PRACTICE #2
CULTURAL CUISINE QUESTIONNAIRE
1
Cultural Cuisine
“Men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they
were born, the city apartment or farm in which they learned to walk, the games
they played as children, The foods they ate, the schools they attended, the
sports they followed, the poems they read, and the God they believed in.”
W. Somerset Maugham
Culture: A group of people whose shared beliefs and practices identify the
particular place class and time to which they belong.
- Beliefs, understandings, practices, and ways to interpret experience that are
shared by a number of people.
Ethnicity: relating to a person or to a large group of people who share a national,
racial, linguistic, or religious heritage, whether or not they reside in their
countries of origin.
Stereotype: a mental category based on exaggerated and inaccurate
generalizations, which are used to describe all members of a group.
Stereotyping reduces the threat of the unknown world by making the
predictable. Ernest Becker “Multicultural Communication”
Why do we stereotype:
1. Too much work not to.
2. Because of the difficulty of the human brain to employ all of the
information present in his/her environment about one group or another.
3. Because we fear differences
4. Because we fear not being able to continue, or support, our own actions
or behaviors
Stereotypic language: Categorizes individuals on the basis of the membership in
a particular reference group.
(3:30 Last 5 Impromptu Speakers)
PRACTICE #2
CULTURAL CUISINE QUESTIONNAIRE
2
Cultural Cuisine Questionnaire
1. What are some verbals/nonverbals that your culture has that are also seen in
other cultures?
2. What are some verbals/nonverbals that seem to be confined to your own
culture?
3. How do you feel when a person touches you?
A stranger?
A friend?
4. What are some gestures that some people display that, because of your own
cultural background, you find offensive?
5. What are your views connected to eye contact within your culture?
6. What are some of your cultural customs? (I.e. taking off your shoes before
entering the house, praying before meals, superstitions, etc.)