Communication Across Cultures

This essay discusses the interaction between people belonging to different cultures and the role of modern day innovations in revolutionizing and facilitating such contacts. It focuses on two individuals from different cultural backgrounds and their experiences of communication across cultures.

Running head: COMMUNICATION ACROSS CULTURES
COMMUNICATION ACROSS CULTURES
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The technology and the innovation and revolution in the field of information has made
communication across continent and cultures much easier. In this globalized world the social
networking sites such as facebook, whatsapp, instagram, snapchat, blackberry messenger,
telegram are contributing to people across cultures and continents come across each other,
connect to each other and that facilitates in the process of exchange between people belonging to
different cultures. The thesis statement of this essay is to provide a discussion about the
interaction between people belonging to different cultures and the role of the modern day
innovations in revolutionizing and facilitating such contacts shall also be discussed. Two persons
with whom I have interacted over the social media shall be discussed. Both of them belong to
different cultural backgrounds. The focus of the discussion herein is to focus on the aspect of
interaction between me as a person having roots in California, the United States of America and
the other two persons belonging to the eastern hemisphere of the world. One person is from Iran
and the other person is from India. My first encounter with them had been at California and ever
since then we have remained in touch with each other. With the coming of facebook, keeping in
touch with them have become more regular and much more economical, and that has somehow
allowed our friendship to grow.
The first person is a third generation American citizen of Iranian descent, whose name is
Avin Sajjadi. Her ancestors had come to California at the wake of the Iranian Revolution in the
year 1979, and have ever since then they have been naturalized as citizens of the nation. Avin
was born and brought up in California, she lives with her family in the region which is in popular
culture called as Tehrangeles, the neighbourhood in Los Angeles which is populated majorly by
Iranians. The area bears a close resemblance to the city of Tehran of Iran as mentioned by Avin.
She had recounted tales of why her ancestors and others from Iran found Los Angeles as the

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ideal place to settle outside Iran. The presence of mountains in the region reminded them of the
Alborz mountain in Tehran and the cars of Los Angeles reminded them of the wide range of cars
that ran across the streets of Tehran. Though she remains out of Iran, her cultural practices, her
language, her customs are very much rooted in Iranian traditions. She follows Islam, but she is
temperamentally very secular and open minded, which she says is a cultural legacy of the regime
of Shah. It has been conducive for her to maintain the secularism as the culture of openness of
the US has allowed that to happen. She celebrates Nowruz with a lot of enthusiasm, cooks
Persian dishes and speaks Farsi fluently though she has been to Iran very few times. Iranians of
Los Angeles are generally very highly educated and so is Avin, as it is in their culture to seek
education and rise up the social ladder. The discussions with her have always been of very
intellectual nature and they are extremely emancipatory in nature. The posts which she share in
facebook are also reflective of it, which are mostly related to culture, literature, music et cetera
and almost none on politics. She usually comments in Farsi when her Iranian friends comment
and with others in English (House, 2015).
The second person is a man from India, from a city called Bangalore in southern part of
India. His name is Rajeevan Gowda. He had come to California to pursue his studies at a
university specializing in software technology. He is a hindu by religion, and has a lot of dietary
restrictions. He is a strict vegetarian due to religious reasons. He was fluent in English despite
being born and brought up in India. It was a result of his schooling from an English medium
school and college. However he had a peculiar accent which was a result of his native language,
Kannada. He was a very studious man and was very well behaved which was a result of his
culture. I have discovered that to the ethnicity and the city he belonged to is known for having a
strong tradition of IT sector related studies and jobs which has earned his city the epitaph of

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being the silicon valley of India. Since he was a bright student, discussion with him could be
conducted on any topic and he was quite knowledgeable. He hardly uses facebook for posting
anything but he used to be active. His comments mostly were in English and sometimes he
commented in Kannada, transliterated into English which shows the colonial hangover in his
nation (Samovar et al., 2015).
In case of Avin, before the advent of facebook, keeping in touch with her would have
been only by means of phone calls, or by meeting up with her at the university campus, or may
be at some places to enjoy a gala time. In case of Rajeevan, had facebook not been there, emails
would have been the cheapest and the most convenient way of communicating with him, as
phone calls would have been quite costly. These are the ways in which connecting to the two
person would have been possible had the role of technology not been there to facilitate
communication by means of technology.
My role as a connection between the two has been quite significant for different reasons
to the two different persons. With Avin, my connection is significant as we can be friends in a
commonplace. With Rajeevan my connection is significant as we have studied in the same
university and keeping in touch with friends is a ritual which we follow (Ting-Toomey & Dorjee,
2018). On an overall basis, the cultural give and take that takes place through our communication
is a significant role. This can relatable to Daniel Bell’s concept of world being connected by
wireless highways, which is true as we are mostly in touch over facebook. I can still meet up
with Avin but with Rajeevan, facebook is the only resort as he has returned back to India
(Deresky, 2017). It is also relatable to the concept of globalization as it fulfills the prediction that
people from all over the world shall be coming close to each other and there shall be exchange of

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information and culture to make the world a global village transcending boundaries (Vroman,
Arthanat & Lysack, 2015).
I have learnt that the western and eastern values are quite different and there is something
in the culture that leads an individual belonging to a particular culture to develop. The values
cherished by Avin and Rajeevan, about life, morality are however quite different from the
western values and its good that they have taken the best of both the east and the west (Hall,
Covarrubias & Kirschbaum, 2017). I have been able to deduce the cultural difference on the
basis of the application of the concept of cross cultural comparison which occurs very naturally
to human beings when they observe something starkly different from them. With the
application of the sociological concept of understanding cultural specificity, I have been able to
delve a deep understanding of their conduct which is rooted in their culture (Kim, 2017).
As such there were no other persons who had built up our connection, but the fact that we
shared a common educational institution, our connection was built that way. By my means of
communication, I can raise awareness about the fact that all Iranians are not terrorists, and Avin
is an example of it (Giles, 2016). Raeevan is an example who can exemplify that all persons
coming from a third world nation are not aimed at seeking benefits, and the world needs to be
aware of it. This information matters as that signifies the concept of liquidation of state
sovereignty for the flourishing of humankind and bonding (Kim, 2017).

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References
Deresky, H. (2017). International management: Managing across borders and cultures. Pearson
Education India.
Giles, H. (Ed.). (2016). Communication accommodation theory: Negotiating personal
relationships and social identities across contexts. Cambridge University Press.
Hall, B. J., Covarrubias, P. O., & Kirschbaum, K. A. (2017). Among cultures: The challenge of
communication. Routledge.
House, J. (2015). Translation as communication across languages and cultures. Routledge.
Kim, Y. Y. (2017). Contextual theory of interethnic communication. The International
Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication, 1-10.
Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., McDaniel, E. R., & Roy, C. S. (2015). Communication between
cultures. Nelson Education.
Ting-Toomey, S., & Dorjee, T. (2018). Communicating across cultures. Guilford Publications.
Vroman, K. G., Arthanat, S., & Lysack, C. (2015). “Who over 65 is online?” Older adults’
dispositions toward information communication technology. Computers in Human
Behavior, 43, 156-166.