Culture Definitions and Traits
Definitions:


• “A learned meaning system that consists of patterns of traditions, beliefs, values, norms, meanings and symbols that are passed on from one generation to the next and are shared to varying degrees by interacting members of a community.  (Ting-Toomey and Chung)
  
  
• “A deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, actions, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and artifacts acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving” (Samovar and Porter)
  
  
• “An integrated systems of learned behavior patterns that are characteristic of the members of any given society” (Oosterwal)
  
  
• “A learned set of shared perceptions about beliefs, values, norms which affect the behaviors of a relatively large group of people” (Lustig and Koester)
  
  
• What gives people “a sense of who they are, of belonging, of how they should behave, and of what they should be doing." (Moran, Harris and Moran)

Traits:  Seven (7) Major Traits of Culture
 
1.  Learned
   
Not innate but something acquired because of where one is raised.  If you are conceived in one culture but born and raised in another (i.e. transferred at birth) — you acquired the culture of the second, not the first.   

  Learned through interaction, observation, and imitation
      Conscious — being told, reading
      Unconscious — most culture is learned unconsciously — i.e. through language for example
Learned from a variety of sources
  Proverbs
  Folk tales and folklore
  High Culture: poetry, art, music
Mass media (especially TV in this generation)


2. Transmitted
   
Each generation (older) passes it on to the younger — and constantly reinforces it.   If not transmitted, a culture dies.
 
3. Based on Symbols
   
Language (verbal and nonverbal) is key element / but also from images, icons.
 
4. Changeable
   
No culture is static.  The culture of your grandparents or parents is not identical with your own (a major cause of the so-called generation gap).
Changes occurs from:
• innovation (discovery) e.g. television, computer, women’s movement
• diffusion (borrowing) e.g. McDonalds worldwide
• acculturation (long-term contact with another culture) e.g. Taco Bell?
 
5. Integrated
   
One dimension affect other dimensions.  Consider how the civil rights movement in the US (initially concerned with voting rights) spread to encompass multiple parts of the USA.
 
6. Ethnocentric
   
A trait found in every culture — the belief that one’s culture is superior and more worthy than another.  While it is important to have a positive view of one’s self, ethnocentrism can be a major hindrance to intercultural communication — can shut others out, lead to derogatory viewpoints.
 
7. Adaptive
   
In order to survive, culture must adapt.  Example — roles of women in USA after WWII.

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