ABSTRACT
In a sense we are often involved in cross-cultural dynamics and that is because we cannot know everyone’s cultural background and how much it influences the way they talk. Even if someone has an accent, it can signal their origins in a different geographic region or another country, but not how acculturated they are. Besides accent, we categorize people according to race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and social class. We do this by observing the ways people look, talk, dress, behave, and value things. Importantly, we can overlook part of someone’s identity because none of these classifications is clear cut. People can be ethnically or racially mixed, geographically dislocated, and their age, gender, and social class may not be immediately apparent.
