Cultural communication: Cuban culturePrunell outlines twelve domains of culture in which communication is found as one of the domains. In it, he brings out the concepts of the dominant language and dialect, aspects of language variations such as intonations, the volume of the tone as well as the voice variations. It is also in this domain we also find properties of communication such as willingness to share thoughts as well as non-verbal language cues including eye contact, facial expressions, spatial distancing practices, touch and body language. Besides this, he explores acceptable greetings, past, present and future as well as clock and social time as well as use of names as essential concepts. Through this domain, we can study and analyze various communication traits of a community.I am a Cuban of Taino ancestry. In Taino culture, sharing of thoughts and ideas is viewed not only as good but also necessary to especially within the Tainos themselves. Tainos share feelings too in either support of each other in times of hardships such as death and in joy such as love. The sharing of ideas mentioned above, however, at times is held with reservations by the Tainos to exclude foreigners. It is a taboo to talk about sex openly, and if it should be talked about then great caution in framing and wording the statement is taken. Thus, euphemism is often employed to camouflage the original effect that the topic could have had. Touching in Taino is often taken to show care, concern or love. Family members and friends touch to show care or concern while members of the opposite sex touch to depict love, especially one involving romance. Touch from medical practitioners may be taken offensively in some parts especially where a health practitioner is supposed to touch a patient of the opposite sex. It is forbidden for a girl or girl to look directly into the eyes of a male when addressing each other and there is a distance maintained.Friends and families interact with each other freely with the family members having a greater degree of freedom. Friends however get close when there is a need while for strangers it is hard to get the attention of the Tainos not unless the stranger does a proper introduction. Eye contact between family members can be used as an affirmation of mutual concern while the same applies to friends. This is however totally different when it comes to strangers as it is more of a worry and confirmation of harmlessness of the individual. Wrinkled face implies anger or lack of satisfaction while a bright one shows joy or contentment. Gestures can be used to convey full messages and they are important in communicating with those people with speech or hearing impairment. Emotions are basically expressed through facial expressions. There are no acceptable ways of either standing or greeting people except for girls and women who have to keep a distance when addressing men. The cultures worldview is past since there is the proliferation of other cultures and practices in whose pre4sence the Taino culture seems a bit out-dated. This culture derails my nursing practice due to the exclusionary treatment of either non-Tainos or non-original Tainos. The fact that there are some parts too that should not be touched by any other person other than family members makes it difficult to do such things as minor surgery or even wood dressing.
References
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