This was an assignment for my Interpersonal Communication class. We were assigned to do an analysis on chapter one of the book Interpersonal Communication: 2024 Release by Kory Floyd.
Interpersonal Communication - Chapter 2: Three Section Analysis
Theme of the Chapter:
This chapter covers defining culture, the components of culture, understanding co-cultures, social media as a co-culture, and how to communicate with cultural awareness. How culture affects communication, understanding gender and communication, and how gender affects communication are other topics explored throughout this chapter. There was also a section devoted to discussing the dark side of communications, and this section discusses cultural stereotyping in foreign times. The chapter as a whole, asks one to reflect on the fact that cultures and societies do vary tremendously. How culture affects communication, understanding gender and communication, and how gender affects communication are other topics discussed and explored in this chapter.
Five Key Terms From Chapter One:
Collectivistic Culture: A culture that places greater emphasis on loyalty to the family, workplace, or community than on the needs of the individual.
Communication Codes: Verbal and nonverbal behaviors, such as idioms and gestures, that characterize a culture and distinguish it from other cultures.
Instrumental Talk: Verbal communication whose purpose is to solve problems and accomplish tasks.
Monochronic: A concept that treats time as a finite commodity that can be earned, saved, spent, and wasted.
Similarity Assumption: One’s tendency to presume that others think the same way he or she does.
Overall Take-A-Way(s):
Overall, understanding and defining culture and communication, how culture affects communication, understanding gender and communication, and how gender affects communication are indeed the topics explored in this chapter. Culture defined is the system of learned and shared symbols, language, values, and norms that distinguish one group of people from another. This helps people to understand that culture is not necessarily a property of countries but rather a property of people. On the other hand, a society is a group of people who share a given culture. I also learned the differences between in-groups and out-groups. An in-group can be defined as a group of people with whom one identifies, while an out-group is known as a group of people with whom one does not identify. An example of an in-group would be if you are from the U.S. Midwest, then you would view other Midwesterns as part of your in-group, whereas if you traveled or are traveling through foreign countries the residents may perceive you as being from an out-group if you act, look, or sound different from them or behave differently. The section devoted to discussing the dark side of communications brings up how during the time after the terrorist attacks on the United States that the citizens of the U.S. placed suspicion on most Muslim Americans and according to the book, caused a lot of upset in the Muslim American community because of the stereotyping they received after the attacks. This chapter stresses the importance of being aware of other cultures and co-cultures behaviors and ways of thinking because most likely they will differ from your own. Another take away would be that of how gender influences verbal communication like expressive and instrumental talk, as well as linguistic styles. Gender identity is something that I was able to learn more about and to grasp a clearer definition of it. The definition of gender identity is the idea that it represents the gender or genders with which a person identifies. This chapter was incredibly insightful into how both gender and culture affects communication.
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