Introduction

Culture is the characteristic of group of people defined by everything such as

language, religion, lifestyle etc. Different people in different societies have
different culture but they also have some similarities. The culture varies in
different things such as clothes, foods, religion and many others.

Culture is the identity of a group of people living in specific place; they have their
own sketch of life according to their culture and they strictly adhere to it, follow it
and feel comfortable in their own cultural norms. That applies to occasions,
celebrations, life style and much more . Cultural norms are the standards which
are learned and reinforced by our parents ,teachers and others while we grow up
in a society.

Definitions
Culture has been defined in various ways by sociologists and anthropologists.
Following are the important definitions of culture.

E.B. Tylor defines “Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge,
belief, art, morals, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by
man as a member of society”.

Edward Sapir says that “Culture is any socially inherited element of the life of
man, material and spiritual”.
Types of culture:
There are Two types of culture:

Material culture
Dressing

Food

Buildings

Non-material culture
Language

Religion

Education

Material culture:
Material culture includes all those things that people create and give meaning to
it. Material culture include lots of things, some of them are given below:
Dressing:

Dressing is the important aspect of culture. It identify the cultural society, for
example when a stranger from other country visits Pakistan and he knows little
about here cultural dressing so he will definitely identify it, but it doesn’t mean
for each and every person in society as they can follow different cultural norms
and they have their own dressing sense according to their culture.

Food:

According to the Colombia university press “everything having to do with food its
capture, cultivation, preparation, and consumption represents a cultural act” so
definitely food when reach to us first it pass from different stages like its
cultivation, every culture has its own process of cultivation, capturing and
preparation. Food is one of the important part of the material culture.

Buildings;

Buildings mean architectural structures . Buildings also play important role in

cultural identity, these help citizens appreciate the richness of their heritage that
is developed over a period of centuries . Some cultures promote living in big, airy
houses while others prefer small, congested ones. There are also some areas in
world where people don’t construct houses , all life they pass in different
places.this is what their culture teaches them. To further simplify Usually the
people from rural areas have big houses as they live on agricultural lands while
those living in the city have small houses due to population excess in urban areas .
May be of this reason this culture is raised in the rural areas.

Non-material culture:
Non-material culture consists of thoughts and behavior that people learn as part
of the culture they live in. It includes language, rules, customs, religion or beliefs,
values, and knowledge. We will discuss some of them;

Language:
Language is one of the most important forms of non-material culture, without
language there is no concept of culture. Different cultures have different speaking
language. Even when the language is same between the two cultures but still
there will be difference in speaking and one will easily identify or pin point
difference between them. Sometimes a country because of different people living
in it can have more than one language but dominant one is still which is
identity of majority of people , for example Pakistan has people of different norms
and culture, languages but still Pakistan is identified by Pakistani culture and
language i.e urdu.

Religion:
Religion is the most important in cultural society. In most of the culture the
religion is very respectful to all of the cultur al members and they also strictly
obey their religion. Those cultures that have Islam as religion they apply the
order of Islam in their daily life and mostly these people lead a very happy life
without much resources. Muslims follow their religion strictly and say five time
prayers which is the most important thing as considered to Islam. Religion
teaches us freedom of religious practices, social harmony ,respect and regard for
others.

Education:
Education also play important role in building a cultural society. Education is the
basic need of human. Without education humanity is not possible, therefore
almost all the cultures give importance to education and they possess only
education for their success. But still there are also cultures which do not give
focus to education. Some cultures give importance only to male education and
not to female. The number of these types of cultures is decreasing slowly. In
general most cultures gives importance to education and they like to follow
educated people of their culture.
Characteristics of culture:

Culture has its own characteristics; we will discuss some of its characteristics here.

Learnt

Shared

Social

Continuous
Learnt:
As we discussed earlier that culture are learnt from elders, culture is not the thing you study
for it and you know it but it is just the process you pass from it, after that you will know about
the culture. It is just like the thing that inherited in someones nature. All actions we do like
eating, dressing wearing ornaments etc is the result of culture we learned. One author says
about learning culture “Babies and children learn about their culture by watching their parents
and close family. They copy behavior they have seen and adopt different roles and that’s fact
that babies and children learned culture by watching their parents and close family and then
they apply these different roles in their Daily life and thus adapt their culture .

Shared:
Culture is something that is shared among groups of people. It is not the thing
that someone posses it individually. Culture is always transferred through sharing
so it mean that for transferring the culture the sharing is must. The sharing of
culture refers to the term called enculturation according to author “Process of
learning culture is called enculturation. Culture is shared in many ways; the main
way for transferring the culture is the language. Language is the form of social
communication and the knowledge is transferred through group discussion,
public speaking and informal communication. The second way is the use of
communication technologies nowadays like TV, DVD, internet etc play also
important role in sharing the culture. These modern technologies have exposed
every culture to the whole world.

Social:
Culture is social it is not the individual phenomena. it is the product of society and
originates and grows through social interaction. Something is differentiable to us
through comparison, so for distinguishes culture we have to compare it with
some other then we will know about all aspects of that culture therefore the
culture must be social and without it there is no concept of culture. One author
says that “culture can be thought of as the normative order, operating through
operational and social influence, that guide and constrains the behavior of people
in collectives. it is clear that culture is the overall thought in a normative order,
and these thoughts are pass through several operational and social influences, it
means that their also occur some changes in culture but these changes are
collective and thus people of that culture adopt their behavior to the culture.

Continuous:
Culture is the continuous process, Culture is growing whole which includes in
itself, the achievements of the past and present and makes provision for the
future achievements of mankind. Culture is the result of past and present changes
that occur in it, and thus it absorb that changes in itself and the culture become
the result of past and present experiences and the process continue to next
generation and so on. “Hence some sociologists like Lotion called culture the
social heritage of man

Cultural diversity
Cultural diversity inevitably develops in the course of cultural transmission. This
happens when members of the same culture and sub-culture share a large
proportion of their information.

We are very adept at transmitting cultural information to others, sometimes

through frank teaching but also through the constant social interaction
characteristic of human life. This social interaction means not just person-to-
person contacts but, in the contemporary world, involves the mass media as a
whole as a super source of information and knowledge.

So information exchange and spread is the backbone of the process of formation

and evolution of cultures, and this very information is disseminated and
exchanged through the gigantic network of the mass media in modern times. The
network is such that it has made its influence felt in every sphere of life;
moreover, it is now backed by such advanced technology that the process of
information exchange and communication of the information has become quicker
and more sophisticated than ever before.