Differences In Communication Patterns Research Articles

Communication in symbolic play

SUMMARY There is an increasing number of studies and papers which highlight the social function of speech and the importance of communication in the context of social interactions. Our study analyses communication between children, namely the speech in connection with the social interactions of children. Symbolic play is one of the important activities which is very frequent in the preschool period and where a significant part of communication relates to the social context; for this reason we analysed communication between children. The sample included children of three age groups (3–4, 4–5, 5–6 years); they were videotaped in their symbolic play and special attention was paid to the registration of the children's verbalisation in their play. The records of the children's speech were analysed from the linguistic point of view and differences in communication patterns were established with regard to the children's age and the type of symbolic play.

Communication competency of Japanese managers in Singapore

In this day of internationalization and electronic information, communication competency is truly required for global managers. Japanese global managers, however, are often criticized as lacking the power of expression. It is said that they are very poor at communicating with their foreign counterparts because they are not good at English. Is it really so? The discussion will be focused on the author’s research on Japanese managers’ use of English as a means of business communication with local businesses in Singapore. The research was to see if the cause of their communication blunders is related to English or to fundamental differences in communication patterns. The results support the author’s claim that their problem is not because of a lack of English grammar but is due to the lack of communication competency irrelevant to grammar. Japanese global managers should understand that English alone cannot be a panacea for communication blunders.

Structural Moves Reflected in English and Chinese Sales Letters

Understanding differences in communication styles is becoming increasingly important in intercultural business communication as more and more countries are involved in doing business internationally and more and more people are doing business with mainland China. This article aims to compare the structural moves used in English and Chinese sales letters from social, intercultural and pragmatic perspectives. It has been argued that the study of text styles such as linearity and circularity in comparative rhetoric may not be sufficient to reflect the overall features of the genres involved. Therefore a holistic approach based on genre study and schema theory has been employed to explore the communicative purposes and various levels of the text. Hall's high- and low-context cultures and cross-cultural pragmatics have also been incorporated to enrich the genre approach. A corpus of 40 sales letters (20 in Chinese and 20 in English) was examined and it was found that Chinese sales letters share similar marketing strategies with English letters as the Chinese economy is becoming increasingly decentralized and privatized. Differences in communication patterns between these letters were identified, however, and shown to be largely due to a number of factors such as the specific values and beliefs of each culture and the different business practice in mainland China.

Communication Patterns and Direct Social Work Practice with Latinos in the U.S.

Although Latinos in the United States are projected to become the largest ethnic and cultural population by the 21st century, there continues to be a paucity of literature on the heterogeneity of this population. This article presents a brief perspective of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. including elements of its cultural value system and its relevance to culturally based differences in patterns of communication. The author identifies several cultural values, how they interface with different patterns of communication among Puerto Ricans and implications for direct social work practice.

Information sources: do women want and value information more than men?

Examines gender differences in communication patterns within a single, large, professional services firm. Considers nine specific sources of information, falling under three broad categories (interpersonal, official company publications, informal). Respondents indicated how much information they received, their preference for information, and the value of information received from each source. Finds few gender differences at the highest organizational levels (partners, managers) but considerable gender difference at lower organizational levels (professional field staff, secretarial and support staff). Women at lower organizational levels had greater preference for information from all three sources and received more information from official company publications and informal sources.

Through the narrow pass: Experiencing same‐sex friendship in heterosexual(ist) settings

The Western notion of ideal friendship is often associated with same‐sex relationships characterized by similarity and ease. Cross‐sex friendships, on the other hand, are seen as being plagued by problems of jealousy, sexual attraction, gendered differences in communication patterns, third party attributions as to their “real” nature and purposes. In this paper, I use personal narrative to argue that tensions associated with cross‐sex friendships also occur in same‐sex friendships. I maintain that the belief that these problems are particular to cross‐sex friendships is associated with the heterosexualist bias of our culture and much of our scholarly literature.

Patterns of Communication About AIDS Among Hispanic and Anglo Adolescents

This study examined exposure to AIDS information from mass media and interpersonal communication among a nonprobability sample of Hispanic and Anglo lower middle-class adolescents. Subjects were drawn predominantly from community health clinics, word of mouth recruiting, public service announcements, churches, schools, and health fairs in San Diego County. Both Hispanic (n = 220) and Anglo (n = 159) youths reported substantial exposure to information about AIDS from both mass media and interpersonal communication. Hispanics watched more general television than Anglos, but had less exposure to newspapers and interpersonal communication with friends. Communication among friends was most consistently related to sociodemographic variables, with older, higher status persons and girls communicating to the greatest extent. Boys reported the greatest communication with family. Anglo youths had greater exposure to information about AIDS and condoms regardless of the medium of communication, while Hispanic adolescents had greater exposure to information on risks of IV drug use. Of the three main types of mass media, print and radio provided the most exposure to AIDS information. It is important for preventive medicine practitioners to exploit these differences in communication patterns when planning preventive intervention strategies that target specific adolescent populations.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Intrachannel Communications: The United States and India

Findings of a comparative study of intrachannel communication in marketing channels in the United States and India are presented. Two factors—the cultural environment and the degree of relational-ism in channel relationships—were posited to affect the nature of supplier-dealer communications. A survey of lighting equipment dealers in the two countries indicated that compared to the U.S. environment, the Indian environment was characterized by greater unidirectional communication from supplier to dealer, lower communication frequency, greater use of formal communication modes, and greater supplier use of direct influence strategies. A relational channel structure neutralized the differences in communication patterns due to cultural differences, however.

Communication patterns among young Korean immigrants

The study examines diverse host and ethnic interpersonal and mass media communication patterns of 69 first-generation college Korean immigrants. A series of analyses of variance with length of stay in the United States and sex as prior independent variables was used for detecting diverse communication patterns. Differences in the host mass media use, except magazine, were not affected by length of star in the host society. In the use of ethnic newspaper, however, significant interaction effect was found. The main effects of sex and time in the United States and the interaction effects lacked significance in diverse interpersonal communication with Americans and Koreans. However, communication gaps between the adult immigrants and their children were significantly revealed over the years regardless of sex. English proficiency also eased the communication gaps between generations and general communication patterns. Related to relevant predictors, various differences in communication patterns are discussed.

Gender differences in graffiti: A semiotic perspective

Synopsis Male and female restroom graffiti analyzed from a semiotic point of view as texts, structures of meaning, illuminate basic societal processes. We learn that there are fundamental gender differences in patterns of communication in same-sex encounters, and we see revealed in such humble data as toilet graffiti a silent political discourse about the distribution of power in American society. These understandings, however, are only achieved if we move beyond a positivist perspective to the underlying level of meaning and if we construct an interpretation that takes account of both the male and the female data, simultaneously.

Measures of scientific growth

Numbers of publications and citation ratings have recently been used as measures of scientific growth. The present paper discusses a number of presumed weaknesses of these measures. First, a distinction is made among scientific activity, scientific productivity, and scientific progress. Then it is suggested that the above measures might depend on the particular field of science, on the speed whereby research front information becomes archival, on the phenomena of wrong papers and of ‘also ran’ papers, on the geographical differences in communication patterns, on whether we want to measure activity, productivity, or progress, and on the temporal variations in scientific communication patterns. Though some examples are given, the quantitative substantiation of the proposed effects must await further research.

Coding Communication at the Relationship Level

A new coding scheme has been developed based on the progress made from the works of a group of family communication therapists known as system purists. This research began with Gregory Bateson, and developed through Sluczki and Beavin's attempt to operationalize Bateson's variables. Taking their progress one step further, an interaction coding scheme was developed which codes a) speaker, b) speech, and c) that speech as a response to the preceding stimulus, or mctaspeech. A set of rules has been created to reduce the resultant 89 possible categories down to nine relational codes, whose relational frequencies are derived from pairs of category codes or dyadic exchanges. The results of an exploratory study of thirty dyads discussing three topics varying in salience indicate the usefulness of this scheme. Data from this study show consistency of relational communication across the three topics and significant differences in patterns of communication by socio-economic class. Several patterns were also identified.