Relationship Between a Korean Boyfriend and Girlfriend - Essay Example

Anthropolgy/Ethnography Recording Analysis The short recording takes place between a young Korean boy and girl in a relationship, both college s living on their own. The conversation is set against the background of lunch time at a regular school day and exhibits the type and level of interaction between the two; how they communicate, what topics they discuss, and what emotions they display. The interesting aspect is that the girl and the boy seem to attach importance to only their own respective topics: she remains concerned about getting the boy some food and pays little attention to what the boy is really worried about, while the boy remains engrossed in his family and personal issues and continues to think about them out loud but he does not ask the girl for advice directly or for help and guidance. It seems both are trying to achieve separate goals with this conversation: the girl wants to close the decision on what food the boy will have while the boy is more focused on the problems he has and sidelines the lunch. Also, it appears both the boy and the girl face the same problems such as the apartment and the financial issues but it may be that both have different ways of coping with them, expressing them, and solving them, for example the girl is very confident about her plan to take a loan to move out of school while the boy worries over the financial help he has been provided with his mother to pay his credit card bill for apartment rent. In this context, they continue to talk over each other and a conflict occurs due to this, especially when the girl feels the boy is not answering her even when she has asked him what he wants to eat “a million times” and the boy feels she ate without him even when he believes he texted her he will be joining her. This leads to a few sarcastic and frustrated exchanges. They end up resolving the conflict by dropping the issues and finally agreeing on something: what to eat and depart laughingly. The analysis that can be extracted from this is that relationships can sometimes have communication channels like these where despite a level of closeness and understanding, individuals falls into the trap of either not getting their points across or aligning them right; or not responding well to each other. Culture elements play an intrinsic role throughout the recording. The recording demonstrates a intersection of Korean and American culture with reference to food. Three cuisines are mentioned in the recording and all belong to different nationalities, that is, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese. The dialect interchanges between Korean and English where the emerging pattern is that the boy uses Korean when he is going through deep thinking or some sort of stress, as when he tries to convince the girl he did send her a text or when he is talking about the difficult situation about his mother. This may be because he feels more comfortable in expressing himself in his mother tongue. The girl, however, only speaks in English. It may be that the girl attaches more importance to learning and speaking the language of the country they are in, that is, English so as to blend in better or it just may be that she feels less connected to her own cultural back ground. Another cultural aspect to note is that of relationships within a family context. The boy’s mother gives him money to pay off his credit card bill which might show proximity and a sense of kinship; however the boy perceives it as “conflict”. He wants to pay her back but slowly which might show that even though the boy has reservations, he is acceptant of the idea of seeking a small favor/help. This can be contrasted with how the recording shows how the girl takes strictly a “short-term loan”. There is evidence of shared knowledge in the recording. This is mostly in reference to food as both agree “Miso soup” is “crap” at the dining place they agree to go to. However, there is also some knowledge against it when the girl continues to offer the boy soup of one kind or another even when he has declared he does not want it since it is very hot. The relationship between the boy and the girl can be seen through several aspects. The fact that they eat lunch together and the boy gets angry when he finds out that she has already eaten goes to show that they are very close and have probably been dating since some time to have reached a stage where they coordinate their activities. Their decisions and actions are however not dependent on each other as both make them independently and discuss them with each other later. This is exemplified by the part where the girl has made the decision on her loan and simply informs the boy, the girl eats when she is hungry and does not base that decision on the boy. It seems they often talk openly about personal family matters and therefore understand each other in that aspect. The girl however responds little or fails to give the boy any solution to his problem. This either maybe because she is quiet by nature on such things and does not know how to react, or maybe because she does not want to complicate the relationship by meddling in. So instead she gives short succinct answers or agreements such as “Oh, nice”, and “That’s good”, “I know” etc. However, the girl seems to be very caring and continues to ask the boy if he would like to eat something, and even though she has eaten she still accompanies him for food. The conversation itself goes through changes in tones. It changes from a light enquiry about food to sharing of serious topics; and from deep reflection to conflict management; and finally from an angry and sarcastic exchange of words back to a light, cheerful scenario. The voice levels change too as the boy answers tiredly first when he says he hurried back from class and feels hot, but remains confused rest of the time as he decides what to eat while reflecting about his family situation. His confusion is captured by words such as “May be” and “Anyways..” and times when he falls silent or cannot find the text he sent to the girl. The girl produces short answers and her tone remains same throughout except when she loses patience with the guy and gets angry as well as sarcastic towards the boy by saying “let me know if you find them” when he can’t find the texts. They mostly talk in a very informal way with words like ‘gosh’ and ‘crap’ and incomplete sentences and phrases which accentuates their college age and close intimacy. The recording reveals several uses of language: use of connotative when the girl stresses on food over and over again, especially when the boy does not answer her; use of emotive with use of words like ‘oh’, ‘oh gosh’ etc; use of hedge with words such as ‘anyways’, ‘guess so’ to reduce the impact of the sentence and break it down into smaller portions or when expressing confusion, distraction and so on; and use of intensifier like the girl claiming she asked a million times and that the boy never listens and so on. The recording gives us a brief insight into their personalities. There is evidence that the boy possesses a very confused personality which is also demonstrated by the fact how he is so sure he sent her the text when he really hasn’t and continues to be indecisive with what he wants for food or how he wants to handle his mother. He seems to be more reflective and analyzes things over and over again, for instance he thinks about his loan situation with his mother and how he can repay it and then later goes on to comment how if he had followed in the footsteps of the girl, he would have had achieved a different outcome. The girl seems to be more easy-going and arrives at decisions faster as she already knows she has to get the loan and does not seem to worry too much about the boy’s problems either. She seems often emits sarcasm, anger and sighs only when she needs to prove a point. For example, when she says “oh my gosh, what do you want to eat.. I asked you like how many times?”. This also tells us how boys and girls may end up talking in different ways, styles and tones. There is a point when the girl adopts a complaining attitude when the boy cannot find the text he claims he sends, “(sigh) see, you think you told me everything but you didn’t!”. Sarcasm is also a tool used by her. This can be contrasted with how the boy reacts when he finds out the girl ate without him; instead of complaining he adopts a rather disappointed attitude: “I told you that Im hungry earlier and Im going to skip a class, but you ate without me”. All in all, the recording is an effective window into different cultural, social and communicative patterns and reveals a lot about the individuals, and the situations at hand. Read More