Interview about Intercultural Conversations - Essay Example

Interviewer: During communicating in your country, what will be thought polite and what will be thought impolite?
Interviewee: excusing yourself before interrupting the speaker, maintaining eye contact with the speaker, and using polite words to disagree with a speaker, such as ‘I beg to differ’ are some of the acts that are considered polite during communication. On the other hand, rude interruption, for instance, interrupting the speaker without excusing yourself first is considered grossly impolite.

Interviewer: Which language do you think is the second language in your country? I mean most russians will learn it.
Interviewee: The Adyghe language, which is spoken by about 128000 people within russia, and about 300,000 speakers worldwide.

Interviewer: Is family a necessary concept in your culture? What significant role does family play?
Interviewee: Yes family is a necessary concept. The fundamental unit of any society is the family. It defines and shapes society and so it plays a key role.

Interviewer: In my thought, russia is cold, is it true? Do you like it? Why?
Interviewee: Yes russia is cold, especially the Northern part. I don’t mind the cold as I am already used to it. Also, in a way, it explains our (russians) ability to endure extreme hardship and harsh conditions.

Interviewer: Can you please talk about a traditional festival in russia?
Interviewee: There are a lot of festivals in Russia but let me single out Maslenitsa. This is the pure russian holiday which refers you back to the times of pagan. It is a celebratory pre-Lenten tradition of russia and is habitually referred to as pancake week. Every day of pancake week has a customary activity. Kids make themselves busy by playing games while the elders cook huge stacks of pancakes. The festival also consists of snowball fights, riding on swings, masquerades, sledding, and sleigh rides. In the festival, the image of Maslenitsa is also burnt to usher in spring and the return of the sun.

Interviewer: what is your traditional food and do you enjoy it? What other food do you like?
Interviewee: Borshch; and I enjoy it a lot. I also like cornbread, baked potato, hot dogs, and potato salad.

Interviewer: Can you please talk about your major to me? Why do you want to study that?
Interviewee: I want to major in Linguistics since I love languages a lot and I would like to be an expert in them.

Interviewer: Is this major popular in your country? How is the future of the major?
Interviewee: yes it is by now. More institutions of higher learning will integrate it into their program.

Interviewer: What's your hobby in your free time?
Interviewee: I have a lot of hobbies (a little smile on my face). I like watching football a lot doing my free time. I also like reading academic materials and playing video games.

Interviewer: Do you enjoy American life? What attracted you most to America?
Interviewee: Yes, I do enjoy life in America a lot. Things are just wonderful here. The most attractive part is that America has many diverse groups of people who live happily with one another and they have the right to condemn what is going wrong in government.

Interviewer: Can you tell me an example of some differences between American culture and russian culture?
Interviewee: Americans prefer more personal space as opposed to russians. russians like "close talkers" and they cannot move away when you are conversing, you can close in on russians. Repeating "I'm sorry" can make you appear untrusted in russian culture. Just apologize once and then let actions show you mean it. This is not the case in America.