NAME; DHEA AMANDA

NPM; 1806102020075

Contents
Chapter 1.
Introduction to culture.
As a country we are apt to be guilty of great ethnocentrism. In many of our
foreign and aid programs we employ a heavy-handed technique in dealing with
local nationals. We insist that everyone else do things our way. Consequently we
manage to convey the impression that we simply regard foreign nationals as
‘’underdeveloped americans’’. Most of our behavior does not spring from malice
but from ignorance.. we are not only almost tottaly of what we are
communicating to other people by our own normal behavior.

Discussion of issues

We need to learn to observe behavior, including our own, more carefully. As we

assume, albeit often unconsciously, that our way is the ‘’normal’’, ‘’natural’’,
‘’right’’ way do the things. We tend to react at a good level to what we perceive
as offensive or negative. We are unware that what has offended us is not the
action of it self but the fact that the action violated some deeply held belief or
value. However we cannot all expect to become experts in every culture that
differs from our own.
Chapter 1 is concerned with the issues of culture in shaping our behavior,
attitudes, and perceptions of the world. The chapter explores the definitions of
culture, and the relationship between culture and language.
Theory: what research tells us
The concept of culture

Culture is pervasive, all-encompassing, and inescapable. The images and messag

we receive and transmit are profoundly shaped by our culture. It is the framework
through which we understand and interpret the world around us, in that it
provides the context for a group of people to understand and interpret the world
around them. Defining culture is not an easy task. Culture is a very broad concept
for which there is no single, simple definitions or central theory. Different fields of
study differ in their concept of culture, in their definitions of their culture, in their
methods of investigating culture, and in the focus of their cultural studies. The
many definitions given the concept of culture have been strongly influenced by
research in the fields of linguistic, antrophology, sociology, physchology, and
communication.

Defining culture

The term culture is a very general concept, composed of a complex system of

interaction elements. Culture is universal, multificated, and intricate. It is in all
aspects of human society; it penetrates into every area of life and influence the
way that people think, talk, and behave. Culture is not the characteristic of a
single individual but, rather, ‘’a collective mental programming of the people in
the environment’’. Culture can be viewed as a set of ideas, practice, and
experienced share by a group of people in an environment.

ENCULTURATION

By its very nature, culture is a teacher. It is a subconscious teacher of the bealief,

values, worldviews, and patterns of behavior members. The process of becoming
socialized into one’s culture begins early in the life, through what is known as
enculturation. Because culture is shared with people who lived in and the same
experience in the same social environment.

ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
BELIEFS
Beliefs are an individuals convictions about the world, convictions that are shaped
by the culture a person is raised in. How strongly individuals particular belief
depends on the degree to which individuals ascribe certain characteristic to that
belief. A belief that is held by most members of a culture is called a cultural belief
although among the group had a different culture but the meaning of what they
do is just the same with othet cultures.

VALUES
Values are ideals or abstract standards, wheter good or bad, that member of a
cultural group hold in strong affective regard. They are share assumptions or
judgments about what is good, right, and important.

NORMS
Norms are the fixed patterns for members of cultural group. They are culturally
shared notions about what is appropriate behavior.

TABOOS
Taboos are an important subset of mores. Taboos specify what is or is not
permissible. In their strongest form , taboos cover universal prohibitions such as a
murder and incest.

ATTITUDES
Attitudes are emotional reactions to object, ideas, people. People learns attitudes
within a cultural context. The cultural environment to which an individual is
exposed helps mold the individuals attitudes and ultimately, his or her behavior.

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY

Language and culture are intimately linked. Culture influences the way speakers
perceive the world and how they use language to communicate. Likewise,
language influences how speakers view the world and the way in which they are
communicate. How intricately linked are culture and language? The degree to
which language influences human thought and meaning is the termed linguistic
relativity.

CATEGORIZATION
All language use categories to organize the world around them. However, what is
included or excluded and how the categories are organized is to some extent
arbitrary and varies greatly among language. Every language has category to
describe mothet,father,son,daughter. Different language will make finer
distinctions between components in categoris that have important significance to
to the members of that culture.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Language is an organized, learned symbol system used to represent human
experiences within a geographic or cultural group. Language reflects the
worldviews, the thought processes,and the lifestyle of its people; each culture
places it’s own individual imprint on a language. Language is the primary medium
for transmitting among its speakers culture’s belief, values, norms, worldviews.

TEACHING AND LEARNING CONNECTIONS

Culture is an integral part of language teaching and learning. As long as there are
speakers, there is culture, as culture resides in the user of an language. The goal
in education is ‘’to translate culture teaching into a culture learning experience
for our students’’. Teacher can work toward this goal through careful planning of
a classroom activities, which may reflect their own personal life experiences, and
by actually walking students through the variety stages of developing intercultural
awareness or cultural sensitivity.