Gabriela San Roman- Group Presentation

About the Chapter          

Of all the groups formed my group focused on Chapter 3: Intercultural Communication, which, according to the book, refers to interactions between people whose cultures are so different that communication between them is disrupted. Afterward, we looked at the interactions and relations between dominant and co-cultures.

 Culture: Learned system of norms held by the majority group of empowered people in society.

Co-culture: Group formed of a smaller number of people whose values, attitudes, beliefs, and customs differ from the dominant culture. 

Once a person identifies their culture they developed something called cultural identity. This is the sense of self, people form based on the cultural groups with whom they closely align themselves. In other words, it's a part of self-concept based on how closely we associate with both the dominant culture and co-cultures. To have a better understanding we were given examples of shared beliefs and values;

Race

Ethnicity

Sex and gender

Sexual Orientation

Religion

Socioeconomic Status (SES)

Age/ Generation

Disability

Individualism/ Collectivism 

Assigning the Work

We wanted to get the group project off to a good start, and actually, our professor helped us a ton by assigning group leaders, who were quite helpful in that they guided us through the process and kept us motivated to complete the task apart from being there to answer any immediate question we had. I am not going to lie it was challenging because we are a big group and we all have our own lives and things to do, therefore, we have our own agendas and work at different times throughout the day, making it impossible to assign work via chat since a lot of people couldn't keep up with it, which is understandable. However, I was frustrated because I had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted to do and what I thought was the best course of action in regards to the project, but I had to understand that everyone had a vote too, so I tried my best to work as a team and help as much as possible. We were the first group to present; we didn't have a lot of time and were having trouble assigning the work. I was worried that we were not going to finish in time. Nevertheless, slowly but surely, we all took it upon ourselves to decide what we wanted to do and without any hesitation, we begin to work. 

Despite the fact that our ideas were diverse, we were all aware that they were all oriented around the same concept, similar to puzzle pieces that when placed together create a clear image. Another major concern was to not write too much on the slides. We knew the professor wouldn't have liked it and we were also attempting to explain what we had learned from the book, but too much text causes information overload, preventing listeners from taking notes and processing the information at the same time.

My Choice of Topics

I chose Religion and Socioeconomic Status. I felt like these two themes were ideal for me because I was quickly drowned and intrigued by them after reading the chapter. According to the dictionary, the word Religion means "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs." As we all know religion dates back to prehistoric times. Scientists believe that religion was the light in a world of darkness since back then people didn't have the resources we have today, so they had to believe in something to guide and appease their minds. This topic is definitely controversial. Like everything in this world, there is another side of the coin, and there are people who truly believe that in fact there is a higher and divine power. Either way or regardless of what we believe, the truth is that religion influences culture, and it's also influenced by culture, therefore, religion plays a big part in the cultural identity of people. This applies to things like choice of clothes, diets, and even mannerisms and behaviors. We all have our own beliefs, so we should keep in mind to always be respectful to others even if we don't agree with them.

The other subject I discussed was socioeconomic status. SES refers to a person's economic and social standing in comparison to others, as determined by their education, income, and occupation. In other words, SES is a societal scale that divides people into social classes. One interesting thing I learned about this topic is that SES has the impact of affecting children's cognitive and brain development. This is because they are exposed to these societal restraints from a very young age. "Parents in low-SES groups tend to emphasize obedience, acceptance of what others think, and hesitancy in expressing desires to authority figures. Middle-class parents tend to emphasize intellectual curiosity. And, in terms of nonverbal communication, people of high SES backgrounds tend to perform more disengagement cues than people and low SES backgrounds"

Speech Presentation 

I had a lot of fun researching these topics, and even though I'm always worried when giving a presentation, the knot in my throat went away after the first line. I believe this was due to confidence in my research and work, and also actually liking the material I was working with for this presentation. I enjoyed my classmates' speeches as well, and I believe we all did an excellent job. I think they did a great job with the visual aids. The videos they added were excellent and perfectly complemented what they were discussing. However, I wished I had the opportunity to include one in my own presentation as well. I found a great one, but I knew there were already too many and didn't want to cause the group any further delay.

Work Cited 

• Religion. (2022). Dictionary. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/religion 
• Sellnow, D. D., Verderber, K. S., & Verderber, R. F. (2020). COMM (MindTap Course List) (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.