成人高等教育英語(yǔ)教材4 09

[00:00.00] UNIT 9
[00:03.29]Welcoming someone
[00:07.84]Integrated Skills Development
[00:12.59]Passage culture Shock
[00:18.76]When a person moves from one culture to another,
[00:25.13]he suddenly finds that much of what he has learned
[00:29.88]about interpreting the actions of people around him is suddenly irrelevant.
[00:36.23]He finds that the strategies he has used to influence people
[00:41.51]or events in certain ways are no longer effective,
[00:45.48]and the assumptions that guided his understandings
[00:53.03]and reactions are no longer reliable.
[00:57.60]Even distinguishing be-tween the significant
[01:02.15]and the insignificant in a given situation becomes difficult,if not impossible.
[01:09.22]This sudden psychological transition from competent adult to ineffective child
[01:17.48]inevitably results in the serious impact of the individual's feelings of self-worth.
[01:25.94]He experiences feelings of frustration and helplessness.
[01:31.40]In short,he experiences culture shock.
[01:36.55]Culture shock is the result of the removal of the familiar.
[01:43.08]Suddenly the individual is faced with the necessity of working,
[01:48.96]commuting,studying,eating,shopping,relaxing,even sleeping,
[01:55.72]in an unfamiliar environment organized according to unknown rules.
[02:02.49]In mild form,culture shock shows itself in symptoms of fatigue,
[02:09.85]irritability and impatience.
[02:14.90]Being unable to interpret the situations in which they find themselves,
[02:21.74]people often believe they are being deliberately deceived
[02:26.99]or exploited by host-country nationals.
[02:32.45]They tend to perceive rudeness where none is intended.
[02:37.81]Their efficiency and flexibility is often impaired and both work and family suffer.
[02:45.56]Some people may respond by developing negative stereotypes of the host culture,
[02:52.64]by refusing to learn the lan-guage
[02:56.48]and by mixing exclusively with people of their own cultural background.
[03:03.04]In extreme cases,
[03:06.38]rejection may be so complete that the individual returns
[03:12.55]immedi-ately to their own culture,regardless of the cost in social,
[03:19.21]economic or personal terms.
[03:23.36]Alternatively,people may retreat into their own private world,
[03:29.92]either men-tally or physically.
[03:34.05]Physical symptoms of culture shock may include headaches,
[03:41.41]stomachaches,constant fatigue,difficulty in sleeping
[03:47.37]and a general feeling of uneasiness.
[03:51.73]Unfor-tunately,many doctors are unfamiliar with culture shock
[03:57.98]and attempt to treat the symptoms rather than the cause.
[04:03.33]The important thing to recognize about culture shock is that it is universal.
[04:11.59]It is experienced to a greater or lesser degree
[04:16.63]by all those who move from one culture to another.
[04:21.67]Experiencing culture shock does not mean that an individual is inflex-ible
[04:29.11]or unadaptable.
[04:32.27]It does mean that recognition of its inevitability
[04:37.73]can lead to the development of steps to reduce its impact.