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Learning Objectives. Define culture. Define personal, social, and cultural identities. Compare and contrast individualistic/collectivistic, high-context/low-context, and large power distance/small power distance cultures. Define intercultural communication. Articulate how diverse cultural standpoints influence communication interaction.
For the purposes of exploring the communicative aspects of culture, we will define culture as the ongoing negotiation of learned and patterned beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors. Unpacking the definition, we can see that culture should not be conceptualized as stable and unchanging. Culture is “negotiated.”
As this definition suggests, there are two basic components of culture: ideas and symbols on the one hand and artifacts (material objects) on the other. The first type, called nonmaterial culture, includes the values, beliefs, symbols, and language that define a society.
First, cultures are created through communication; that is, communication is the means of human interaction through which cultural characteristics— whether customs, roles, rules, rituals, laws, or other patterns—are created and shared.
3.2 Elements of Culture – Introduction to Sociology. Learning Objectives. By the end of this section, you should be able to: Differentiate values, beliefs, and norms. Explain the significance of symbols and language to a culture. Explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Discuss the role of social control within culture. Values and Beliefs.
This quote by Yo-Yo Ma illustrates the ever-complex dynamics between culture and communication within individuals, interpersonally, and across social groups. The relationship between culture and communication is a compelling part of social life that infiltrates every aspect of our being.
This new edition has been comprehensively updated to incorporate recent research, with an emphasis on the fluid and emergent practice of intercultural communication. It provides increased coverage of variation in language within and between cultures, drawing on real-world examples of spoken and written communication.
