imagine going to a stand up comedy show in this hypothetical place. Many public places to which tourists go to are not places where natives smile. Very few people are seen smiling in the streets of New York City, but most everyone associated with the city would not use such an essentializing descriptor like ‘New Yorkers don’t smile in public’ because they wouldn’t believe it to be accurate all the time.

I thought Kumaravedivelu explained the association, that of lack of participation and passivity in class, often given to Asian students with surprising clarity in her article. It is almost comical that Asian passivity is presupposed by many in the West when in reality it is something as common as anxiety from speaking an unfamiliar language in front of a classroom (Kumaravedivelu 712). It is a fear of failure and not being accepted that is found in almost all people rather than an attribute conditioned by a certain culture. This is, I suppose, a textbook example of reduction—seeing a trend between students who are from the same hemisphere and assuming that everyone from there must be like them.

With this said, I can see how easy it would be to draw similar conclusion. For instance, in my high school, there were a few native Spanish speakers and a few native Thai speakers. Most of the hispanic speakers where more likely to participate in class whereas the Thai speakers tended to be more reserved. Making a hypothesis from this example could lead one to come to such a conclusion, yet, as the article confirms, this is not the norm for all situations (Kumaravedivelu 711). One could find an example where the reverse would be true easily enough.