School & Chat

Communication as Culture

Culture - "an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic form by means of which (humans) communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life" (Geertz 1973)

Characteristics of Culture
1. Learned not innate
2. Created
3. Rule governed
4. Comprised of symbol systems
5. Changing
6. Distinctive
7. Constraining/ethnocentric

Two Ways to Study Culture
1. Emic Approach (interpretative, from within) - natives or someone who knows it thoroughly
2. Etic Approach (post-positivist, as observer) - no involvement or connection


Three Cultural Dichotomies
1. Elaborated vs. Restricted Codes
2. Individualistic vs. Collectivist
3. Low Context vs. High Context