Listen and Respond
Task One Focusing on the Main Ideas
Choose the best answer to each of the following questions according to the information contained in the listening passage.
1) What should you do when you are traveling abroad according to the speaker?
A) Get to know about the manners of the foreign country. B) Try to remember your own manners.
C) Read some books about the manners of that country. D) Observe closely the foreigners’ manners.
2) How do Americans feel when Chinese point to the nose to indicate ―me‖? A) They think it strange. B) They feel it funny. C) They find it amazing. D) They feel puzzled.
3) Who never bothers to use two hands to give or receive a gift? A) Chinese. B) Bulgarians. C) Indians. D) Americans.
4) To Indians, what is the left hand used for? A) Serving dishes. B) Passing food at table.
C) Washing themselves. D) Showing disagreement.
5) What does the passage mainly tell us?
A) It is necessary to adapt to different cultures. B) Cultural misunderstanding is common today. C) Cultural differences are a worthy topic to study.
D) People of different cultures may have different manners.
Task Two Zooming In on the Details
Listen to the recording again and fill in the blanks according to what you have heard.
1) When Chinese stamp their feet to show anger , Americans interpret this as
showing impatience . Chinese clap for themselves after a speech. Americans may see this as being immodest .
2) Americans may pat other adults on the head to show sympathy, affection, or
encouragement. This behavior could insult Chinese.
3) A visitor to India would do well to remember that people there think it impolite to use the left hand for passing food at table.
4) Also in India, you might see a man apparently shaking his head at the other to show that he is disagreeing. But in many other parts of India a rotating
movement of the head is to show agreement .
5) In Europe it is quite usual to cross your legs while sitting and talking to someone, even at an important meeting. But doing this could cause offence to a Thailander.
Read and Explore
Task One Discovering the Main Ideas
1 Answer the following questions with the information contained in Text A.
1) What causes culture shock according to the author?
Culture shock is caused by the anxiety that results from losing the familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse. These signs and symbols include all the countless ways and means we resort to for daily survival.
2) How does an individual feel when he or she enters a strange culture?
Like a fish out of water, he or she feels frustrated and anxious.
3) How do people react to the frustration and anxiety caused by culture shock?
At first they may reject the environment which causes the discomfort, thinking that the ways of the host country are bad because they make them feel bad. And then they may enter another phase of culture shock, which is called ―regression‖. They start missing their home country and the home environment suddenly assumes a tremendous importance. All the difficulties and problems back home are forgotten and only the good things are remembered.
4) What is the relationship between culture and the individual?
The individual lives not only in a physical environment but also in a cultural environment. The individual must learn the culture he or she is born into because he or she is not born with culture but only with the capacity to learn it and use it. Once learned, culture becomes a way of life.
5) What is ethnocentrism and what characterizes it?
Ethnocentrism is a belief that not only the culture but the race and the nation form the center of the world. People with this attitude identify themselves with their own group to the extent that any critical comment is taken as a remark that is rude to the individual as well as to the race or the nation. Along with this attitude goes the tendency to attribute all individual peculiarities as national characteristics.
6) What can we do to get over culture shock as quickly as possible?
To get over culture shock as quickly as possible, we have to get to know the people of the host country. For this purpose, we must, first of all, learn its language. When we are able to talk with the natives of the host country, we will be confident and a whole new world of cultural meanings will open up for us. Then, we must try to find out the value and interest pattern of the native people. In this way, we can find it quite easy to get people to talk to us and be interested in us. Thirdly, we can join the activities of the people, whether it is a carnival, a religious ritual, or some economic activity.
2 Text A can be divided into three parts with the paragraph number(s) of each part provided as follows. Write down the main idea of each part.
Part Paragraph(s) Main Idea
One 1–3 We might call culture shock a disease which is caused by the frustration and anxiety resulting from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse.
Two 4–6 Culture shock is due to our own lack of understanding of other people’s cultural background and our lack of the means of communication rather than the hostility of an alien environment.
Three 7–9 To get over culture shock, we should get to know the people of the host country and their language; we should find out what they do, how they do it, and what their interests are, etc. But understanding the ways of a people does not mean that we have to give up our own.
Task Two Reading Between the Lines
Read the following sentences carefully and discuss in pairs what the author intends to say by the italicised parts.
1. We might almost call culture shock an occupational disease of people who have been suddenly transplanted abroad. (Para. 1)
People working under the same conditions may contract occupational diseases owing to the dangers associated with the work. More broadly and figuratively,