Ashford ANT343 Week 1 Discussion (dq1+dq2) Latest

ANT343 Language, Culture, and Communication

Week 1 Discussion

DQ1 Linguistic Frames. Reflecting on the information presented in the section “Language,

Culture and Thought: What Categories Tell You about the Mind” in Chapter 2 of the textbook, complete the following tasks:

a. Find a photograph online and provide a link to this photograph in your discussion post.

b. Create two different linguistic frames through which this one photograph might be interpreted (see figure 2.5 in your textbook for an example of frames applied to photographs). Each frame that you provided

should be one to two sentences long.

c. Discuss these two frames, their implications, and the cultural assumptions that may be embedded in each.Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length. Support your claims with examples from the required material(s) and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references. Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts by Day 7. In your two responses provide at least two new linguistic frames for your peers’ photographs. Try to create an entirely new meaning for the photographs.

DQ2 Cross-Cultural Communication. In his article, “A Goy in the Ghetto: Gentile-Jewish Communication” from The Anthropology of Language workbook, Mitchell describes his attempts at establishing rapport with his subjects.

Considering Mitchell’s experience trying to understand another culture’s communication style, address the following:

a. When and where have you been a cultural outsider? Define your experience as a cultural outsider.

b. How did the insiders convey to you that you were an outsider? To what extent was the way you were

received similar to or different from the way Mitchell was received by his Jewish informants in New

York and on what identity grounds? Make clear references to Mitchell’s field experiences.

c. Compare the communication style of the group where you were an outsider to the communication style of

that with which you were raised. Specifically, use the following comparative measures: did people talk

faster or slower, louder or quieter? Was gesture more or less important?

d. How did you negotiate gender relations through body language and non-verbal communication as an

outsider? To what extent was your experience similar to or different from Mitchell’s behavioral rapport

around Wape tribal men and his cultural adaptation as a Kansas male around rural Vermont males?

e. To what extent were you successful in avoiding ethnocentrism?

f. Did you find yourself modifying your behavior in any way to try to “fit in”? If so, how?

Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length. Support your claims with examples from the required

material(s) and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references. Respond to at least two of your

classmates’ posts by Day 7. How might your peers have negotiated their experiences of being a cultural outsider

differently had they been trained in cultural relativity or in ethnographic methodologies? How would a cultural

anthropologist have approached the situation?