Cross-Cultural Blog

We learned it was more difficult to communicate via technology (e.g. webcam) and learn and pick up things as an audience. We learned that there are varying types of humor across the world and that what we find funny isn't necessarily what they find funny. The importance of cultural reference and DOXA were stressed throughout this project. This will help us utilize new technology that may be used on a wide scale in the future to help us communicate in business settings. Working in groups across culture helped us hone our communication skills in a team setting which will be valuable down the road. The session with John Paval educated us on public speaking as well as the importance of emphasizing key points through speaking and hand gestures to help the audience maintain key information from your presentation.

Posted by Helle Rytkonen at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Our experience with the cross cultural project has been an overall success. We felt that the session with John Pavel was creative and interactive. It is amazing that someone can communicate on two different sides of the world simultaneously and still be an effective speaker. One important thing we learned is how much is lost in a presentation, and in order to have your listener retain all of the important facts, you need to really emphasize those points. Though the technology was lagging, we feel that we were still able to communicate with Sweden rather nicely. Each time we met with our group, the awkwardness faded and we were able to cultivate our relationship with our group. what we take from this experience is a new awareness of another cultures beliefs of what it means to be funny, and valuable presentation skills.

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During the CCR project, we enjoyed learning about the different cultures presented to us and examining the differences between our humor and that of the students in Sweden. There is certainly a visible difference; often, what we found funny didn't impact them in the same way. Working with them was awkward at times which we feel was due to the technological issues and geographical difference. Interacting with people next to you is far different from interacting with people on a screen.

When we had the session with John Paval, we were able to get some valuable advice on methods construct a strong presentation. Some faults in technology, such as a poor connection, stood in the way of having a particularly strong experience, though it was still helpful. Such technological problems, however, are all part of the process of entering the modern world, as more and more presentations will be given over large distances. For that reason, it is important to deal with such issues as soon as possible. I particularly liked the exercise of telling a story back and forth in a chain of people, to see how information was interpreted in the brain, and how different pieces were changed or omitted.

Until next time,
Alexei (and, in spirit, Gabby and Drew)

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- message distorted in the exercise
The message changes much and get shorter. A lot of the story was left out as the different people told it. Unimportant issues got a lot of attention, while other very important things were left out, and so the entire story changed.
- difference transmitted virtually - same physical space
It´s hard to get a real contact with the people on overside of the screen. The distortion was even bigger then normally.
-what learned about oral communication today?
A lot of information can be lost, because of distorition. So be realy clear, simplify the message and use body language, like gestures...

Bye

Posted by Orebro Intercultural Rhetoric Class, Sweden at 09:49 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

We thought that the message in the exercise was distorted due to each person's limited memory capacity.
We also thought there was a big difference between when the story was told virtually opposed to personally. When the story was told virtually it was alot harder to remember the story, because you can't see the persons face expressions as good on the screen, and it's hard to keep consentration because of the lack of real eye contact.

What we learned about oral communication was, that real life contact is alot more effective than virtual contact when trying to deliver a message. You should also not overload the hypothalamus if you want to keep the attention of the audience. It's important to accentuate the key points in order to get a clear message across.

Posted by Orebro Rhetoric Class, Sweden at 09:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Questions:

1) Message distorted in the exercise?

Ms Nicolia Oak from our group felt a bit distracted by the rest of the room bursting into laugh since she altered parts of the actual story.

Mr Dusan Mijovski felt the exercise entertaining but could not in the beginning get the actual reason of it.

2) Difference transmitetted virtually - same physical space?

Ms Aida Tahiri felt that she could not fully pay attention since the other person when the lack of "normal" human gestures. made it harder.

Ms Sydney Gilbert, Emilie Bégin and Yuka Nagahashi felt that timing was really important and making sure that just one person talked at the same time, since if several people were talking at the same time alot of the message could
be lost.

3) What did we learn?

That this type of technology is good but could never beat the traditional way of meeting.

Cheers!

Posted by Orebro Rhetoric Class, Sweden at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Number 1: How was the message distorted in the exercise?
Mimic and gestures were transmitted over the marratech in a quite bad quality which made it hard for the participants share information. This limitations to verbal communication made it also harder to remember the oral transmission. This was added by the distracting laughter of the audience which broke the concentration of the listener and story teller.

Number 2: What differences accured while transmiting information in the virtual or phisical space?
As already said, limitted the virtuell transmission the use verbal communication due to acurring glitches and technical problems. In order to communicated sucesfully in a virtual environmnet one must be clearer and reduce the infromation to key words.

Number 3: What have You lerned about oral communication today?
Non verbal communication is a basic part of human communication and ables people to reduce the said word as well as it helps to clarify the content of a dialog.

Continue reading "Group A: trying to answer the questions to the third Maratech connection.... " »

Posted by Orebro Rhetoric Class, Sweden at 09:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hello! Here we are, finally presenting ourselves. We're 5 students :

- Martine Plandsoen: I am a 3rd year student from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. For 3,5 months I will be studying here in Örebro, and get some intercultural expierences. I am 20 years old, and I am a scoutsleader in the Netherlands. Further I like to do sports and playing music (piano).

- Sarina Mohebali. I am a first year student at the Örebro University here in Sweden. I major in Public relations. Im 20 years old and i have been living in Sweden since i was 3 years old.

- Raphaël Meurice, I am a third year student in english civilization and literature, i am French and i am 21years old. I have been in Sweden for 6months.

-Bertrand Mastnak called Beber, I am French from Lyon. I am studying business. I play tennis in competition in France and i play also soccer.

Posted by Orebro Rhetoric Class, Sweden at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Hej from Orebro group viva brickebaken! We are Yuka from Japan, Emilie from France, and Niki and Sydney from Canada. Yuka, Emilie, and Niki have been in Sweden since last August and all live together in Brickebaken, a residental area far, far from the university. Sydney just arrived in January and lives in Tybble, the residence closest to the university.

Continue reading "Group D viva brickebaken" »

Posted by Orebro Rhetoric Class, Sweden at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Hey guys!
We are Anne and Alex from the Universitty of Cologne, both studying special needs education. We are exchange students in Örebro for a full year, enjoying the snow and beautiful nature.
I`m (Alex,23) interested in sports, especially swimming,taekwondo and skiing. I like to travel and to go to the cinema, listen to music and dancing, dancing, dancing...I like indian food and hate horses and whiskey.
My (Anne,22) hobbies are travelling, swimming and reading. I am interested in learning other languages. I like chocolate and a lot of different candies. I hate it to get up early in the morning and I also don´t like the swedish punctuality.
We have 3 guests from Hannover: Fanny, Natalie and Laura. They find out the everyday life at the Swedish University. They are attending 3 lessons.
Tschuess. Bis bald.

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Just before the comedy workshop on Feb 10 2009 the whole class of CrossCultural Rhetoric in Örebro has gathered to present themselves.

Posted by Orebro Rhetoric Class, Sweden at 08:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As the absent people, I am referring to Yvette and Marco, don´t want to contribute anymore to our blog entry as they felt in an indisruptable sleep, the four leftovers are going to tell who we are, where we are from and why the hell we are writing this.. and by the way MAX is better than McDonalds..
To get You some information about us we blog facebook-status-style..

Continue reading "Yvette and Marco are absent but here... well, and we are the SupersixofhteawsomepowerAgroup! " »

Posted by Orebro Rhetoric Class, Sweden at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Our CCR experience with the Orebro students was an interesting experience, although generally pretty awkward. The technical difficulties we encountered-- the delay between speaking, and juggling two video inputs from different groups made it more of an exchange than a conversation. We basically ended up trading ideas and taking turns talking about our research instead of conversing fluidly.

In terms of content, we learned a lot about their everyday lives and Swedish culture in general. We noted a tendency towards humor of nationality in Sweden as opposed to the ethnic humor so popular in the United States. While we managed to communicate most of our ideas, at times we felt as though it was hard to relate. The structure we were trying to follow did not really match up with a natural conversation, and our group thought that teaming together to work on an even more specific task would have allowed us to gel and relate more effectively.

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Humor varies across countries. Some jokes worked; some jokes failed to translate. We were interested to learn that while Hitler jokes are generally acceptable and often hilarious in the U.S., in Germany they are rare and often a sign of lesser education.

We also were interested to see, with our international counterparts and with ourselves, how we enjoyed jokes made about our own country more than others: the French enjoyed Team America jokes about french stereotypes, our German friend knew and enjoyed the stereotype jokes about Germans in Beerfest, our Canadian friend was well steeped in America-Canada jokes. Of course, as seen with the Hitler jokes, jokes about one's own country can also be a more sensitive issue than it is to foreigners.

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For the most part, our groups found the same kind of humor funny, but with few exceptions. There were clips that we showed them that they didnt fully understand but we felt the same about some of their material. It was interesting that they sent us a few clips that we have seen before and enjoy it for the same reasons. Our differences in cultures may create a disparity of what we laugh at in terms of specifics (they really enjoyed ethnic, accent humor we were more into improv) but we were both opened minded.

-Jessica, Erica, and Mundo

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In our chat with the students in Sweden, we learned that humor does not necessarily cross across cultures. They appreciated some aspects of our humor while others, like redneck comedy, failed to impress them. The delay in sound made it kind of awkward and difficult to communicate easily because we would start to interrupt each other. Overall, it was fun to share our favorite parts of comedy and learn about theirs. We learned that they may not share the exact kind of comedy, but the play on stereotypes was similar to that of ours.

Posted by Helle Rytkonen at 09:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In our chat with the students in Sweden, we learned that humor does not necessarily cross across cultures. They appreciated some aspects of our humor while others, like redneck comedy, failed to impress them. The delay in sound made it kind of awkward and difficult to communicate easily because we would start to interrupt each other. Overall, it was fun to share our favorite parts of comedy and learn about theirs. We learned that they may not share the exact kind of comedy, but the play on stereotypes was similar to that of ours.

Posted by Helle Rytkonen at 09:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hello from James, Robert, Nate, and Max! We're looking forward to meeting you all soon, here's a little information about us:

Hi, I'm James, an Electrical Engineering major from Fremont, California. I played tennis in highschool and used to shoot pistol competitively, but nowadays my engineering classes are taking up most of my time. For some random facts, I play the game Starcraft a little bit too much, listen to a lot of trance music, and consider any kind of noodle soup as my favorite food.

Hey, I'm Robert De Santiago, majoring in Architectural Design and minoring in Urban Studies. In m spare time, I enjoy running, as well as playing baseball and basketball. I love playing as well as watching baseball. I don't play any varsity sports at Stanford, so my life mainly consists of balancing school, work, physical activities, free time, and of course, sleep.

Hi, i'm Nate Whitaker, a transfer from the University of Notre Dame in the middle of Nowhere, Indiana, majoring in Product Design. I am also part of the Stanford football team, which takes up the remainder of my time. I love the outdoors and sick, crude humor. Can’t wait to talk to you.

Hi, I'm Max Murialdo, a sophomore majoring in Material Science and Engineering. I play badminton, basketball, and enjoy running. I am writing a paper on nerd humor and its relationship to self-deprecating humor.

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Hello, we are Jessica, Erica, and Mundo! Here is a little bit about ourselves:

My name is Erica Seidman (pictured right) and I am a sophomore potentially majoring in Psychology with a minor in Linguistics. When not staying up to finish my rhetoric assignments until 3:30 in the morning, I am involved in an acappella singing group on campus as well as theater productions. My favorite color is Yellow, and I am completely obsessed with shoes! I'm also really excited to conference and meet you all!

Hi! My name is Jessica Wertheim (left) and I am a sophomore at Stanford University. My major constantly changes, but as of right now, I am doubling majoring in english and psychology. In my free time I like to read, run and go out with friends. I also love taking naps and eating fruit flavored Jelly Beans.

Hey guys, my name is Mundo. I am a sophomore majoring in Civil Engineering. I like watching movies, funny television shows, and playing video games. I hope to visit Berlin this coming Autumn to study abroad and spend some time all across Europe! So if you guys know some hot spots, I'd love to hear about them!

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My name is Alexei, and apparently I was a little late on the uptake, so here's my life in a nutshell. I'm considering a major in math with a minor in political science, though as of yet I am still undecided. I'm from the oh-so-great city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I play ultimate frisbee on Stanford's B-Team and my primary interest outside of school is music; I only wish I had more time to listen to it. I also enjoy hanging out with friends, contemplating sunsets, and taking long walks on the beach by moonlight.

-Alexei

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Hey guys! Greetings from Stanford. Our names are Matt, George, Kim, and Alex. We are all partaking in a rhetoric class at Stanford studying humor. We are all sophomores. George and Matt are both on the football team at Stanford.

Hi! I'm George. I am studying to become a Mechanical Engineer here at Stanford. Along with my studies, I play football. I enjoy working out, watching sports, and hanging out with friends. I am excited to research humor in rhetoric with you all. I am the centerpiece of the photograph.

I'm Kim and I'm a sophomore planning to major in BioMechanical Engineering. I do ballet and am involved in a group called Engineers for a Sustainable World. I like to hang out with friends on the weekends, procrastinate, and the color purple. Also, I'm from Utah.

Hi my name is Matt. I enjoy sitting on the couch and watching television. I hail from the great state of Iowa from the famous Quad Cities. I am undecided on my major at this current stage. My favorite restaurant is Taco Johns. I have red hair and some like to call me "Big Red." I also play football. I am looking forward and am super super enthusiastic and excited in meeting all of you! I like blogging and playing World of Warcraft.

Hey I'm Alex and here at Stanford I am deciding between studying philosophy and neuroscience or political science. I often alternate between taking myself way too seriously and taking everything as a joke. I enjoy backpacking, judo (a martial art) and eating and drinking anything with mangoes in it.

Posted by Helle Rytkonen at 10:16 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hey You Guys! This is Gabi, Drew, and Alexei from Stanford. We are all unique in our own ways, but share the same interest in analyzing humor. Gabi and Drew are busy balancing time between varsity sports (volleyball and baseball) and school while Alexei devotes his free time to (enter your activity here). We are all sophomores struggling to figure out what to major in. Drew thinks he has it figured out, majoring in Product Design. Gabi is still pondering whether she wants to be a doctor or play professional volleyball for the rest of her life. Alexei (insert major here). We really enjoy looking at different types of humor and are interested in learning how humor is different across cultures. We are all really excited to meet early tomorrow morning!

See you soon!
Gabi, Drew, and Alexei

p.s. Alexei will update you on his interests later. He was not able to meet with us.

View image

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