Intercultural Negotiation

I have been in Australia for a little over a week now! I was not entirely sure what to expect when I arrived here, but I took comfort in knowing that English is the primary spoken language and I would not have to familiarize myself with a completely new language to study abroad.

I did not think that I would experience any sort of language barrier at all. In fact, my main, and really only, concern was that my speech habits as an American with a Syracuse, New York accent would not be understood here or would be viewed as weird or confusing to the Australian people.

However, when I arrived, I realized that the main adjustment that I would have to overcome here dealt with etiquette in speech and different cultural linguistic practices, rather than the language itself.

One specific encounter that was especially surprising to me and demonstrated the difference between the United States and Australia took place during one of our orientation week events with our residence hall. Residence halls here are a lot like American fraternities or sororities. There is a lot of tradition, pride, and customs unique to all of the residence halls.

On one of our first nights, we were told to go to an orientation event called "war cries." At this event, we learned the "Uni Hall" chant that we would have to memorize and perform on many occasions during O-Week. Up to this point, nothing seemed too out of the ordinary to me and it was actually quite fun to be a part of. And then I heard the chant.

The whole chant was essentially a three stanzas of cursing, misogyny, and sexual innuendo. At first, I really could not believe what I was hearing. It seemed insane that we were being forced to learn such a vulgar song as part of our orientation. Even more surprising was the fact that our senior residential advisor and her husband were present at this event. Furthermore, as we were learning the song, we were being yelled at by the upperclassmen from our residence hall. They were swearing at us and calling us all names that I have never been called before.

I would find it extremely hard to believe that such a practice would be acceptable anywhere in the United States, but it is commonplace here. The chant that we learned is even performed at sporting events on campus to cheer on the residence hall-based sporting teams.

I talked to one of my Australian friends about it and they said that curse words are not considered rude or personal attacks here. The individual who I spoke to asked me about certain curse words in the United States and whether or not I was offended by what I experienced at orientation.

It was hard for me to formulate a response to this. In a way, I was offended by it. But on the other hand, I was in a place where my cultural identity was in the minority and I needed to learn to accept this. I think talking to this person helped me accept what happened and realize that this is just the way things happen here. However, had I not spoken to this person about the cultural differences, I might still be offended, which would lead to a cultural misunderstanding on my part. Hybels stated that, "people not only fear, but they also distrust the unknown. Trust is gained through knowledge and understanding (62)." I think this statement correctly expresses my experience.

There was another instance in which I noted the complexities and intersection of cultural identities, as discussed by Hybels (60). As stated, the chant that we had to learn was extremely misogynistic. I was speaking to another friend from Southern Australia and she explained to me that she did not believe that such misogyny would be accepted where she is from. She said that the region she comes from seems to be more progressive than Northeastern Australia, where we are. Furthermore, in terms of the intersection of language and sexual orientation, a lot of phrases and expressions here are very much hetero-normative and do not seem to be too accepting of those who do not identify as heterosexual. The friend who I discussed this with affirmed this thought. She said that Northeastern Australia has the reputation of being full of "straight people" and not fully accepting of those who do not fit in.

It was very interesting that I was able to pick up on this just through one chant, but I think it goes to show how complex cultural identity can be and how much language matters in the overall understanding of one's cultural identity.

This is the t-shirt we had to wear to
represent our residence hall at orientation events.

Hybels, Saundra and Richard Weaver II. "Intercultural Communication." Communicating Effectively,
     10th Ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2011. 62-97.