The Cost Of Diversity In Communication Two Camels Analysis

Humans rarely change their ways; they stay in their own worlds and always interact with the same types of people. Unfortunately, this habit often creates unseen barriers that divide and alienate human beings from one another. In Luis Alberto Urrea’s book The Devil’s Highway, Urrea provides a personal perspective to immigration by telling the story of 26 illegal immigrants, known as the Wellton 26, who are abandoned as they cross the Mexico-U.S. border. Through their story, Urrea proves there are invisible borders among people that create prejudice, such as language, ethnicity, and economic status. By reading The Devil’s Highway, it is clear that these barriers must be broken down to ensure harmony within society.

Being an immigrant from Nigeria was initially a challenge when I first moved to America. I generally speak quite fast, but I soon realize that some Americans could not understand my English and might misinterpret me. I had to talk slower in order to pass the right messages across. Below are two examples of situations when I misinterpreted a message and when my message was misinterpreted.

The story “Where is Here” by Joyce Oates is about a married couple who are being visited by a mysterious man, who they have never seen before. The visitor is walking through their house, seemingly reliving childhood memories. When the stranger says, “I mean, I was a child in this house” this proves that the stranger had lived in the house as a child and had memories of his childhood, but there was no telling how long ago that was. The wife is worried about who the young man is and what his intentions are, she even says “The garage! What does he want in there!” thus proving her anxiousness about the stranger. The stranger asks to come into the house, and the wife agrees to let him in saying, “We can’t bar the doors against him. That would be cruel”(Oats #). The stranger enters the house and begins meandering around, having childhood memories about his mother, father, and the events in his childhood. After a night of the man exploring the house, the father forced the stranger out of the house and then locks the door.

A culture, by definition, is a set of shared beliefs within a society; learning how to interact with people from different cultures is important in order to communicate and work with each other. It helps us become understanding of one another and widens our perspective of what the world has to offer. To be able to cross cultural communicate with others, the first step is to be aware that every culture is complex and has its differences.

This case study presents an incident that occurred in Bridges Bay Public Library. The director of the library, Joseph Calenda, has to decide what should be done about the homeless people, standing in the lobby of the library. Calenda is the manager being graded on in this case study. Due to the cold weather, a group of homeless people stood in the lobby to stay warm. Many of the patrons visiting the library complained about their presence and the director convened a meeting with the department heads to discuss what should be done. They decide to do nothing and the group except for a woman leave when it starts to get warmer outside. The woman left a few hours later. However, the next day she appeared again, with no signs of leaving. A custodian who asked her to leave received a blank stare in response. The patrons’ complaints grew, and another meeting was held. In the meeting, topics such as laws regarding vagrancy and whether to call the police was discussed and debated. The assistant director, Bridget O’Dea, brought up a valid point about the homeless from an ethical standpoint. Her argument is that as a society one should help those who cannot help themselves (). She believes that the library should let the woman stay since she is not doing any

The crowded bar was noisy, smoky and in no way what Tom had in mind when he had suggested to Booker that they were in a slump and needed to set time aside for a weekly date night. When he had made the proposal, he had expected quiet nights in listening to music or dinners at fancy restaurants, but so far, they had experienced the unsavory environment of a pool hall and a night out at a Monster Truck exhibition. To say he was unimpressed would have been an understatement; his lover’s apparent lack of thoughtful and suitable suggestions for the perfect date had him feeling downright pissed off. It appeared Booker was not only adept at getting his own way; he also did not have a single romantic bone in his body.

Due to the invention of modern technology, America has become the melting pot of different cultures and it shows most people are open to becoming cosmopolitan. The invention of technology have given society the ability to communicate with each other from all over the world. Americans have not fully embraced the idea of mutually agreeing about a topic through conversation alone because not every generation of people can see eye to eye. For example, the millennials and the Baby Boomers have two different perspectives on life because of their upbringing and many other factors. There is no peaceful mutual agreement between topics such as abortion, gay marriage or police brutality between the generations. Each group has grown up with different values so they have preconceived notions regarding certain topics which is why we need to “value language [it] helps shape common responses of thought, action, and feeling” (Appiah 73). Conversations are important because it opens up our minds to change, and it stops the spread of imaginative engagement, people need to experience certain things for themselves instead of hearing about it. New technology has caused Kwame Anthony Appiah’s vision of cosmopolitanism to come

“Class” by Sherman Alexie is a story about a man, Edgar Joseph, on a journey to self-identification. While on this journey he experiences many different tribulations and encounters a multitude of women. The encounters with these women will reveal to the reader his selfless, barbaric, and lost personality. However, the experiences he had with women of his own descent provided a transformative experience that shows what he is looking for and what he truly values.

The short story “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl is a great mystery because it has lots of suspense. In “The Landlady”, a seventeen year old boy named Billy Weaver has gone to London, and while searching for a place to stay, finds a bed and breakfast to stay for the night. But he didn’t decide to stay there, he was forced there. In the story, it states, “Each word was like a large black eye staring at him through the glass, holding him, compelling him, forcing him to stay where he was and not walk away from that house, and the next thing he knew, he was actually moving across from the window to the front door of the house,” (Dahl, 2). In this passage, Billy is actually being pulled to the bed and breakfast by some unknown force. The words “holding”,

The difference in language leads to miscommunication but the overlying consequence of it is lack of understanding and empathy for one another which leads to conflict. “Language takes on a metonymic relation to culture in Tan's portrayal of the gap between the mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club.” (Hamilton). The language barriers between the daughters and the mothers create the cultural barriers. Language barriers emphasize and directly influences cultural barriers. Cultural barriers prevent communication between people from all around the world, especially between the mothers and the daughters, and not necessarily figuratively. The language barrier between the mothers and the daughters can be symbolic.The lack of understanding and comprehension for one another creates a language barrier between the mothers and the daughters. “These kinds of explanations made me feel my mother and I spoke two different languages, which we did. I talked to her in English, she answered back in Chinese.” (Tan 84). Peoples' communicating leads to the spread of different ideas. Language connects societies figuratively and literally. Culture and language influence people extensively which allow people to be susceptible to miscommunication when a barrier is too vast. Familial relationships disrupt from language barriers. “Divergent perceptions and absence of a common language of communication ...they fail to fathom each other’s feelings and likes and dislikes” (Priya). Miscommunication between people creates rifts and lays pretense for tension and dispassion. Without communication, people become impatient and disassociate. “They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English”(Tan 31). Apprehension creates misunderstanding. Apathy negates relationships and destroys any chance of understanding.

Knowing how to interact with people of other cultures has become an increasingly important issue as international communication and travel becomes more common. With more interactions between cultures, cultural misunderstandings become more common. The satirical book Fear and Trembling by Amélie Nothomb attempts to address this issue, pointing out what people often do wrong. Fear and Trembling is a story which follows Amélie, a young Belgian woman who goes to work for a Japanese company and struggles to fit in, committing many cultural faux pas along the way. Nothomb uses contrasting sentence structure between Amélie 's thoughts and her dialogue and actions to demonstrate the way that Westerners often ignore other cultures despite knowing better because they view themselves as more important. Amélie displays this exact behavior when she jokes about Fubuki 's struggles despite understanding how serious they are and again later when she follows Fubuki into the bathroom even knowing the consequences of her actions.

Conversation between men and women can be described like cross-cultural communication. This is the basis of Tannen’s You Just Don’t Understand. In an effort to bridge that communication gap between genders, she examined the differences between how and why people communicate. According to

Having watched the three videos, I realized that there were a myriad of elements from the Six Stumbling Blocks. The six stumbling blocks she stated are assumption of similarities, language differences, nonverbal misinterpretations, tendency to evaluate, stress and culture shock. I believe intercultural communication is as complex and a severe issue as it is now. It is because we are never able to understand what “someone else” is, as Barna mentioned in the article. Although we assume we understand what someone else is thinking, we never know if we actually understand the concept, because there is no way to confirm that. This leads to preconception and stereotypes, and these are what cause another misunderstanding, and it creates this pessimistic

In a usual family, there are set roles. A father, mother, and children. Stereotypically, each role is supposed to have a set job- the father is in charge of the family, making the rules, the mother cooks and helps the children, and the children play. This stereotype is slowly changing throughout the years, and some could argue that it is different for their family. One thing that should be true in all families, is that the parents are good role models for their children, leading them in the right direction in life. In the short story, “Powder” by Tobias Wolff, the roles of father and son are flipped. The father in the story doesn’t act as a typical father figure, but instead the son meets all of the requirements that a fatherly figure should have. Throughout the story, the father and son spend a lot time together, making up for all of their lost time together. Through bonding and talking with his father, the son realizes who he is compared to his father and his actions.

Communication is a very powerful thing and it is so powerful that humans and animals can interact with each other and communication is inevitable and it is either verbal or non-verbal and it can be effective or ineffective and it important that communication is effective or else you as an individual will not be able to build relationships and maintain them for a long time. The essay will talk about my strengths and limitations in a dyadic conversation between my friend and me. I will be focussing on myself in the conversation. The essay will also cover the communication concepts and basics.