Page 31 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

Examples and Visuals Treat Diversity as an Essential
Aspect of Listening, Audience Analysis, and the Overall

Speaking Process

Chapter 14 Persuasive Speaking 375
Valuing Culture
Effective speakers
adapt their message to
the cultural back-
grounds of audience This book emphasizes understanding and valuing cultural diversity.
members.
Textual and visual representations of speakers and listeners from a
variety of cultures and ethnic groups are included.

Demographic Background
When possible, cultural knowledge should be complemented with information
about demographic diversity present in your audience. Is your student body rel- 136 Part 2 Between Audience and Speaker Chapter 6 Adapting to Your Audience 137
atively homogenous in terms of socioeconomic background? What’s the average
age on campus? Is your school a residential or commuter campus? Is there any
level of political activity on your campus? Does religion play an obvious role in Exhibit 6.1
There’s a better than Levels of Diversity
campus life? What about sports? All of these questions are relevant to the demo- even chance that the Beliefs
graphic profi le of your campus. Answers to these questions, moreover, contain student seated next Values
to you comes from a Individual Motives
clues rich in information about what you can reasonably hope to achieve in per- different background Knowledge
Attitudes
than you do.
suading the members of the student body who make up your audience. Expectations
Needs
Individual Background Gender/Sex
Age
Ethnicity
The people we know best are the ones we know on a psychological level. Given Demographic Geographic origin
relatively intimate details about their most deeply held needs, hopes, and fears, Socioeconomic status
Occupation
we are able to better share in their worldview. In turn, this enables us to better Religion, Language
predict how they are most likely to respond to our attempts at infl uencing them.
Because we cannot know everyone on such an intimate level, we often infer
what it is about people that make them psychologically unique. These inferences Collectivism vs. individualism
Power distance
tend to be based on our knowledge of their cultural and demographic back- Cultural Femininity vs. masculinity
Uncertainty avoidance
ground. Conclusions about attitudes, beliefs, and values, for example, are fre- Long-term vs. short-term orientation
quently based on what we know about a person’s geographic origins and socio-
economic class. Thus, we infer that a person who grew up in an affl uent suburb
must have different attitudes, beliefs, and values than a person who grew up with
Today, “The nation’s diversity increased dramatically over the past decade. . . .
There is nearly a 1 in 2 chance that two people selected at random are racially
or ethnically different.” 4 We see this increasing diversity daily in the classes we Discovering Cultural Diversity
teach, and it is in these classes that our students present their speeches.
Recently, for example, one of us taught a public speaking class whose mem- Culture is a learned system of beliefs, customs, and values with which people
bers resembled a small United Nations assembly. There were 15 men and 9 identify. Culture also is more a product of language than of geography. French-
Analyzing Audiences women, although statistically most classes at our university have more women speaking Canadians, for example, think of themselves as more French than
than men. While the median age was about 20, one class member was almost
English, even though Canada has mainly English traditions. Barcelonians think
50, and another was in his 30s. Five students were from Japan. One was from of themselves as Catalonians rather than Spaniards because they speak a dia-
Indonesia, and two others were from Malaysia. Another student was from the lect that is distinct from the rest of their country. Cultural diversity refers cultural diversity
Chapter 6, “Adapting to Your Audi- former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan. One native-born American student was mainly to differences among people in terms of beliefs, customs, and values—in Differences among
of Chinese origin, and another traced her ancestry to the Philippines. A num-
a sense, their worldview.
ber of students were hard-core science majors, while others were pursuing mu- Because culture is learned, what is appropriate in one culture may not be per- people in terms of beliefs,
customs, and values—in
sic, public relations, and graphic design. Hobbies ranged from scuba diving and
ceived as appropriate in another. The list of specifi c things that make one culture
ence,” offers guidelines for audi- fi shing to origami and batik. Although this class’s diversity was more dramatic unique from another is inexhaustible. However, recognizing and responding to a sense, their worldview.
cultural diversity does not demand that you try to learn everything about a spe-
than most, we think it is a preview of a not too distant future.
Once you have recognized and accepted the fact that the people in your au- cifi c culture. To the contrary, discovering what is common but variable among
ence analysis that include cultural, dience are not clones of each other, you need to learn about and adapt to their cultures is the key to culturally responsive speaking.
Dutch communication scholar Geert Hofstede says that all cultures vary in
diversity. Three levels of audience diversity are depicted for you in Exhibit 6.1.
terms of at least four dimensions: “power distance (from small to large), col-
We begin at the most general level, looking at the cultures to which members
of your audience belong. Then we look at some differences in what are termed lectivism versus individualism, femininity versus masculinity, and uncertainty
demographic, and individual levels demographics demographics—differences such as age, sex and gender, and ethnicity. Finally, avoidance (from weak to strong).” 5 In addition, Hofstede notes that a fi fth di-
mension has recently been discovered: long-term versus short-term orientation
we look at your audience members as individuals. The more you can learn about
Basic and vital data re-
garding any population. your audience at each level, the better you can predict their response to your to life. 6 We think Hofstede’s dimensions are a useful guide for analyzing an audi-
speech. ence’s cultural diversity.
of diversity.
Considering Diversity
Between Two Cultures: Tomoko Mukawa
Tomoko Mukawa was born in Japan and lived there until guage changed the way Tomoko was perceived. Language
she was 15, when she fi rst came to the United States as a and culture are closely intertwined, as her experience has
high school exchange student. When she returned to the shown.
United States as a college student, Tomoko was struck by
the differences in the way students and professors com-
municate in the two different cultures. Tomoko gives an ex-
ample of differences between the two cultures:
I wanted to keep my fl uency in Japanese, so I took
a class from a Japanese professor. Although the
American students were allowed to call the professor
by his American nickname, I was required to follow the
Japanese tradition of always using his title and surname.
He stressed that, as a Japanese student, I needed to
preserve my cultural heritage. Considering Diversity
Tomoko also noticed that the language in which she
spoke made a difference in how she was treated. As an
English tutor for Japanese students coming to the United
States, Tomoko discovered that when she spoke English These boxes encourage students to understand and explore the effects
she was perceived as more assertive than when she spoke
Japanese. “You are like a different person when you speak
Japanese,” she was told by one of her students.
These experiences illustrate the differences between a
large-power-distance culture like Japan and a small-power- of all aspects of diversity in order to help them become more competent
distance culture like the United States. In Japan, students
would never be familiar with professors, and women are
generally not assertive. Simply speaking in her native lan-
speakers and listeners.
In speaking to a more collectivistic audience, one would emphasize the greater
good rather than individual benefi ts. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez drives
people from individualistic cultures crazy with his plans to nationalize private
industries. For the collectivist people who voted for Chavez, however, his public
speeches reinforce their belief that these industries should benefi t the population
as a whole, not just the executives and stockholders of individual companies.
The highly individualistic orientation of Americans may be slightly changing
given immigration patterns and birth rates. Census data show that more people
from collectivist cultures such as Asia reside in the United States today than at
any other time in history. American college students today fi nd that people from
collectivist cultures are an increasing part of their audience. To fi nd out where
you stand as an individual on this dimension, see the box “How Collectivistic or
Individualistic Are You?”
Femininity Versus Masculinity
The third dimension of culture in Hofstede’s scheme is femininity versus mascu-
linity. Hofstede explains: “Femininity stands for a society in which social gender
roles overlap: both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and
concerned with the quality of life.” 11 Masculinity, on the other hand, “stands for 139
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