Brooke
Comx 415 Midterm
October 22, 2015
Field Observation Report
For my field observation report I have been using the ethnographic approach to analyze
the intercultural communication between my friend BK and I. BK is from Khobar, Saudi Arabia,
and has been attending the University of Montana for 2 years now. Although we have been
friends for quite some time, there are many intercultural communication difference that I’ve
never picked up on until I took the time to deduct and analyze them. Over the course of this
paper I will go over 3 specific incidents that I analyzed and my hypotheses for why these
moments happened. The incidents involve time, eye-contact, and ingroup communication.
The first critical incident actually happened the first time we met up. It took us a couple
weeks to get together and when we finally did it was a bit tough. We used to just meet up with a
group of friends and hang out and talk in groups of people. This is the first time we have met up
where it’s just us at a set time and place. Prior to meeting up I had been messaging him on
Facebook to schedule a time to hang out and talk. When I first asked him to help with the
project he immediately said yes. The conversation was short simple and to the point. The only
messages went like this:
Me: Hey BK! I know we briefly talked about meeting up last week, I was wondering if you
have any free time this friday. Maybe we can grab lunch or something?
BK: Yes I can. Text me when we gonna do it.
I felt like the conversation was pretty straightforward. I would text him Friday and we
would meet up. When I texted him on Friday I didn’t get a response. I attempted to contact him
again on that Saturday and still hadn’t heard back. I was starting to worry that I would have to
find someone else to be my partner for this paper. On Monday I messaged him again asking if
he would be able to help me with this or if I should find someone else.
Finally I got a reply. BK simply said, “I can. I was waiting on you.” Here I was confused. I
had messaged him on both Friday and Saturday attempting to meet up with no reply. I
responded letting him know I may have the incorrect number that I’m texting but he said it was
correct. Moving on I asked if he would be able to meet tomorrow, Tuesday. He said yes again
and to text him when I was free.
Tuesday I messaged him around 11 letting him know I was free the rest of the day and
asked what time works for him to meet up. Again no response. I waited until about 4 p.m.
before messaging him again asking if he still wanted to meet up. Still no response. Finally
around 5 p.m. I called him and we finally scheduled a time and place to meet up.
Afterwards, I was more careful about setting up a specific time and location to meet,
thought it was still often rescheduled or he showed up late. Analyzing the incident I thought it
may have something to do with the way we view chronemics in our different cultures. I would
describe my own culture as having a monochronic-time sense. I like keeping schedules and
feel like I am always paying attention to the clock. Is it possible that BK’s culture values more
polychronic-time? It took him awhile to reply, but maybe he just did it when he felt he had time.
Could it be possible that his culture focuses more on relational time and places more emphasis
on completing human transactions than on holding schedules? That could explain his late
attendance and missed meeting times.
The different perceptions on time could also come from differences in high or low-
context cultures. Low-context cultures prefer precise time schedule. Could it be that BK’s
culture is a high-context oriented which prefers a less precise schedule? Could him showing up
late be a type of nonverbal communication? I’m so used to being on time and worrying about
being on time that it didn’t occur to me that time may not be the same across all cultures.
The second critical incident that I thought was significant enough to analyze was that BK
doesn’t hold eye contact throughout the conversation. When we first began meeting up I didn’t
notice it too much. I thought maybe he was just shy, or uncomfortable since we didn’t typically
talk one on one. As our meetings progress I noticed it happening again and again during all of
our conversations. In my culture I am used to eye contact throughout the conversation. It kind
of made me uncomfortable at first but I noticed that I began looking away too.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t making eye contact all the time, he did look up at me when I
asked a specific question or when he was asking something. When he would answer though
his eyes wouldn’t be on me. He would either look around at something else or down. It made
me feel like he was a bit uninterested in my conversation. Here is an example of how one of our
conversations went.
ME: What did you do over the weekend? Anything exciting?
BK: Not really. Just went out with some friends. The usual.
ME: Oh yes, I remember seeing you Saturday night downtown. Did you go with Shmik
and everyone?
BK: Yeah, you should have came with us.
ME: I would have, but I had a friend from out of town visiting who I was out with.
It was a pretty average conversation in my opinion. What was strange was that BK only
made eye contact with me when I would begin asking the questions. When he would answer he
would look away. We didn’t even hold eye contact until I was finished speaking the question.
The times we did make eye contact were brief and far between. I felt a bit awkward looking at
him when he didn’t look back at me. Only occasionally when he would ask me something would
he look at me.
Again, I noticed this more and more as we met up more. I actually made sure I had
some other thing to focus on during our conversations so that I wouldn’t be as uncomfortable by
the lack of eye contact. I felt rude for looking at something else while we were talking, but I
couldn’t stand just looking at him with him looking in every other direction. I guess this lack of
eye contact could just be something to do with our different cultures. It’s not something I have
noticed before, but I also didn’t meet with BK one on one before.
Could it be possible that BK is influenced by a low-contact culture? I feel that my
culture is very high-contact oriented in contrast. I make a lot of eye contact when I’m speaking
with someone and typically have some sort of greeting to my friends with touch. Maybe BK’s
culture prefers indirect eye-contact and less physical touch. Could it be possible that BK’s
culture is more of a high-context culture? Maybe he relies more on nonverbal cues rather than
verbal cues like I would in my culture. I couldn’t tell if he was interested, I would have preferred
him to just say if something was bothering him. I didn’t want to assume anything and be wrong
and get into a cultural misunderstanding.
The third and final incident that I would like to discuss is when a group of BK’s friends
came up to us while we were talking in the UC one day. BK and I were sitting near Just Chillin
at the UC and three or four people approached us and began speaking to BK. They were all
speaking Arabic, so I didn’t understand the conversation. I did notice that BK made more eye
contact with them though than he does with me. I also noticed the pace of their conversation it
