The book I chose is titled, Good Neighbors: Communicating With The Mexicans by author John. C. Condon. This book was purposely made to eradicate those differences and provide guidelines for effective communication. This book shows the differences between the United States and Mexico and is extremely insightful for those thinking of traveling. This book opens with a foreward, which is an introduction written by another person and two prefaces (one to the second edition, and then to the first edition). In the foreward, writer Felipe Korzenny states that communication is an activity “we have engaged in since we were born” and that we take it for granted. He goes on to say that people tend to believe if they know the language of the country, there will be no complications, but that is incorrect. Communication is not just composed of language. It includes norms, values, perception, paralinguistics and other nonverbal communication. As a reader, once your grasp those concepts, you learn and adjust accordingly to a culture that is not your own. I chose this book particularly …show more content…
Paralinguistics (like facial expressions and hand gestures). Mexican speech is typically vivid, and emotional packed. They tend to use their hand gestures a lot. From my experience with my ex-boyfriend, he used to tell stories a lot whilst using his hands. This not only emphasizes and illustrates what a person is expressing verbally, but as Condon puts it, a “general repertoire”. This means that it just is habitual (regularly performed). A simple hand gesture that Americans use for height, is used to measure the height of animals in Mexico. Clothing is also another paralinguistic that is significant in Mexico, just like how it is in the United States. Our physical appearance affects how we interact with each other. Our clothing serves as our unique or subcultural identity. It expresses our age, group membership, SES, and gender, along with our