Saturday, October 29, 2011
communication.
Its kind of funny to me that Dr. Nolan and his colleague had the communicating issues that they did when first in Tunisia. If only they would have learned Arabic before they got there, they would have been fine. Now I know hindsight is 20/20, but to be honest, I would have probably done the same thing. The humor in the story is all due to the irony in it. Most people would assume that the city of Tunis and the country of Tunisia would go by different names. It just makes sense that way. If I were the developer with Dr. Nolan, I would have gotten very frustrated at the situation. He knew what he was looking for, and he was saying it correctly, but there were two meanings for the same word. There is something that can be learned from any experience, and I believe the obvious thing to be taken from case 1.1 is to study up about an area before you go there. Im not saying they didnt study, but when you think you know enough, try to learn more.
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I found the story that Dr.Nolan told us about in case 1.1 quite funny as well, although I'm sure its humorous to us now when we're reading about it, but it must have been disconcerting when it actually happened to him and his friend. To anyone who does not know Arabic, the city of Tunis and the country of Tunisia would be thought of as going by two different names and the same confusion would arise.
ReplyDeleteThis case highlights the importance of knowing the cultural background of a place before going there and how life can be made easier with knowledge about the background of a place.
engr 103
I find the first case study somewhat intriguing. Although it may seem that cultural ignorance on one side caused some misunderstanding among them, i feel that if they had not had this experience at all, perhaps they would never have thought to learn from their mistakes and be careful about approaching cultures in the future. In this particular example however i would not completely blame the two scientists, as the same name for a country and city are pretty uncommon in a language, and for them to understand as such, is not particularly a big fault.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think that you really get frustrated when you understand that Tunis and Tunis are different places, one inside the other, especially because Dr. Nolan's friend got really mad at the farmer. Well after knowing that little detail I would feel so embarrassed, he was almost shouting at the farmer, who was only trying to help. I really agree with you when you say that is very important to learn more and more, it doesn't matter that you know enough, I feel like there's never a limit for knowledge, in this case I can be pretty sure that Dr. Nolan and his friend studied a lot about Tunisia, but it was not enough as you just remarked. (engr 103)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I like this story. It's summarizes the fact that you need to know the cultures of others in order to work efficiently with them. Clearly the short conversation wasn't that productive.
ReplyDeleteI their place, after a long day of frustrating travel, I would have also shouted in anger. But I guess that's not the right thing to do. Instead patience would be a good alternative