Jandt, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
Chapter Exercises
Chapter 10: Immigration and Acculturation
Exercise 1: Analyzing Culture Shock
Purpose
To analyze culture shock
Instructions
Select out someone who has just returned from a study aboard program or someone who has
lived for at least 4 months in a culture different from his or her own.
Talk with this informant about his or her experience. Ask him or her to describe the basic facts
of the adventure. Ask questions which explore for “symptoms” of culture shock, its causes, and
ways the informant moved toward reconnection. For example:
a. What situations or events frightened, disgusted, or annoyed you?
b. What blunders or social errors did you make?
c. How did the host country’s ways seem to you early in your stay?
d. How did your views of the host people’s ways change? Why?
e. Were you depressed, angry or homesick? If yes, what caused the feelings?
f. Were there certain times in your stay when those feelings were most intense?
g. How did you deal with those feelings?
h. Did you pick up any of your host’s attitudes toward other cultures?
i. Did you at any point begin to think that some aspects of your host’s culture were better
than yours?
j. Did you have any troubles or strong feelings when you rejoined your own culture?
Analyze the answers for a pattern that may resemble the three-stage process of culture
shock.
Then, answer the questions in the “Conclusions” section of the exercise.
Conclusions
Discuss the following questions.
1. What aspects of the host–guest cultural differences produced the disorientation?
2. Which of the symptoms of culture shock did the informant exhibit?
3. What attitudes and behaviors of dissociation did the informant develop in response?
4. How did the informant get through the culture shock to reconnect with the host culture?
5. If the informant did not experience culture shock, why not?
Exercise 2: Would You Experience Culture Shock?
Purpose
To better understand culture shock
Instructions
1. Make a list of items and values you would miss if you were to leave your own culture.
2. Then, make a list of items and values you would be interested in experiencing in other
cultures.
3. Explain what you placed on each list and why.
4. Then, answer the question in the “Conclusion” section of the exercise.
Conclusions
How do you think culture shock would impact you?
Exercise 3: Immigration into the United States
Purpose
1. To appreciate the experience of immigrants into the United States
2. To recognize the effects of culture shock
Instructions
If you are an immigrant to or sojourner in the United States, answer the following questions for
yourself. If not, answer them for any member of your family who immigrated to the United
States.
Name of Person Answering Questions:
Country of Origin:
1. When did the immigration begin? What were the social, political, and economic conditions
of that country at that time?
2. What was the person’s acculturation potential? Consider the factors that contribute to a
person successfully acculturating to a new culture (i.e., age, education, previous exposure to
language and culture, etc.) and comment on them.
3. What were the social, political, and economic conditions in the United States at the time of
immigration?
4. What symptoms of culture shock did this person experience?
5. What were the major intercultural communication barriers that this person experienced?
Exercise 4. Would You Pass the U.S. Citizenship Test?
Purpose
To better understand the knowledge required to become a U.S. citizen
Instructions
Immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship on or after October 1, 2008, have to complete an
oral civics exam. A U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officer will ask the applicant up
to 10 questions. An applicant must answer 6 of the 10 questions correctly to pass the civics
portion of the naturalization test. Below are two sample tests drawn from a published list of
questions. Answer the questions, then check your answers.
Test #1
1. The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are
these words?
2. Name one branch or part of the government.
3. Name your U.S. Representative.
4. Who signs bills to become laws?
5. What are the two major political parties in the United States?
6. What are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy?
7. What happened at the Constitutional Convention?
8. What was one important thing that Abraham Lincoln did?
9. What did Martin Luther King, Jr. do?
10. Where is the Statue of Liberty?
Jandt, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
Test #2
1. What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?
2. Who makes federal laws?
3. We elect a President for how many years?
4. What are two Cabinet-level positions?
5. What is the political party of the President now?
6. When is the last day you can send in federal income tax forms?
7. When was the Constitution written?
8. What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?
9. What major event happened on September 11, 2001, in the United States?
10. Why does the flag have 13 stripes?
Answers to Test #1:
1. We the People
7. The Constitution was written, the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution
Answers to Test #2:
Jandt, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
2. Congress, Senate and House (of Representatives), (U.S. or national) legislature
4. Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of
9. Terrorists attacked the United States
Your number correct: ______
Conclusions
1. How did your score compare to others? How do you account for the variance among scores?
2. In chapter 1, you read that Hofstede classified the elements of culture into the four
categories of symbols, rituals, values, and heroes. Where do you see these in the test items?
3. Is knowledge of U.S. cultural elements necessary for cultural identity (the identification with
and perceived acceptance into a group that has a shared system of symbols, meanings, and
norms)?
Note: Taken from http://www.uscis.gov/files/hativedocuments/100q.pdf
Exercise 5: Study Abroad
Purpose: To consider how studying or living abroad would impact you personally.
Jandt, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
Instructions
1. If you have studied abroad, answer the following questions based on your own experiences.
If you have not, consider how you may feel.
2. How did you or might you experience culture shock? What was or would be the most
difficult for you personally?
3. What could you do to avoid culture shock? Is it something that you can avoid?
Conclusions
1. What role does culture shock play in our adaptation to another culture?
2. Is culture shock inherently good or bad?