1. Communication Perspectives
Small Talk

2. Small Talk 1/2
• Show openness or desire to enter into a
conversation
• Have been given several names
• Vary from culture to culture
• They are questions which require no thoughts
• Rhetorical questions
• May seem difficult to answer some question
• Might seem absurd

3. Small Talk 2/2
• Two other aspects of this function:
The length of time devoted to such functions
The frequency with which such expression are
exchanged
• May reveal considerable information
• Require so little thought
• Length of time taken varies across cultures
• Cultural patterns may differ in the frequency

4. Relating
and
Receiving
Information

5. This is the function we are referring to
when we speak of taking a phrase literally.
Usually, instructions or directions on
how to get somewhere is the kind of
information involved in this function.
This is the function most often associated
with the popular view of ‘communication’.

6. Information is often not to be taken literally,
but cross-culturally.
In a new situation we are likely to
perceive as information kinds of behaviour
which other members of the culture ignore.
Sometimes, we are also ignore or
be incapable of perceiving as information
what is intended as information.

7. When one gives information,
he may also be saying something about himself
("See what I know?")
and something about his attitude toward
the other person.
("I know more than you." or
"I want to help you.")

8. The problem is that a newcomer or
a stranger is never really sure
how significant his observations:
 They may be different,
but that does not make them profound
or even accurate interpretations.

9. RITUALS

10.  A ritual "is a stereotyped sequence of
activities involving gestures, words, and
objects, performed in a sequestered
place, and designed to influence
preternatural entities or forces on behalf of
the actors' goals and interests.“
 Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of
a community, including a religious
community.

11.  Rituals are characterized by
formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-
governance, sacral symbolism and
performance.
 Most rituals cannot be explained easily by those
participate in them, and the explanations are
rationales conjectured by participants first
confronted with the question, ‘Why do you
this?’.
 While we may be able to collect
objective, detailed information on certain
rituals, our exclusion might make it impossible
to relate this information to our behaviour when

12.  Nevertheless, visitors are often invited to
observe if not participate in directly. To attend
a wedding, funeral, feasts,Saint’s day,
national holidays or local festival is often
desired by visitors, since it is something
special and memorable. So some travellers
want to visit a country when they are in their
festival times.

13. HALLOWEEN
 Halloween also known as All Hallows'
Eve,is a yearly celebration observed in a
number of countries on 31 October, the time
in the liturgical year dedicated to
remembering the dead.
 It is also celebrated in the end of the harvest
time.

15. FESTIVAL OF SACRIFICES

16. RAMADAN BAYRAM

17. BABY DROPPING IN INDIA
 For praise the Lord.

18. KAVADI

19.  A ritual performed in honour of Murugan, the
Hindu God of war and victory, popular
amongst Tamils

21. AFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
• Affective communication is to express emotions
toward another person,
• and as such it suffers the cultural distinction
between ‘reason’ and ‘emotion’.

22. • Some small group research, conducted in the U.S, suggests
that every group discussion will produce a balance between
‘task-oriented’ comments and ‘socioemotional expressions’.
• Administrators warns against a too business-like attitude
which doesn't show enough concern for the personal feelings
of the staff.

23. • In popular American mythology today, the most affectively
typified people are the poor, the uneducated, the humble.
• Suburbanites even more than their urban neighbor have no
‘soul’.

24. • Anybody who is affluent is suspected of lacking human
affective qualities.
• In this country, success American-style either requires a lack
of feeling or destroys feeling.

25. • Affective communication is the communication of feelings,
of honest, heart-felt.
• Much of communication is based on the goals in which such
expressions are minimized, if not discouraged altogether.

26. • In business, in foreign study , in diplomatic negotiations, the
instrumental functions receive first priority.
• When a culture’s values and reasoning patterns distinguish
these, the affective qualities of communication may suffer.

27. • Category of affective communication includes insults as well
as compliments, dislike as well as love.
• Affective elements are expressed
nonverbally(hugs, kisses), and this accounts for additional
problems across cultures.
• If it were possible to line up cultures, those might seem to be
the most affective.

29. When words or gestures are used as
instruments in helping to achieve
some result, we may identify them
as instrumental.
Some gestures and expressions are
more clearly instrumental than
others.

30. FOR EXAMPLE:
Commands & Requests
“Open the door.”
“Do not smoke.”
A Weather Report

31. Instrumental expressions
are often constracted with
affective expressions.

32.  There is a status differential which
influences these two forms when the
same goal intended; that is, a person with
authority may legitimately express his
role through instrumental communication,
whereas a person who lacks power in any
situation must achieve goals through
indirection.

33. In instrumental communication
the recognition of instrumental
or directive communication may
be difficult.

34. Cultural value differences also
complicate the problem.
Ascribed roles according to the sex
often are reflected in a female-
affective style and a male-
instrumental style.