Questões de Inglês - Grammar

Low-Context Versus High-Context Cultures

    If you have traveled much, perhaps you have noticed that people in various parts of the world differ in how direct and explicit their language is. You may have spent time in both low- and high-context cultures in your travels, with context here referring to the broad range of factors surrounding every act of communication.

    In a low-context culture, people are expected to be direct and to say what they mean. Individuals in lowcontext cultures prefer precise, concrete language for sending and receiving messages, and are unlikely to rely on the context of a message to determine its meaning. The United States is an example of a low-context society, as are Canada, Israel, and most northern European countries.

     In contrast, people in a high-context culture — such as Korea and the cultures of Native Americans and the Maori of New Zealand — are taught to speak in a much less direct way. In such cultures, maintaining harmony and avoiding offense are more important than expressing true feelings. Speech is more ambiguous and people convey much more of their meaning through subtle behaviors and contextual cues, such as their facial expressions and tone of voice.

    The difference between low-context and high-context cultures is evident in the ways in which people handle criticism and disagreement. In a low-context culture, a supervisor might reprimand an irresponsible employee openly, to make an example of the individual. The supervisor would probably be direct and explicit about the employee’s shortcomings, the company’s expectations for improvement, and the consequences of the employee’s failing to meet those expectations.

    In a high-context culture, however, the supervisor probably wouldn’t reprimand the employee publicly for fear that it would put the employee to shame and cause the worker to “lose face.” Criticism in high-context cultures is more likely to take place in private. The supervisor would also likely use more ambiguous language to convey what the employee was doing wrong, “talking around” the issue instead of confronting it directly. To reprimand an employee for repeated absences, for example, a supervisor might point out that responsibility to coworkers is important and that letting down the team would be cause for shame. The supervisor may never actually say that the employee needs to improve his or her attendance record. Instead, the employee would be expected to understand that message by listening to what the supervisor says and paying attention to the supervisor’s body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions.

    When people from low- and high-context cultures communicate with one another, the potential for misunderstanding is great. To appreciate that point, imagine that you’ve asked two of your friends to meet you tomorrow evening for a coffee tasting at a popular bookstore cafe. Tina, an American, says, “No, I’ve got a lot of studying to do, but thanks anyway.” Lee, who grew up in South Korea, nods his head and says, “That sounds like fun.” Thus, you’re surprised later when Lee doesn’t show up.

    How can you account for those different behaviors? The answer is that people raised in a high-context culture (such as that of South Korea) are often reluctant to say no—even when they mean no—for fear of causing offense. Another person raised in the South Korean culture might have understood from Lee’s facial expression or tone of voice that he didn’t intend to go to the coffee tasting. If you, like Tina, grew up in a low-context society, however, then you probably interpreted his answer and his nods to mean he was accepting your invitation.

Referência Bibliográfica FLOYD, KORY. Communication Matters. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. 2018.

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Widespread testing begins on malaria vaccine

Mothers wait for their children to be vaccinated against malaria at the start of a pilot program at Mitundu Community Hospital, in Lilongwe, Malawi, on April 23, 2019.

    With malaria deaths rebounding worldwide, a pilot program testing a new and fiercely debated malaria vaccine began on Tuesday in Malawi. Dr. Katherine O’Brien, the World Health Organization’s director of immunization, called the rollout “a historic moment in the fight against malaria,” and said the testing will soon expand to malarious regions of Ghana and Kenya. But the vaccine, known as RTS,S, or Mosquirix, has been in development for more than 30 years, and it has serious drawbacks that have led some experts to argue that it does not work well enough to spend millions of dollars pursuing.

    Malaria kills about 450,000 people a year, most of them young African children. Over the last 15 years, the death rate has been reduced by more than half through extensive, donor-funded efforts to hand out free mosquito nets, spray homes with insecticide and treat people with a new generation of medicines. Nevertheless, deaths have increased again as money has run short, populations have grown, resistance to some new drugs has emerged and mosquitoes have expanded their ranges. Finding new weapons is crucial, experts agree, but making a malaria vaccine has proved challenging in the extreme.

    The new vaccine has many weaknesses. It is inconvenient: a child must receive four injections before age 2, sometimes at intervals that do not match the routine vaccine schedules for most other diseases. And it is only partly effective. Testing in more than 10,000 African children from 2009 to 2014 showed that, even after four doses, the vaccine prevented only about 40 percent of detectable malaria infections. The vaccine reduced the occurrence of severe malaria by about 30 percent. It did not protect well against parasite strains that were poor genetic matches, raising a concern that, over time, parasites could evolve resistance to the vaccine as they have to drugs.

(Donald G. McNeil Jr. www.nytimes.com, 24.04.2019. Adaptado.)

    Lorcaserin, a weight loss drug, has been hailed
as a “holy grail” in the battle against obesity. It works by
suppressing the appetite and increasing satiety but,
unlike many weight loss drugs, scientists found
[5] lorcaserin did not raise the risk of cardiovascular
problems among at-risk individuals who took part in a
clinical trial.
    Tam Fry of the U.K. said: “I think there will be
several holy grails, but this is a holy grail and one which
[10] has been certainly at the back of the mind of a lot of
specialists for a long time.However, Fry cautioned: “But
all of the other things apply—lifestyle change has got
to be root and branch part of this.”
    To test the safety of lorcaserin, the researchers
[15] recruited 12,000 overweight or obese patients. They
randomly assigned the participants a placebo or
lorcaserin. Over a three-year period, the state of their
health was documented.The study revealed that
patients who took lorcaserin lost 4.2 kilograms on
[20] average (9 pounds), while those on the placebo lost
1.4 kilograms (3 pounds).And participants who took
lorcaserin were at no greater risk of experiencing a
cardiovascular event, like a stroke, when compared with
those who were given the placebo.
[25]    In the past, weight loss drugs have been
discontinued after being found to increase the risk of
heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary hypertension, and
valvular heart disease, the authors emphasized.

Gander, Kashmira. Disponível em: https://www.newsweek.com/ lorcaserin-holy-grail-weight-loss drug-...-1092239. Acesso em: 1 nov. 2018.

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The song below was performed by a gospel choir during the mariage ceremony of Prince Harry and the North American Megan Markle, held at Windson Castel on May 19, 2018.

    Stand By Me
    Ben E. King

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

Chorus
So darling, darling
Stand by me, oh, stand by me
Oh stand, stand by me
Stand by me

If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
Or the mountains should crumble to the sea
I won't cry, I won't cry
No I won't shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

Whenever you're in trouble, won't you stand by me
Oh stand by me
Oh won't you stand now?
Stand by me

(In: https://www.vagalume.com.br/ben-e-king/stand-by-me-traducao.html)