Language Differences In 'The Joy Luck Club'
The Joy Luck Club
The movie The Joy Luck Club offers so many excellent examples of the conflicts, misunderstandings, and issues that can arise during intercultural communications, even when those involved are aware of many of the differences. Two concepts that I found particularly interesting and evident throughout the film were differences in language functions and differences in verbal style between Chinese American women and their mothers as well as their husbands.
Understanding Diverse Language Functions
Language and cultural values have a direct and interdependent relationship with one another. The language that we use to form our thoughts and perceptions is learned at a very early age on an unconscious level, meaning we don’t realize that we are forming thoughts and perceptions as a result of the words we are learning and the way that we use them. …show more content…
Day in and day out, she did nothing but wait on her husband and do all the things she thought a “good wife” should do. She never expressed her own needs or opinions anymore. She did not want to create conflict between herself and her husband. That was the expectation that she understood she was to fulfill. Her husband, who was American and who fell in love with her originally because she was so different from American women, eventually strayed from the marriage and had an affair. Rose had become so focused on being the perfect, obedient wife that she thought she had to be, that her husband no longer knew who she was or what she wanted. She wasn’t allowing herself to matter because the Chinese culture and worldview taught her that she should bury her own needs and focus only on her husband’s
The movie The Joy Luck Club offers so many excellent examples of the conflicts, misunderstandings, and issues that can arise during intercultural communications, even when those involved are aware of many of the differences. Two concepts that I found particularly interesting and evident throughout the film were differences in language functions and differences in verbal style between Chinese American women and their mothers as well as their husbands.
Understanding Diverse Language Functions
Language and cultural values have a direct and interdependent relationship with one another. The language that we use to form our thoughts and perceptions is learned at a very early age on an unconscious level, meaning we don’t realize that we are forming thoughts and perceptions as a result of the words we are learning and the way that we use them. …show more content…
Day in and day out, she did nothing but wait on her husband and do all the things she thought a “good wife” should do. She never expressed her own needs or opinions anymore. She did not want to create conflict between herself and her husband. That was the expectation that she understood she was to fulfill. Her husband, who was American and who fell in love with her originally because she was so different from American women, eventually strayed from the marriage and had an affair. Rose had become so focused on being the perfect, obedient wife that she thought she had to be, that her husband no longer knew who she was or what she wanted. She wasn’t allowing herself to matter because the Chinese culture and worldview taught her that she should bury her own needs and focus only on her husband’s