Cross-Cultural Blog

Hi everyone, I am Oksana from Ukraine and my name is pronounced as AKH-SAH-NAH. You would probably wonder why do I describe this in detail. The thing is that my paper is focused on names and the reasons why people change original names when going to another culture. In Sweden, where I have been living for the last two years, I’m usually referred as Roxana, in Italy Rozanna and English speakers call me Ug-za-na. Facing these problems, I tried to investigate whether there is rational proof for reasons, that make people change their names.

Continue reading "Put the Blame on Name" »

Posted by Rhetoric Class, Orebro University at 10:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Nowadays, working in the other countries is becoming so common. There are many multinational corporations and many workers are working in those countries. In addition, many sports players are also doing their business expand the border.
In this situation, international workers need to know host countries culture. Otherwise, they will have some cultural crashes during their business and those are directly connected to loss of their profit. That is because they will fail on getting a deal due to those crashes.

Continue reading "Working in another country" »

Posted by Rhetoric Class, Orebro University at 11:39 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I ve been in Shanghai for an internship during six months one year ago.That´s why I was very interested to make a research paper about french expatriates coming in Shanghai in order to talk about the cultural differences they can be faced to.
Shanghai is a very big city composed by 20 million of inhabitants.Can you believe it?
Shanghai is composed by 13 million chinese people living in and 7 million of expatriates people. I will try to show you in my research paper that even if an expatriate can feel well in Shanghai because he can find a lot of expatriates, the adaptation is not very easy and french people can experience culture shock.

Continue reading "French expatriates coming in Shanghai " »

Posted by Rhetoric Class, Orebro University at 11:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The superstitions show us a lot of information about an every particular culture. They are often based on some kind of religious background but remain without religion anyway. I consider this topic interesting enough to look on it deeply. Because of it's currency I have decided to focus on three - culturally very different - countries: Japan, France and the Czech republic. I would like to do my paper interesting for my audience, so I chose these familiar countries for our group members.

Continue reading "Superstition Among Us" »

Posted by Rhetoric Class, Orebro University at 11:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Great Wall of China

Fredrik Bo Dahlberg
CCR Paper Summary
“Why Swedish People Experience Culture Shock Traveling or Living in China”
Anders Eriksson

When you travel through China, either on business or on leisure it is important to know of several things that might help you interact with people, and it is very important to be aware of these things prior to encountering them since the culture shock phenomenon when Swedish citizens travel through China can be quite shocking should you not be prepared.

Continue reading "Why Swedish People Experience Culture Shock Traveling or Living in China" »

Posted by Rhetoric Class, Orebro University at 11:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Pierre BERNARD
CCR Paper Summary
“Cooking Across Cultures”
Headed by: Anders Eriksson

Culture is composed by several elements that ethnologists or sociologists have tried to describe for a while. It generally is considered that those components are representative of a culture worlwide. Food and eating have a huge relation with the daily life of everybody. History, traditions and environment influence a lot our ways of eating: food has a strong relation with culture. This paper shows the impact it is influencing cultures and the mixing of them.

Continue reading "Food Across Culture: a thesis for greedy students!" »

Posted by Rhetoric Class, Orebro University at 11:20 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

When we meet a person for the first time, it is difficult to know him/her without speaking. It is more complicate when it is a person from another culture. The non verbal communication is important such as the verbal communication.
So my topic is about the non verbal communication, especially clothes and physical appearance. How can we decipher all the different physical aspect.

Continue reading "Clothes and Physical Appearance" »

Posted by Rhetoric Class, Orebro University at 11:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Quentin Izard
"The V-sign Across Cultures"
Örebro University. Cross-Cultural Rhetoric

Cartoon representing Karl Marx making the famous V-sign

“Words have been given to men in order to hide their thoughts” H.B. Stendhal

Continue reading "Why do you use the V-sign ?" »

Posted by Rhetoric Class, Orebro University at 11:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As we talk a lot about intercultural communication during this course, i decided to focus my paper on two differents countries and so two differents culture: France and Mexico.

I am French, I went to Mexico the last summer and I was the fisrt "victim" about problems that you can meet by communicating with an other culture. I use the word "victim" in the way that you try to communicate and you think that you understand the meaning of the answer, but with the time you realise that you interpretated something completly different. And so I can say that I experiented that in Mexico.

So, by writting my paper i want to show how important is it to be careful with that giving the example of the differences between France and Mexico.

Continue reading "How can a French be a "good" tourist in Mexico ?" »

Posted by Rhetoric Class, Orebro University at 11:16 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

There is no good word in English for “Fika”. The closest we can think of is “have some coffee”. In Sweden we “fikar” everyday, at least once a day but usually several times. If you go shopping, meet friends, just hang out or when you’re at work, in school, on your first date and especially when you visit someone you always fika, otherwise you haven’t really seen each other. Fika is a very important part of the Swedish culture. We would like to describe fika as a simple way to hang out, see each other and to keep up. Usually you drink coffee or tea together with something to nibble on. In Sweden we love sweet things like all kind of buns, chocolate cake, cheese cake, cookies etcetera… MMmmmm-MMmmm!!! But you can also fika with ice-cream as well as a sandwich or a smaller lunch, or anything you like.

Continue reading "In Sweden we like to "fika"!" »

Posted by Rhetoric Class, Orebro University at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Today, students are connecting three ways across three continents. From the American University in Cairo, Egypt to Orebro University in Sweden, all the way to Stanford University in California, students are video-conferencing in real time to discuss cultural blog entries and differences in living accommodations, education, and cultural values (doxa).

According to the Lesson Plan, students will first introduce themselves and then discuss their blog posts that show aspects of their culture.

After sharing their differences, they will be creating a brochure TOGETHER as a team --> and composing a visual argument to launch their imaginary new company.

Students, please take a moment to write a comment on this blog entry with your response to your experiences connecting today. Be sure to include your name and institution.

• What did you learn about rhetoric and cross-cultural communication today?
• How did you resolve any technical difficulties (we know you had some!) What was your solution?
• What was most memorable moment or element of the video-conference exchange? What surprised you the most?
• Explain your GROUP BROCHURE - how did you create it? What does it mean?
• What new insights do you have about diverse cultures or ways of working together that you can use for your future?

Thank you!

Posted by Alyssa O'Brien at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (45)

Today we are holding the first of three video-conferences between Stanford and Orebro Sweden. Our focus today is getting to know each other and conducting a rhetorical analysis of website and cultural artifacts (objects and clothing).

We started off in a large auditorium room with all groups connecting, then the students met in small groups working on a lesson plan , and they created team names to share with the whole class again back in the virtual auditorium.

Students, please take a moment to write a comment on this blog entry with your response to your experiences connecting today. Be sure to include your name and institution.

• What did you learn about rhetoric and cross-cultural communication today?
• What was your GROUP TEAM NAME and rationale for your name?
• What was most memorable moment or element of the video-conference exchange? What surprised you the most?
• What new insights do you have that you can use for your rhetorical analysis work, your research project, or future intercultural communications?

Thank you!

Continue reading "Orebro-Stanford: first of three connections!" »

Posted by Alyssa O'Brien at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBacks (0)

IKEA is known as a Swedish furniture company selling well-designed products with low prices, but for the Chinese customers, this was not the case when IKEA opened the first store in Shanghai in 1998. Most of the Chinese customers went there just to wander around without buying; only those called “white collar” who get good pay can afford IKEA products because it was too expansive. IKEA became luxury products for the Chinese customers even though IKEA kept its low price strategy in China. IKEA faced many challenges in terms of culture and business practices, as well as the economic and political conditions in China. An important challenge for IKEA is the need to understand the different environments the company operating in. My paper attempts to make sense of some of the unique cultural values affecting the customers’ behavior in China. Understanding the cultural values is an important base for achieving the business and strategic goals in China. Success in doing business in China means understanding cultural values and business practices. According to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, China is a culture with high power distance and Long-Term Orientation, status symbols and saving money are important in China. By understanding the Confucianism and Taoism which underpin Chinese ways of thinking, we can develop a better understanding the needs of the Chinese customer’s needs and make some adaptations to meet the customers needs. IKEA will be more successful by combining different marketing strategies such as low-price and provide better delivery and assembling service. The development and expansion of the Chinese economy and raised income levels of the Chinese people will make IKEA products become affordable for more potential consumers in the future.

Continue reading "IKEA in China: Cheap for Chinese?" »

Posted by at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

members: Andrea, Janessa, Charity, Shefali, Alicia, Lydia

Group LAJACS started today’s video conference with a check-in question regarding movies and our preferred genres. After a short discussion and exchange, we proceeded with watching trailers and clips that our members selected.

Read more...

Continue reading "LAJACS StoryBoard from May 12, 2008" »

Posted by Stanford: Visual Rhetoric Across the Globe at 03:58 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I joined Group C yesterday because Erica and Marie Michelle didn't show up. We started with a short presentation since I was new in the group. I noticed that we in Group C have something in common that's all of us are from Asian, perhaps that's why we had a sucessive meeting. .-) Well, we did discuss holidays from different cultures , such as Valborg celebration (April 30 celebrating spring coming, singing spring songs and so on) and Lucia ( Dec. 13 singing Santa Lucia) in Sweden , mothers day coming soon in the USA as well as in Sweden. Even in China, mother's day on 11th of May. Efter this we shared websites related to our research projects and in the end of group discussion we chose the Diesel's website as the most unreliable website of the group while Taesung's website www.chinaview.cn/08lhasa/ as the most visually complex website, we also viewed a website of Doctors without Borders www.doctorswithoutborders.org/, it's a reliable website,the target audience easy to get point from images and headers and sub-headers, both pathos and logos has been used.

Continue reading "Group C: Analysis of Websites" »

Posted by at 03:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This entry has been posted by a group of students, working collaboratively across classes at Stanford (USA) and Orebro (Sweden). The students were asked to imagine that the members of their group would all be presenting their research ideas at one panel at a conference. What would the title or name of their panel be? They had to collaboratively come up with a title or name for your group – to do so, they needed to consider the similarities in their projects or their research interests. Many groups used the whiteboard to brainstorm and write your new group name and, at the same time to create a collage as visual rhetoric for their new global team identity. See the asisgnment sheet here, at the workshop page for April 21, 2008

We chose the name current silence because three out of our four topics have to do with media and their influence. And the other topic has to do with non-verbal communication.

Summary of Research Interests:

Continue reading "Group C Current Silence" »

Posted by at 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Some pictures say more than a thousand words and some do not. Context, however, may transform a picture of the later sort into one of the former type. The two pictures above, taken from the event that has been described as the wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl 2004, serve as an excellent example of that very fact. Looking at the left picture searching for something of interest without foreknowledge of the event is an exercise in futility. Motion is an inevitable part of human existence and as such not everything in it translates well into a motionless picture. It is quite simply a bad and severely cut picture - one of those photos you would not keep if you had taken it yourself.

Continue reading "Picture malfunction?" »

Posted by at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

View image

In France , in every city (small or big) there is a one cafe or more. it is a very famous place where every generation and every social scale can meet each other , speak together and exchange our opinion, play cards or just have a coffee with your friends and have fun.
you can find it everywhere (on beaches, villages, on mountains...) with different ambiances (latino cafe, cabaret cafe, cafe for students,cafe with singers inside, or with regional ambiance....) and some of them organize parties during the night. you can go to cafe in every hours of the journey:before lunch or dinner to have coktails, after for a digestif or after your job to relax yourself; at each moment of the day there will be someone to welcome you and to share something with you
For conclude, i can say that bar or cafe is an very social place where every french have pleasure to go.

Posted by at 08:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

We kicked off Spring Quarter with a videoconference workshop between Orebro and Stanford yesterday. This was the first meeting between students who will connect six times, as we seek to develop a curriculum in Global Learning based on rhetorical analysis of visual/multimedia texts and the collaborative writing of student-initiated projects. We are thrilled to have this opportunity for pedagogical development and research, and we thank the WGLN for making it possible!

For this first meeting, we focused on ads as culturally situated texts. We asked all the students participating to pick an ad that conveyed strong cultural messages; they would use this ad to learn about rhetoric by working through an analysis of the ad together.

We make the assignment sheet available on a dedicated Workshop Webpage: http://ccr.stanford.edu/workshops/040708.html . On that page, students can access the lesson plan for the video conference. They also can preview the video instruction, available on YouTube, especially useful for non-native English speakers to review the lesson at their own pace, and for visual learners to see the instruction through multimedia explanation. Then, they work on the task of analyzing their group ads. The product is a collaboratively written analysis of ONE AD. You can see the results on the posts that follow this one.

But it doesn't end there. The students then continue the learning, and the dialogue, by responding to each other's posts. As teachers, we comment as well, and often the richest learning happens here, when we all have time for careful reflection and deeper analysis. The questions and answers posted in the blog can lead to new research project ideas or the start of a rhetorical analysis paper.

We are excited about this assignment, but more excited about this great group of students participating this quarter!

Continue reading "Looking at Ads across the Globe" »

Posted by Alyssa O'Brien at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In Group A, we discussed a Japanese blue jeans ad featuring Brad Pitt. The ad is taken of Brad Pitt facing to the right of the camera looking off into the distance. The background features rugged terrain with a road and mountainous scenery. We collaboratively decided that the ad reflects Japan’s idolization of American culture. The ad specifically targeted Japanese men who view American men as rugged and manly and connect the jeans with such qualities because Brad Pitt, a symbol of American sexiness, is used as a marketing tool. We also noted the difference between American ads and Japanese ads in that American clothing advertisements rarely, if ever feature prominent ‘A-list’ Hollywood actors, yet this advertisement uses Pitt to embody the supposed ‘ruggedness’ of American men.

(Edited by Chun) Here is the link to the ad
http://buzznet-00.vo.llnwd.net/media/jj1/2008/01/pitt-edwin/brad-pitt-edwin-jeans-03.jpg

Posted by Stanford: Visual Rhetoric Across the Globe at 09:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

The advertisement for a Peugeot car was the one we chose for our discussion in order to ensure an equal exchange of insight among ourselves. The Peugeot ad was something that all of us could relate to.

The Peugeot car ad featured a cartoon of a man with several 'cut-out' outfits to choose from. The advertisement's main goal was to attract consumers with its versatility which is reflected in the many outfits that the cartoon man could choose from. As we discussed the context of the ad, it could be said that it depicts a typical modern-day man and his typical busy lifestyle what with the various roles he has to play.

As we analyzed the ad further, we agreed that the desired target of this ad would be the European man. Some of us pointed out that the ad seemed to reinforce the stereotype of a man as the main buyer of cars. Women/wives/mothers are neglected. This also brings a family perspective to the picture because of the cut-out of a stroller. Could it be implying that the male is more involved in family affairs?

The cut-out clothes and the almost doll-like appearance of the male presents to us a very conflicting idea because it is clear that the man is the target for this ad, but how does it relate with family life?

Members: Andrea Sy, Charity Apelo, Janessa Nickell, Shefali Tandon and Alicia Navarro

Posted by Stanford: Visual Rhetoric Across the Globe at 08:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

This ad is part of the Dove campaign, which strives to break the stereotype of the typical American woman, which is commonly seen as extremely thin. It relays American culture as superficial and obsessed with body image. The collage of various plastic surgeries and of infomercials seems to mock American culture, which seems to embrace both of these concepts. Also, the ad reveals the extremes that young American women are willing to go through to achieve the perfect body image by flashing quick images of pills and anorexic girls. Within the ad, the viewer realizes how damaging these images are to young girls, who are affected and influenced by these images at a very young age. Though the ad does reveal the increasing obsession with appearance in American culture, it also shows that there are others out there who are trying to stop this obsession from affecting future generations. Therefore, the ad also reveals that American culture is trying to change its ways.
The link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaH4y6ZjSfE

Posted by Stanford: Visual Rhetoric Across the Globe at 04:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

The purpose of the diesel ad was we think at first to shock and make the people talk about the brand. It can
appeal to emotions because everybody is concerned by the global warming. this ad was reaaly controversial
because some people cannot get the humor or the satire of the ad. Everybody can be concern because it shows every part of the Earth.
The take home message of the ad is that times and climates change, but
diesel will remain. The jeans will be trendy despite change and perhaps
can withstand the test of time. Perhaps this ad is even in a sense
speaking to the durability of the jeans.
"Global concerns" It's appeal that by pointing out a variety of locations

Continue reading "Group B Discussion" »

Posted by Stanford: Visual Rhetoric Across the Globe at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)