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People process what they hear or see differently. After taking Performance Studies and Interpersonal Communication, I have been shown different ways to share what I want to say as well as how and where to do that. Performance Studies gave me a deeper understanding of the relationship between communication and performance. I am able to use performance as a metaphor when analyzing communicative phenomena. I am able to use performance as a method of understanding people who are different from me. Lastly, I can discuss performance in the creation of culture using key terms from the performance class.

 

What I learned from Interpersonal Communication has allowed me to communicate more easily with people and understand the nuances around what I say, how I say it, and where I say it. I liked Interpersonal Communication because the case studies were relatable. The assignments that were given felt the most like real-life application than any of the other classes that I have taken. I also enjoyed the performance class because I love story-telling and I think that you really get to know someone by learning their story.

 

The assignment that I chose to share here was my Final Project- Creative Assignment #2 from Performance Studies. By describing an event that occurred one day in my sixth grade English class, this project allowed me to really understand the “notion of a single story” as well the theory of stigma and the theory of impression management.

 

When reflecting back on that assignment, I need to refer to the people whose work we studied, Lam, Adichie, and Goffman. My story which was about my not understanding the dual meaning of a word and my sixth-grade class laughing at me, relates to the storytelling of Lam because I’m telling the reader about a single event that happened in my own life. In this version something happened to me. I am also narrating painful memories in the 1st person. The stories that he narrates are the reason he is who he is today and the story I told is part of why I am who I am today. Also, my family plays a large part in who I am today just like Lam’s did.  

This story relates to Chimamanda Adichie's notion of a “single story” because I only viewed the story from a lens of “oh my class is making fun of me”. Whereas I could have also looked through the lens of “oh this is a funny joke let’s laugh about it”. I was a very emotionally sensitive child, and I think a lot of the stuff that happened to me, if I had looked through the lens of “oh this is a funny joke”, would not have been so traumatizing. I think that Chimamanda’s “single story” notion would have helped me growing up because it would have shown me different ways of viewing situations. It would have shown me to maybe laugh instead of cry or get angry. It would have introduced me to a different perspective that I could have used.  

 

This story relates to Erving Goffman’s theory of stigma because my ignorance in not knowing the meaning of a word is being stigmatized. I know that the word stigma is used normally to compare race or disability or gender. But I’m using it in its very basic form to say stigmatising someone and then making fun of them because they don’t know what a word means is just stupid and wrong.   

 

This story also represents the theory of impression management by Ervin Goffman because I would go to school and stuff like what I described in my anecdote would happen and I would maintain that impression there but then I’d come home with my mum and be a completely different person with my family. I felt like I had to manage my impressions both at school and at home. The theory generally means that you are performing a face outside yourself and personal life. However, once you come back, you are yourself again.

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I learned a lot and applied a lot of what I had learned to this Foundation assignment that I chose to share. In addition, I believe that my example fits into the Narrative Paradigm on the Communication Studies List of Theories because the Narrative Paradigm analyzes storytelling and my example uses storytelling.