1, read the attachment and answer the 3 Q. #.How did you identify yourself growing up as a child: Did you see your family as a part of the dominant culture or from a co-culture? ##.What values, attit

3-1Culture and Communication

Culture is the system of shared values, beliefs, attitudes, and norms that guide what is considered appropriate among an identifiable group of people (Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel, 2012). In a real sense, culture is a way of life. It’s the taken-for-granted rules for how and why we believe and behave as we do.

At the heart of any culture are its values. Values are the commonly accepted standards of what is considered right and wrong, good and evil, fair and unfair, just and unjust, and so on. Cultures have both ideal and real values. Ideal values are the ones that members profess to hold, whereas real values are the ones that guide their actual behavior. For example, the United States Constitution professes equal rights and opportunities for all (ideal value), yet some people are treated unfairly based on sex, race, ethnicity, age, disability, or sexual orientation (real value in action).

Intercultural communication refers to the interactions that occur between people whose cultures are so different that the communication between them is altered (Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel, 2012). To become effective intercultural communicators, we must begin by understanding what a culture is, then identifying how cultures differ from one another, and finally realizing how those differences influence communication.

We do not have to journey to other countries to meet people of different cultures. The United States population, for example, includes not only recent immigrants from other countries, but also descendents of earlier immigrants and of native peoples. So understanding how communication varies among cultural groups can help us as we interact with the people we encounter every day right here in the United States.

Because each of us is so familiar with our own customs, norms, and values, we may feel anxious when they are disrupted. We call this psychological discomfort when engaging in a new cultural situation culture shock (Klyukanov, 2005, p. 33). We are likely to feel culture shock most profoundly when thrust into an unfamiliar culture through travel, business, or studying abroad. In the film Lost in Translation, for example, Bill Murray’s character struggles with culture shock while filming a commercial on location in Japan.

Culture shock can also occur when interacting with others within one’s own country (Photo 3.1). For example, Brittney, who is from a small town in Minnesota, experienced culture shock when she visited Miami, Florida, for the first time. She was overwhelmed as she noted the distinct Latin flavor of the city, heard Spanish spoken on the street, and saw billboards written in Spanish. Brittney was disoriented because what she witnessed seemed foreign to her. Likewise, if Maria, who lives in Miami, were to visit the small Minnesota town where Brittney grew up, she might also experience culture shock. She might feel uncomfortable because Brittney’s hometown might seem a bit like the rural Minnesota towns whose values and customs are humorously highlighted on Garrison Keillor’s public radio program A Prairie Home Companion.

Culture is both transmitted and modified through communication. In Western cultures, for example, most people eat using forks, knives, spoons, individual plates, and bowls. In some cultures, people may eat with chopsticks, use bread as a utensil, or use their fingers and share a common bowl. All of these dining rituals are culturally based and taught by one generation to the next through communication.

Communication is also the mechanism through which culture is modified. For example, several generations ago, most American children were taught to show respect by addressing adult family friends using a title and last name (e.g., Mr. Jones, Miss Smith). Today, children often address adult family friends by their first names. How did this cultural norm change? In earlier generations, adults corrected young children who addressed an adult by his or her first name. But toward the end of the 20th century, adults began giving children permission to use first names and, over time, the norm changed. So communication is both the means by which culture is transmitted and the way a culture is changed.