[originaltext]Moderator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It gives me gr

Moderator:
    Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure to introduce our speaker, Dr. Walter James, professor of sociology at New York University.(23)He specializes in transcultural communication and management. I hope the lecture will be helpful in nurturing your cultural awareness.
Dr. James:
    Thank you for your introduction. Today I will focus on the issue of cultural understanding. With the increasing globalization, the world becomes really small nowadays. As a member of this globe, we get more chances to contact foreign cultures. Then if we want to understand a foreign culture very well, what should we do? And what kinds of process will we experience before we achieve that goal?
    The answer is not very difficult to imagine. Just like learning a language, developing cultural understanding occurs step by step over time. Development of cultural consciousness is a process that starts at the stage of no understanding and moves, in best case, to the stage of true empathy and cultural respect. So, in order to make a clearer explanation about the process, the five stages of cultural understanding are presented here.
    Stage one: No understanding.
    This level involves no awareness of the new culture. The point is quite easy to see. A person does not know anyone from the culture and has encountered few, if any, basic facts about the culture. So, naturally, the person certainly has no way to understand that culture at all.
    Stage two: Superficial understanding.
    This level involves awareness of very superficial aspects of the foreign culture—frequently negative aspects. At this stage of cultural awareness, the person knows a few basic facts of the new culture. These facts stand out and often serve as the basis of stereotypes.(24)However, stereotypes are offensive because they imply that all people from a certain culture have the same characteristics. At this stage of cultural awareness, when stereotypes are keenly felt, the person is highly ethnocentric, that means the person just focuses on his or her own culture as the norm of what is "right" and comparing the new culture with the "better" culture back home.
    Stage three: Growing understanding and possible conflict.
     (25)In this stage the learner begins to be aware of more subtle, sometimes less visible, traits in the foreign culture. This understanding helps the person to see why things operate the way they do, but such an awareness does not always bring acceptance. A person is still ethnocentric, home culture-oriented, comparing the culture that is "new" to his or her "old" home culture—and usually feeling that his or her own culture is much better.
    Stage four...
23. What does Dr. Walter James specialize in?
24. Why are stereotypes offensive?
25. When will a person understand why things operate the way they do in another culture?