Miscommunication Between American And Indian Culture Case Study

In today’s society it is very common for the American culture to stereotype other cultures resulting in miscommunication. Stereotyping occurs when there are perceived notions of a group of people usually based off of gender, sex, race, religion, or culture. Our group decided to look into what communication difficulties exist in intercultural interaction between American and Indian cultures due to these stereotypes and miscommunications. We felt this was a relevant topic due to the way the media portrays Indian culture and the perceptions that society has made based on these false ideas. We specifically studied the Indian cultures daily life, religion, family life and relationships, and marriage customs. Through analyzing Indian characters …show more content…
There are many different forms of miscommunication that may occur, especially when the members communicating are from different cultures. A non-understanding will happen when the listener displays an inability to make sense of a whole utterance produced by the speaker. A misunderstanding occurs when the listener interprets what is being said in a different way than the speaker intended. In the case of a misunderstanding the members of the communication act do not realize the mistake in the moment. An incomplete understanding on the other hand is when the listener is unable to make sense of part of the conversation, such as a word or phrase, and at least one of the members recognize that something had gone wrong. Buzzfeed created an entire video about the Indian stereotypes present in American pop culture shows like The Simpsons and The Big Bang Theory. In the video people currently living in India watched clips of the Indian characters in the show and shared their feelings on the depictions being shown. They were not pleased with what they saw, they felt that they were being misrepresented and that their culture was being mocked for American’s amusement. The video ended with the Indian natives telling American’s to actually come to India and learn about the culture before deciding to represent …show more content…
The marriage was arranged when both of the children were very young, and it was conducted like a business deal. Apu spends the entire episode complaining and making jokes about the marriage. Which completely goes against much of the Indian marriage traditions, arranged marriages are no longer a common occurrence in India. With a culture that is family oriented it is very unlikely that parents would force their son into a marriage he does not want. Also the episode completely disregarded almost all of the marriage customs and traditions present throughout India. Once again America is misrepresenting an entire culture in order to have something to laugh