Intro Blog

Culture is defined as “learned patterns of behavior and attitudes shared by a group of people” (Martin & Nakayama, 2012).  A part of my culture is being very close to my brother who is two years older than me so I thought I would look at something a little different than that.  I’m going to study twins so I can understand their special bond an relationship that they have.   I’m interested to see what their relationships are like compared to the relationship I have with my siblings.  This group, twins, is a culture because they behave differently to each other than other siblings do to each other so therefore it’s a learned pattern of behavior and attitudes (Martin & Nakayama, 2012).   I also see this as a culture because it is a part of their identity which is defined as “the concept of who we are” (Martin & Nakayama, 2012).  Most twins wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if anything happened to their twin.  I found this to be true in an article that I read about the subject and it talked about how hard it is for a twin when the other twin dies (Banerjee, 2007).

I plan to study twins using interpretive methods.  I will find same-sex twins by asking people in my classes, friends, teachers, colleagues, and others who they know of that is a twin.  I do know a couple of twins so I will also ask these people to help me with this project.  I will use interpretive methods by interviewing and observing them in their usual everyday conversations (Martin & Nakayama, 2012).  This will help me to reach the research goal which is to describe behavior (Martin & Nakayama, 2012). 

I found an interesting quote that deals with my topic, “Twins often feel the need to explain to singletons, that, ‘No, we are not exactly alike in every way. We do have our own interests, and no we don't think we look anything alike.’ It's as if twins must prove they are different from one another in order to establish themselves as individuals. Undoubtedly, there is a close connection between all twins. Given the intimate space twins share during fetal development, a physical and emotional bond often develops between twins once they are born. This bond remains throughout their lives, and remains a distinct symbol of their identity as a twin pair” (Schave, 2012). This quote makes me want to observe twins in their natural settings and see if this is actually the case that they need to prove they are different from each other.  It also proves my point that maybe they do have a different connection with each other than I do with my siblings.

The video posted below is really cute and funny.  It shows the bond that twins have at even an early stage because they  are dancing the same and looking at each other and laughing the whole time. 

Works Cited

Banerjee, N. (2007, March 1). A singular pain: When death cuts the bond of twins . Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/fashion/01twins.html?pagewanted

Brovadere. (2010, Sept. 09). “11 Month Old Twins Dancing to Daddy’s Guitar” Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to7uIG8KYhg

Martin, J., & Nakayama, T. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts. (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Schave, B. (2012). Identity and intimacy in twins. Retrieved from http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/lhs/science/mos/twins/identity.htm