How to get our own meaning of English culture?

To find out what culture is, and have our proper meaning of this term, we should recognize what represents the word ‘culture’ in our society. In order to study this term, we had an interesting discussion, in which ideas about possible synonyms of the word ‘culture’ were shared.

The most prominent terms found were concepts like: behavioral patterns, social interactions, symbols, facial gestures, among others...

“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath” F. Scott Fitzgerald

After we acquired and shared ideas that were related to the term of ‘culture’, Professor Julio invited us to read some definitions by important sociologists as Kluckhohn, Damen, Useem, and others...

From the readings we could obtain a large amount of bibliographic material. Due to the way the information was structured, there were more than 25 short meanings that sociologists offered from different perspectives.

How to classify useful information?

When we started to read, Professor Julio gave us excellent advice to take advantage of in order to make the most of the reading comprehension. For instance: to classify information according to its relevance, highlight main ideas, write a short concept about culture, and lastly discuss your findings with a classmate. 

“You have to taste a culture to understand it.” Debora Cater

After reading the different meanings and making the discussion groups, a concept was generated, which brought together all of our ideas, and also the concepts originated by sociologists.

“A nation´s culture resides in the hearts and soul of its people” M.K. Gandhi

Our concept was: “culture is represented through symbols which can represent other things, like values, behaviors, manners, beliefs, knowledge, art, laws, customs and many others. Those symbols are learned through social interactions such as perception, interpretation, expression and response. Symbols can be learned implicitly and explicitly according to the process of socialization.”

“Once you understand and appreciate other people’s cultural backgrounds, then you can also connect with them more” Anonymous

Now we will explain the reasons how we arrived at this meaning. When people talk about certain symbols in a specific culture, this must take into account all the physical movements we make to communicate or express an idea.

In the majority of cases, there is much variety in the way people greet each other. For example, at the moment of introducing oneself, introducing a new person in a social link, or a sporadic greeting with someone we know or close friend. Certain actions, verbal communication, facial and physical gestures help us to express our greetings to another person.

These manifestations often vary according to the country we are in and there are some cultural traits that appear in every social interaction that a person has. We apply the term ‘symbols’ to those manifestations, which implicitly and unconsciously accompany each society.

“Our culture, our traditions, our language are the foundations upon which we build our identity” Anonymous

As human beings we do not just use our mother tongue to communicate and there are traditional aspects that appear in every social interaction. A facial gesture of pleasure or displeasure to any person can communicate an effective message. But there is a bigger question we can ask of ourselves. How could we possibly learn all those various cultural expressions? How can we recognize the identity of English-speaking cultures? This is the main objective of this subject.

“Culture is not a surface phenomenon it is our very core” Edgar Schein

If people want to clearly understand a specific culture, it is recommended that first they should learn about the most famous places that are usually visited, and activities which are the most practiced in that specific culture. In particular, there are values and customs that are spread through educational institutions, churches or in the same family. To study a particular culture, we should investigate entities or places where those specific behaviors are often perceived to originate. 

Behaviors

Culture influences people’s behaviors which is why, feelings, ideas and behaviors of human beings are not only of a biological nature, but are also hereditary actions that are passed down through the generations. For the cultural norms to continue it is necessary for every society to have an effective way of transmitting these culture systems, through which socialization is the main channel.

There are some agents that also help to established specific behaviors, such as, companies, classmates, colleges, and those agents will influence our decisions and also our behaviors.

Art

Art and culture are terms that regularly go together and usually they define the most important features of a culture, its way of life and also its society’s viewpoint of the world. Art is not just painting, sculpture or architecture, but can also include photography, comics, television, and advertising. Therefore, we can say that art is one manifestation of culture.

When a person visits an another country, it is important that native people share, teach or present its art in order to help visitors and tourists to clearly understand their cultural context. This offers an authentic experience which is more interesting and enjoyable to the visitor.

Knowledge

Knowledge in a culture is a learning process which is common throughout its society and provides its people with effective and appropriate communication. Through knowledge, people outside of that culture can understand prejudices, beliefs, convictions, attitudes, religious views, freedoms, rules, and other aspects.

Nowadays, countries around the world are expanding their international relations through commercial trade, tourism and political relationships. It means every single day it is increasingly likely they will encounter other cultures through more accessible means, such as social media.

“We are, at almost every point of our day, immersed in cultural diversity: faces, clothes, smells, attitudes, values, traditions, behaviors, beliefs, rituals” Randa Abdel

To get know a culture involves finding out about various cultural diversities. All the symbols that arise from a population are inherited and identify us as representations of a specific epoch, customs and community. Social studies have shown that although many of these are preserved through each generation, there is also evidence to demonstrate how cultures have influenced each other, showing that cultures change and evolve over time.

“To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture” Frantz Fanon

In addition, when a culture is studied, new linguistic terms and unknown expressions frequently appear. This new lexical content should be examined as part of the contextual content of the expression, meaning we must study how a particular community use that phrase or word. Occasionally, it is difficult to understand certain expressions or dialects that are used, due to metaphors, hyperboles or colloquial sayings. The reward gained from this experience is the lexical enrichment that can be obtained from each culture.

We can know new cultures throw several tools

Nowadays there has been a rapid surge in technology to make life easier for people. However, technology does not arrive just to improve human health, but also to make people feel closer. This can be seen through the increase of social networks, internet and email. If people do not have enough time or money to travel around the world, they can take advantages of computers and online connections in order encounter and experience worldwide cultures. It is even possible to achieve this with a smartphone using applications for conversations, map and directions, or learning about weather and nature.