Cultural Issues
I was just wondering which cultural conflicts you were referring to in your abstract. You are right about us Americans being backward. Which particular topics of conversation are likely to cause intercontinental misunderstandings?
Well the most obvious topic is that of sex. Europeans tend to have a much more laid back attitude than Americans. The tabloid press is much more forthright in England, for instance, describing the activities of the rich and famous in fairly explicit terms. Most Europeans are totally bemused about the Lewinsky affair. In the UK it would be the newspapers that investigated and reported it - spending money to investigate a politician's sex life would be unheard of! In France the idea of a politician who doesn't have a mistress is inconceivable. Even the difference between US English and English English can cause problems. For instance:
Same phrase, totally different meaning! To make matters even more confusing the UK equivalent of the US phrase is 'I'm pissed off'. The other crucial topic where the English in particular can give offense without meaning to is religion. The US is a fundamentalist Christian society, while in the UK the white population is overwhelmingly atheistic. Nominally they are Christian, but in fact only a very tiny minority attend church. Religion is completely irrelevant to their lives, and a surprisingly large number of couples never even get married, since there is no stigma or legal hit attached to children born out of wedlock. Given this, it is terribly easy for devout Christians to be offended by the attitude of UK people. Especially when you consider that most English people's one real brush with religion was being sent to Sunday School as a child, so that their parents could have sex on Sunday morning without the children being in the house! And all this is just potential problems between people of white European stock! Add different faiths - for instance Muslims - and the absence of visual cues, and you can see the possibilities for misunderstandings. In the case of Americans this is compounded by the fact that most of them tend to take their holidays in the USA, whereas Europeans usually go to another country for their main holidays, and so have more experience of cultural diversity. Anyway, I hope this helps. PS: I didn't actually say Americans were backward in my abstract :) |
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