The mother tongue at Babson is English. I communicate with almost all my friends from wherever they are from in English. I have grown up speaking English and consider myself bi-lingual in English and Hindi. I know that the language is an important form of media that transmit information from one to another. The English language at Babson is form of hot media as students do not need to exert much effort in filling in the details of the speaker. Yet I overlooked a pivotal part of language – greetings.
Daily, I come across various greetings ranging from WhatsUp! to Heyy to head nod acknowledgements; but never realized their important or relevance. I now realize that whilst many cultures share the basic emotions and language, greetings make a large difference in different cultures of the world. When being greeted by someone in a different way, the greeting becomes a cool media for me as I have to put a lot of effort understand what way to respond. Having lived around the world and interacted with different people, I have received numerous greeting and would like to present them here in this blog.
USA: Direct eye contact, firm hand shakes. Women may briefly hug other women, and men may quickly kiss the cheek of a woman.
India: Before meeting anyone, one must say Namaste and press palms together with fingers pointing upward. Usually remove shoes before entering house
Indonesia/Malaysia: Before greeting one always address the other person with a suffix out of respect.
France: Light and quick handshake; women offer hand first
South Africa: Always ask how the other person is before introducing yourself.
this is a really interesting post. When you said greeting is a cold medium, I agree with you in certain extent. I think greeting can be a cold medium when people with different cultures meet with each other because they need to interpret why they would greet people such ways. However, if two persons with the same culture greet each other, it becomes more like a manner thing, so it would be a hot medium. Overall, the different greeting styles from each culture are really interesting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that apart from verbal language, sign language is also an important part of communications as studies have shown that over 90% of all communication is through body language. The greetings are also important as we are at a business school and will have to interact with many people from various backgrounds in our different business ventures.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed this, especially at Babson, there are a wide variety of non verbal greetings. As a freshman i was often worried about greeting someone from another culture improperly. Although all the greetings are the different, i argue that they all have the same message.
ReplyDeleteI never thought of this as a medium, especially a cold medium. But I do agree with you. I also think its interesting how we greet people differently depending on how well we know them. And also the fact that we often choose to not greet people. We walk by strangers on the street all the time, and even sit next to them on the T. But nobody ever acknowledges anyone else. Sometimes I'll accidentally say something to someone on the T, and quickly am reminded that I'm not supposed to talk to anyone when they just give me a blank stare or a cold glance.
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