Иностранный язык в сфере профессиональной деятельности (Intercultural Business Skills). Учебное пособие по английскому языку

WHAT YOU ARE DOING. Observe the other people at the conference closely. Do you notice anything unusual about their behaviour? What sort of culture do you think they come from?

Lesson 2. STEREOTYPES across CULTURES

INSIGHT INTO THE TOPIC

An American man attending an international relations banquet was sitting across a man who looked Asian. He wanted to start a conversation so he asked the man loudly and in very simple English, “Like food?” The man politely nodded yes, but said nothing.

During the dinner program, the master of ceremony introduced the Asianlooking man as an award winning professor of economics at an important university. The professor was invited to give a short talk about world trade issues. After a short discussion in perfect English the professor sat down. He then looked across to his neighbour and asked loudly and in a very simple English, “Like talk?”

What stereotype did the American have about the Asian-looking man? Where do stereotypes come from? What is the stereotype?

VOCABULARY

1. Read the following joke. Do you find it amusing? What does the intended humour rely on? Which qualities are implicitly attributed for each nation?

Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian and it is all organised by the Swiss. Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it is all organised by the Italians.

2. Study nationality words and with the help of a dictionary complete the table.

Three different words are required to talk about people and things from a particular country:

–an adjective that is used to refer to the country, its culture etc.;

–the word used to speak about a person from the country;

–the word (used with the definite article) that refers to the entire population of a nation.

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Egypt

Dutch

Sweden

Chilean

the Europeans

Japan

Russia

English

British

a Mexican

China

Spain

French

Danish

the Scots

Germany

an Indian

End of table

3. In 1984, just before the elections for the European Parliament, a French magazine published a cartoon.

The member states at that time were: Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Greece, the UK, France, Holland, Republic of Ireland and Italy. Below are the ten stereotypes attributed by the cartoonist to these various members. Working with a partner, try to decide which stereotype he put with which nationality: discreet, prolific, serious, elegant, calm, funny, gallant, disciplined, hospitable, virile.

4. Answer according to the model below. Is there any truth in national stereotypes? Do cultural habits have an effect on business practices? Do stereotypes help or hinder business relationships? Are they unfair?

French are considered ..., for ...; ... are thought of as ..., because ...; ... are suppose to be ..., since... .

LANGUAGE EXPANSION

5. You can suppose how we are seen by other nationalities. For this, complete the following text.

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Russia is a country ______________. People, who live there ________

the foreigners are often ____________ when they first come here. Perhaps, the general opinion of Russians is that _________. It’s certainly __________ for us!

6. Please note that the stereotypes can be positive, negative or neutral.

Does this tell us anything about stereotypes? What are the stereotypes of Russians basedon? Can they harm the reputation of our country on the world arena? What is the best way to respond to stereotypes:

–with anger?

–with a joke?

–with an explanation why the stereotype is wrong?

–with silence?

–other?

7. Role-play the talk between a foreigner and a Russian on stereotypes he has of Russians – different reactions.

DISCUSSION

8. Read the text. With a partner, discuss the difference between a stereotype and a cultural generalization.

STEREOTYPES vs. CULTURAL GENERALISATION

A stereotype is a belief that all people from a culture behave a certain way. It is an opinion based on one’s own cultural values and prejudices and on little information about the other culture. For example, a woman from a culture that values hard work looks at people from a fictional land called Zaby. In Zaby, people work at their jobs about five hours a day. So, the woman says, “People from Zaby are lazy.” This is a stereotype because she states that every person from Zaby is the same and it is an opinion based more on the woman’s own values than on any thoughtful observation of Zabian values or lifestyle.

Usually in the business context we talk about different ways of doing business. We make cultural generalizations about different styles of business. This does not mean that every person who lives in a particular culture will do business in a way that fits the generalization. Within each culture there are many choices. There is, however, in every culture a standard way of doing things. The cultural generalizations describe those standards and the values that guide those standards. For example, one could make a generalization about Zabians and say, “People in Zaby usually work about five hours a day. They spend the rest of the day taking care of family and farming. Family life is highly valued.” A generalization is based on observation, not prejudice. It explains the standard practices of a culture but does not determine how every person in that culture behaves.

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11. Comment on these statements, using the following expressions: I agree, I disagree, I am not sure.

1.National stereotypes are dangerous because they provide racial prejudice.

2.Stereotypes contain a certain amount of truth.

3.There is no such thing as ‘national character’ and therefore the idea of national stereotypes is rubbish.

4.The reason stereotypes exist is because people are afraid of diversity, change, and what is unknown. They prefer to cling to simple classifications which maintain an old, familiar and established order.

5.Stereotypes are simply harmless sorts of jokes we tell about other nationalities or groups of people.

6.Stereotypes can be helpful in doing business.

7.A businessman shouldn’t be prejudiced against a certain nation when going international.

8.Stereotypes are insulting.

9.Stereotypes are based on prejudices.

READING

12. Read text 5 and fulfill the tasks that follow it.

Text 5. MOBILE-PHONE CULTURE. Part 1

Technologies tend to be global, both by nature and by name. Say “television”, “computer” or “internet” anywhere and chances are you will be understood. But what about hand-held phones? For this ubiquitous technology, mankind suffers from a Tower of Bibel syndrome. Under millions of Christmas trees North and South Americans have been unwrapping cell phones or celulares. Yet to Britons and Spaniards they are mobiles or móviles. Germans and Finns refer to them as Handys and kännykät, respectively, because they fit in your hand. The Chinese, too, make calls on a sho ji, or “hand machine”. And in Japan the term of art is keitai, which roughly means “something you can carry with you”.

This disjunction is revealing for an object that, in the space of a decade, has become as essential to human functioning as a pair of shoes. Mobile phones do not share a single globalmoniker because the origins of their names are deeply cultural. “Cellular” refers to how modern wireless networks are built, pointing to a technological worldview in America. “Mobile” emphasizes that the device is untethered, which fits the roaming, once-imperial British style. Handy highlights the importance of functionality, much appreciated in Germany. But are such differences more than cosmetic? And will they persist or give way to a global mobile culture?

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Such questions bear asking. It is easy to forget how rapidly mobile phones have taken over. A decade ago, there were fewer than 500m mobile subscriptions, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Now there are about 4.6 billion. Penetration rates have risen steeply everywhere. In rich countries subscriptions outnumber the population. Even in poor countries more than half the inhabitants have gone mobile. Dial a number and the odds are three to one that it will cause a mobile phone, rather than a fixed-line one, to ring somewhere on the planet.

As airtime gets cheaper, the untethered masses tend to use their mobiles more. In early 2000 an average user spoke for 174 minutes a month, according to the GSM Association (GSMA), an industry group. By early 2012 that had risen to 261 minutes, which suggests that humanity spends over 1 trillion minutes a month on mobiles, or nearly 2m years. Nobody can keep track of the flood of text messages. One estimate suggests that American subscribers alone sent over 1 trillion texts in 2010, almost treble the number sent the previous year.

Now a further mobile-phone revolution is under way, driven by the iPhone and other “smart” handsets which let users gain access to the internet and download mobile applications, including games, social-networking programs, productivity tools and much else besides. Smart-phones accounted for over 13 % of the 309 m handsets shipped in the third quarter of 2015. Some analysts estimate that by 2035 almost all shipped handsets will be smart. Mobile operators have started building networks which will allow for faster connection speeds for an even wider variety of applications and services.

Yet these global trends hide starkly different national and regional stories. Vittorio Colao, the boss of Vodafone, which operates or partially owns networks in 31 countries, argues that the farther south you go, the more people use their phones, even past the equator: where life is less organised people need a tool, for example to rejig appointments. “Culture influences the lifestyle, and the lifestyle influences the way we communicate,” he says. “If you don’t leave your phone on in a meeting in Italy, you are likely to miss the next one.”

Other mundane factors also affect how phones are used. For instance, in countries where many people have holiday homes they are more likely to give out a mobile number, which then becomes the default where they can be reached, thus undermining the use of fixed-line phones. Technologies are always both constructive and constructed by historical, social, and cultural contexts.

COMPREHENSION

13. How much vocabulary have you learnt? Find the words and/or expressions in the text 5 that mean:

1) a name or nickname (informal name);

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2)to release a person, animal, or thing so that he, she, or it can move or

actfreely;

3)a largeamount or number of something;

4)to transport something or someone by air, train, boat, or truck;

5)to change and improve the arrangement of something;

6)to fail to do or experience something, often something planned or

expected;

7)very ordinary and therefore not interesting;

8)to give something to each of a number of people.

14. Fill in the gaps with correct item(s).

1. We’ll have to ______ the shed in order to get the extrachairs in. 2. A ______ of cheapimports has come into the country. 3. When success came, he _______ himself from his longtime literaryagent. 4. Parts for the spacestation are being _______ out there by spacecraft. 5. _________ matters such as payingbills and shopping for food do not interest her. 6. This ________ is not clinically based but has emerged as a convenient mechanism for classification. 7. I _________ the start of the class because my bus was late. 8. They’re ______

free tickets to the circus.

15. Change the following sentences into the passive form.

1.Germans and Finns refer to them as Handys and kännykät, respectively, because they fit in your hand.

2.As airtime gets cheaper, the untethered masses tend to use their mobiles

more.

3.Nobody can keep track of the flood of text messages.

4.Mobile operators have started building networks which will allow for faster connection speeds for an even wider variety of applications and services.

5.These global trends hide starkly different national and regional stories.

6.Culture influences the lifestyle, and the lifestyle influences the way we communicate

7.Smart-phones accounted for over 13 % of the 309 m handsets shipped in the third quarter of 2015.

8.Handy highlights the importance of functionality, much appreciated in Germany.

READING

16. Get ready to summarize briefly the main idea of text 6.

Text 6. MOBILE PHONE CULTURE. Part 2

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Japan is a good example of how such subcultures come about. In the 1990s Americans and Scandinavians were early adopters of mobile phones. But in the next decade Japan was widely seen as the model for the mobile future, given its early embrace of the mobile internet.

The country’s mobile boom was arguably encouraged by underlying social conditions. Most teenagers had long used pagers to keep in touch. In 1999 NTT, Japan’s dominant operator, launched i-mode, a platform for mobileinternet services. It allowed cheap e-mails between networks and the Japanese promptly signed up in droves for mobile internet. Japan is a crowded place with lots of rules. Harried teenagers, in particular, have few chances for private conversations and talking on the phone in public is frowned upon, if not outlawed.

Might the Japanese stop talking entirely on their mobiles? They seem less and less keen on the phone’s original purpose. In 2012 the average Japanese mobile user spoke on it for 181 minutes each month, about the global norm. By early 2019 that had fallen to 133 minutes, then only half the world average. Nobody knows how many e-mails are sent, but the Japanese are probably even more prolific than text-crazy Indonesians, who average more than 1,000 messages per month on some operators. No wonder that Tokyo’s teenagers have been called the “thumb generation”.

Others are quiet, too. On average Germans – who are fond of saying that “talk is silver, silence is golden” – spend only 89 minutes each month calling others for Handy-based conversation. This may be a result of national telephone companies on both sides of the Berlin Wall having exhorted subscribers for years to “keep it short” because of underinvestment in the East and rapid economic growth that overtaxed the network in the West. Germans are also thrifty, suggests Anastassia Lauterbach of Deutsche Telekom. For longer calls, she says, consumers resort to much cheaper landlines.

In contrast, Americans won’t shut up. Their average monthly talk-time is a whopping 788 minutes, though some of this is a statistical illusion because subscribers also pay for incoming calls. Yet talk is cheap: there is no roaming charge within the United States. Americans are often in their cars, an ideal spot for phone calls, especially in the many states where driving and talking without headsets is still legal.

The chattiest of all are Puerto Ricans, who have by far the highest monthly average in the world of 1,875 minutes, probably because operators on the American island offer all-you-can-talk plans for only $40, which include calls to the mainland.

This allows Puerto Ricans to chat endlessly with their friends in New York, but may also have arbitrageurs routing cheap international phone calls through the island.

Just how people behave when talking on a mobile phone is a question of culture, at least at first, according to Amapro Lasén, a sociologist at Universidad

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