Consider Cultural Differences

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As you probably know, the rules and expectations for communicating well differ from culture to culture. U.S. Americans tend to expect direct communication so speakers are likely to get right to the point and state their thesis during the introduction of the talk. Many other cultures, including those which are considered collectivistic, consider the directness of U.S. Americans are blunt and inconsiderate. For many African and South American cultures, speakers are expected to be more subtle and less direct than U.S. Americans. Many Asian cultures believe that maintaining social harmony is far more important than directness. Likewise, the Mexican culture prefers indirect politeness to the U.S. manner of speaking.

Check out the scholarly but readable Princeton University’s udpated 2004-2005 Handbook on Exploring Cultural Differences at http://www.princeton.edu/~sap/handbook/chapter-9.html. Offered as part of its Study Abroad Program, this site includes sections on Culture Shock, Cultural Stereotypes, Fitting In, A Note for Women, Race and Ethnicity, Sexuality, and more.

Use Preferred Cultural Identifers
Joseph DeVito offers the following suggestions drawn from the Task Force on Bias-Free Language of the Association of American University Presses for avoiding sexism heterosexism and racism:

Woman or young woman is preferred to girl or lady when referring to an adult female;
Older person is preferred to elder, senior or senior citizen;
Gay and lesbian refers to a lifestyle. sexual orientation is preferred to sexual preference;
Most African Americans prefer African American to black;
White is used to refere to European Americans;
Hispanic refers to a person from a Spanish-speaking culture. Latina (female) and Latino (male) refer to Latin American cultures.
Inuk (plural of Inuit) is preferred to Eskimo;
American Indian is preferred to Native American;
Muslim is now preferable to Moslem;
Jewish people is preferred to Jew (male) and Jewess (female); and
Asian is preferred to Oriental.

But not all agree on how to handle and address the complications of cultural differences. See writer P.J. O’Rourke’s interesting commentary on the Task Force publication, “Perfect Form: The Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing” by Marilyn Schwartz at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3814/is_200201/ai_n9035180.

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