Stereotypes

When looking at others differences people use to stereotype people in regards to culture. For example, Costa Rican people are stereotyped as unpunctual and North Americans as materialistic; which can be true, but there are cases in which those generalizations can be wrong. Nobody can judge others in view of his/her own culture’s standard; that is, making prejudiced and unreasonable perceptions based on one’s life style. Stereotypes do not allow people entirely know and learn another culture. For example, most of the time, people wrongly generalize ideas about a single country based on what they see or read. However, what it is seemed and read is not the only truth about a cultural society. There are many aspects that are hidden or unknown. I knew this because it is similar to when we know someone for the first time. At the beginning we start creating assumptions, but it is when we share with that person that we realize how she/he really is. Nevertheless, I reaffirmed this when I watch a video which a professor sent me called “The Danger of a Single Story”. It talks about how we risk a critical misunderstanding when we hear only a single story. It is because we use to see anything else than just what we hear over and over again, so that part becomes the only true. This video opened my mind and made me be aware of how stereotypes not merely are untrue, but also incomplete. Through stereotypes we see the differences not the similarities that can exist among people and cultures. Now, I recommend you to take a look at the videos below, so you can learn from them and try to avoid stereotypes. I expect you enjoy them and learn from them as much as I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg

What is Culture?

Culture is in truth a way of life because it is everything that characterizes a person such as behaviors, attitudes, thinking, and perceptions of the world, as many others aspects. Hence, when talking about culture people can come out with different perceptions. What appears to me accurate of a person cannot be precise to someone from another culture. Each person has his/her own way of being and that makes the difference in perceptions. Nobody sees the world in the same way or has the same thinking as somebody else. People can agree or disagree with something, but they cannot be completely the same as others. Everyone is a unique individual and that what makes him/her values. The problem is that misunderstanding can occur between people from different cultures. For that reason, people need to understand and recognize everybody’s differences and “above all to respect, value, and prize the personhood of every human being” (Seeley, 167). In that way, we can create a better multicultural understanding.

Let's Share about Culture...

Since many years ago, culture has been defined by many people all around the world. Hence, it has received diverse concepts and most of them are considered correct. The problem is to agree with a single and simple thought about what culture is. I am María Tatiana Alvarez Gutiérrez; student of the Master Second Languages and Cultures (Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica), and from now and on it will be a pleasure to share my knowledge, perceptions, thoughts, and reflections about culture and language with you. Of course, I expect everyone to provide his/her opinions and comprehension related to what I write or add something new. In this way, culture can be easily and absolutely understood by everybody due to this cooperative learning process that we are creating. Let us remember that knowledge is better when it is built together and of course it must be share everywhere, so it can be helpful and productive to somebody else. Besides, nobody has an absolutely truth about something and according to the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary knowledge is defined as the understanding of or information about a subject which a person gets by experience or study, and which is either in a person's mind or known by people generally. Consequently, a better knowledge can be gathered if each person communicates his/her acquaintance.