Communicating Across Cultures
Author: Elyse Guilfoyle
Project: National Institute of Speech and Hearing | Disability Resources Website
Year: 2014
Trivandrum, India
What’s particularly unique about NISH’s working environment is that not only do we have a general American/Indian cultural difference, but we also have a communication barrier to the people work at the organization who are deaf. There are cultural communication differences that I think all the students in our GIEP program have grown accustomed to — the infamous Indian “head nod,” for one, which can come across like a “no” but typically means the most obvious answer to the question you’ve posed. With our project partners, there’s a level of straightforwardness in communication that I actually find refreshing. Our director will start conversations with the simple phrase, “Tell me.” That’s our cue to get to the point or give more details. Our project coordinator will end conversations with, “Is that it?” When we say yes, she says, “Ok, bye,” and gets up and leaves in an instant. It seems that there are very defined communication constructs that don’t allow much for rambling, aimless conversation. To refer to our readings for the week, this would be considered a “low-context culture,” where communication is explicit and simple. Despite the direct and straightforward communication we experience at NISH, it in no way feels impersonal. Our colleagues at NISH are very interested to learn about us (as we are to learn about them), and they’re even more interested to hear what we think about Kerala and to know how we occupy our time outside of work. We discuss our families, our preferences and interests, and our future plans with each other. Because our cultures are so different, our colleagues in India seem to understand how novel some of their everyday occurrences might be to us, and have invited us to an Indian wedding, explained traditional Keralite food dishes to us, pointed us toward interesting tourist destinations, and much more. One of our colleagues went so far as to invite us into his home for a meal with his wife (which was an incredible meal and memorable evening), and took us to his rubber tree plantation to show us how latex is made. The hospitality that has been shown to us here in south India, specifically with our colleagues, is unmatched by any other travel experience I’ve had. Regarding our colleagues with speech and hearing impairment, I originally thought our ability to communicate with them would be very difficult. The library, which is where we work every day, is staffed by a librarian who is deaf. He has gone out of his way to communicate and connect with us — we speak through typing out brief messages on our phones, he shares interesting articles in the newspaper with us, and we communicate through Facebook. The students at NISH are also curious about us and why we’re there, and we often find ourselves typing notes out on our phones to introduce ourselves to the students and explain that we’re building a website for NISH. Unfortunately, I haven’t picked up much Indian Sign Language, but I have learned how to say “thank you” and “great,” which both have gone a long way! All in all, though there are obvious cultural and communication differences, these are certainly not “barriers” but more of opportunities to get creative and be open to new ways of communicating.
