ch2-2. On Cultures

Lecturer: Prof. I-wen Su

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What is culture?- the cumulative deposit of

- knowledge, - experience, - beliefs, values, attitudes, - meanings, concepts of the universe,- hierarchies, roles- religion, - notions of time, - spatial relations- material objects and possessions acquired

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

Culture is shared knowledge

Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.

cultivated behavior:- the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted- behavior through social learning

Culture is communication; Communication is culture.

Culture is symbolic communication.

Some of its symbols include a group's skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions.

Symbolic communication

Icon

Index Symbol

<Peirce’s categories of sign-types>

The essential core of culture

traditional ideas and especially their attached values;

Culture systems- as products of action- as conditioning influences upon further action

Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one

group or category of people from another

Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation.

Manifestations of Culture

Cultural differences manifest themselves in different ways and differing levels of depth.

the most superficial: Symbolsheroes and rituals

the deepest: values

Manifestation of Culture at Different Levels of DepthHofstede, Geert. 1997

Practices

Symbols

Heroes

Rituals

Values

Symbols

•Symbols are words, gestures, pictures, or objects that carry a particular meaning recognizable only by those who share a particular culture

•New symbols easily develop, and old ones disappear

•Symbols from one particular group are regularly copied by others

• the outermost layer of a culture

Symbols

Heros

•Heroes are persons, past or present, real or fictitious, who possess characteristics that are highly prized in a culture.

•They also serve as models for behavior.

Hero

Wiki Frantogian

Flickr Zeelandia

Rituals

•Rituals are collective activities, sometimes superfluous in reaching desired objectives, but are considered socially essential.

•They are carried out most of the times for their own sake ▫ways of greetings, ▫paying respect to others, ▫religious and social ceremonies, etc.

Rituals

Flickr shone

Values

•broad tendencies for preferences of certain state of affairs to others (good-evil, right-wrong, natural-unnatural).

•many unconscious to those who hold them – often cannot be discussed, nor can they be directly observed

•can only be inferred from the way people act under different circumstances

•The core of a culture

The tangible and the intangible

•The practices of a culture is tangible or visual in:▫ symbols ▫ heroes ▫ rituals

• The true cultural meaning of the practices is intangible: ▫revealed only when the practices are

interpreted by the insiders

Levels of Culture: layers of mental programming

•The national level•The regional level: asso w/ ethnic, linguistic,

or religious differences within a nation •The gender level: female vs. male •The generation level•The social class level: asso w/ educational

opportunities and differences in occupation •The corporate level: organizational culture

Male Gender Translator

Poking fun at what verse what the translation really means.

Female Gender Translator

Poking fun at what women say verse what the translation really means.

Measuring Cultural DifferencesHofstede (1997)• Power distance index: inequality in a society • Uncertainty avoidance index: the extent to which

a society feels threatened by uncertain/ambiguous situations

• Individualism index: ▫Individualistic▫Collectivistic

• Masculinity index: ▫Achievement: assertiveness, money and thing as

dominant values; not caring for others or quality of life

▫Relationship: femininity

Individualism vs. Collectivism

•Individualism: a loosely knit social framework in a society in which people take care of themselves and their immediate families only.

•Collectivism: a tight social framework in which people distinguish between in-groups and out-groups; they expect their in-groups (relatives, clans, organizations) to look after them in exchange for absolute loyalty.

Copyright DeclarationWork Licensin

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Peirce’s categories of sign-types.John Fiske, Introduction to Communication Studies, p.47. (1982)and used subject to the fair use doctrine of the Taiwan Copyright Act Article 50 by GET

Manifestation of Culture at Different Levels of Depth.Hofstede, Geert. 1997. Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.and used subject to the fair use doctrine of the Taiwan Copyright Act Article 50 by GET

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p.21Hofstede, Geert. 1997. Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.and used subject to the fair use doctrine of the Taiwan Copyright Act Article 50 by NTU OCW