跨文化交际第三章

Chapter 3 :Culture and Communication

⏹Definitions of culture

⏹The functions of culture

⏹The Characteristics of culture

⏹The relationship between culture and communication

⏹Elements of intercultural communication

⏹Culture is Our Invisible Teacher

Culture is everything and everywhere, culture and communication work in tandem 一个跟着一个地. In fact ,they are inseparable: it is often difficult to decide which is the voice and which the echo.

Functions of culture

⏹The world is a confusing place until we can make some sense of it, so the basic function of culture is to explain the world to each new member of the culture. By telling us what to expect, culture reduces confusion and helps us predict the future.

⏹Culture is shared learned behavior that is transmitted from one generation to another for purposes of promoting individual and social survival, adaptation, and growth and development.

⏹Definition of culture

We define culture as the deposit of knowledge ,experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possession

acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.

The Characteristics of Culture 6

⏹Culture is not Innate; it is learned

⏹Culture is transmitted from generation to generation

⏹Culture is based on symbols

⏹Culture is integrated

⏹Culture is subject to change

⏹Culture is ethnocentric

⏹We learn our culture through proverbs. We learn our culture from folk tales, legends , and myths. We learn our culture through art. We learn our culture through mass media.

⏹We learn our culture in many different ways consciously and unconsciously.

⏹We also learn our culture from folk tales and folklore. Whether it embodies ancient myths or current popular beliefs, folklore is value-laden and teaches and reinforces what a culture deems important.

⏹In a word, many of the behaviors we label as cultural are not only automatic and invisible, but also engaged in without our being aware of them.

⏹Culture is ethnocentric

⏹Culture is Ethnocentric, one own group is the center of everything, and

all others are scaled and rated with reference to it. It is found in every culture. It can have positive effects, it is a source of cultural and personal identity. It takes on a negative condition when provide the base for derogatory evaluation and rebuff change.

What’s the relationship between culture and communication

⏹Language and culture are inextricably linked so that learning language means learning culture and vice versa.It is obvious that a language learner has more to do than master a new grammar and vocabulary.

The relationship between culture and communication

⏹Culture and communication mutually influences one another, producing different behavior patterns in different contexts. Culture not only conditions our perception of reality but also programmes our language pattern. what, where and how we should talk are regulated by our culture.

⏹culture shapes our communication patterns but communication influences the structure of our culture. So culture and communication are inseparable. In order to study inter-culture communication we must and explore their relationships.

Elements of Intercultural Communication

1.perception

2.verbal processes

3.nonverbal processes

⏹Perception: is an internal process whereby we convert the physical energies of the world into meaningful internal experiences.

⏹(1) People behave as they do because of the ways in which they