Communication and Culture

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Communication and Culture

• John A. Cagle

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What is culture?

• Sir Edward Tylors definition in 1871 (first use
  of this term)that complex whole which includes
  knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and
  any other capabilities and habits acquired by man
  as a member of society

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• Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) Culture consists
  of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for
  behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols,
  constituting the distinctive achievement of human
  groups, including their embodiment in artifacts
  the essential core of culture consists of
  traditional (i.e. historically derived and
  selected) ideas and especially their attached
  values culture systems may, on the one hand, be
  considered as products of action, on the other as
  conditioning elements of further action.

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John Bodley (1994) Diverse Definitions
Topical Culture consists of everything on a list of topics, or categories, such as social organization, religion, or economy
Historical Culture is social heritage, or tradition, that is passed on to future generations
Behavioral Culture is shared, learned human behavior, a way of life
Normative Culture is ideals, values, or rules for living
Functional Culture is the way humans solve problems of adapting to the environment or living together
Mental Culture is a complex of ideas, or learned habits, that inhibit impulses and distinguish people from animals
Structural Culture consists of patterned and interrelated ideas, symbols, or behaviors
Symbolic Culture is based on arbitrarily assigned meanings that are shared by a society
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Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• Sapir (1921) Human beings do not live in the
  objective world alone, nor alone in the world of
  social activity as ordinarily understood, but are
  very much at the mercy of the particular language
  which has become the medium of expression in that
  society.

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• As a result of differences in language, people in
  different cultures will think about, perceive,
  and behave toward the world differently.
• Reality itself is already embedded in language
  and therefore comes preformed.
• Language determines, enabling and constraining,
  what is perceived and attended to in a culture,
  as well as the upper limits of knowledge.

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Cross-cultural Values
Americans
Japanese

• Freedom
• Independence
• Self-reliance
• Equality
• Individualism
• Competition
• Efficiency
• Time
• Directness
• Openness

• Belonging
• Group harmony
• Collectiveness
• Age/seniority
• Group consciousness
• Cooperation
• Quality
• Patience
• Indirectness
• Go-between

Elashmawi Harris 1993
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Edward T. Hall's Model

• High-context cultures
• Long-lasting relationships
• Exploiting context
• Spoken agreements
• Insiders and outsiders clearly distinguished
• Cultural patterns ingrained, slow change

• Low-context cultures
• Shorter relationships
• Less dependent on context
• Written agreements
• Insiders and outsiders less clearly distinguished
• Cultural patterns change faster

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Cultural Classification--Hall

• Low-Context Cultures - What Is Said Is More
  Important Than How or Where It Is Said
• U.S.
• Germany
• High-Context cultures - What Is Said and How or
  Where It is Said Are Significant
• Asia
• Latin America
• Middle East

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Low-context in business

• Business before friendship
• Credibility through expertise performance
• Agreements by legal contract
• Negotiations efficient

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High-context in business

• No business without friendship
• Credibility through relationships
• Agreements founded on trust
• Negotiations slow ritualistic

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High and Low Context Cultures
Factors / Dimensions
Low Context
High Context
Less important Is his or her bond Taken by top
level Lengthy JapanMiddle East
Lawyers A persons word Responsibility
fororganizational error Negotiations Examples
Very important Get it in writing Pushed to
lowest level Proceed quickly U.S.A.Northern
Europe
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Basil Bernstein (1971)

• Bernstein was interested in social class and the
  ways in which the class system creates different
  types of language and is maintained by language.
• Relationships in a social group affect the type
  of speech used by the group. The structure of
  speech makes different things relevant or
  significant.

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Language codes

• Elaborated codes provide a wide range of
  different ways to say something. These allow
  speakers to make their ideas and intentions
  explicit.
• Restricted codes have a narrow range of options,
  and it is easier to predict what form they will
  take.

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Codes and Social Class

• Bernstein says members of the middle class use
  both types of code systems, whereas members of
  the working class are less likely to use
  elaborated codes.

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Frederick Williams Poverty Cycle

• In dealing with the language of the poverty
  child, are we dealing with language which is
  deficient or with language that is different?
• As the war on poverty has continued in the U.S.,
  it has become highly evident that the boundaries
  of poverty are often subcultural ones.
• Individuals in a poverty group can be identified
  by their common socioeconomic problems, and these
  in turn are typically associated with an equally
  common range of sociocultural features - ways of
  life, education, attitudes, desires, and above
  all, language and the ways of using it.
• Much of the attention given to sociocultural
  aspects of poverty can be seen in the kinds of
  cause and cures for poverty which are often
  linked as part of an overall poverty cycle.

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Everett Rogers (1962) Diffusion of Innovations

• Rogers began developing a practical theory to
  increase the rate of diffusion and acceptance of
  agricultural innovations in underdeveloped
  countries.
• Diffusion of Innovations was first published in
  1962.
• Rogers theory is now widely accepted and used in
  many contextsbusiness, government, technology,
  family planning, medicine, etc.

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Diffusion in Real World
Joseph P. Bailey, The Retail Sector and the
Internet Economy, http//e-conomy.berkeley.edu/co
nferences/9-2000/EC-conference2000_papers/bailey.p
df
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Innovations

• Diffusion is the process by which an innovation
  is communicated through certain channels over
  time among the members of a
  social system.
• This definition establishes that diffusion
  consists of four main elements (1) the
  innovation (2) the communication channels (3)
  time and (4) the social system.

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• The stages through which a technological
  innovation passes are
• knowledge (exposure to its existence, and
  understanding of its functions)
• persuasion (the forming of a favourable attitude
  to it)
• decision (commitment to its adoption)
• implementation (putting it to use) and
• confirmation (reinforcement based on positive
  outcomes from it).

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• Important characteristics of an innovation
  include
• relative advantage (the degree to which it is
  perceived to be better than what it supersedes)
• compatibility (consistency with existing values,
  past experiences and needs)
• complexity (difficulty of understanding and use)
• trialability (the degree to which itcan be
  experimented with on a limited basis)
• observability (the visibility of its results).

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• Different adopter categories are identified as
• innovators (venturesome) 1-3
• early adopters (respectable) 13
• early majority (deliberate) 34
• late majority (skeptical) 34
• laggards (traditional) 16

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Early Adopters 13.5
Late Majority 34
Laggards 16
Consumer Innovators 2.5
Early Majority 34
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100
Innovation 1
Innovation 2
Innovation 3
Laggards
Percent of adoption
Late majority
Early majority
Early adopters
Innovators
0
Time
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Del Hymes (1966)
1. What are the communicative events, and their
components, in a community? 2. What are the
relationships among them? 3. What capabilities
and states do they have, in general, and in
particular events? 4. How do they work?
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The concept of a message is taken as implying the
sharing (real or imputed) of a code (or codes) in
terms of which a message is intelligible to
participants, minimally an addressor and
addressee, in an event constituted by
transmission of the message, and characterized by
a channel, a setting or context, a definite form
or shape in the message, and a topic or comment.
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The purposes, conscious and unconscious, the
functions, intended and unintended, perceived and
unperceived, of communicative events for their
participants are here treated as questions of the
states in which they engage in them, and of the
norms by which they judge them. FOCUS ON THE
ADDRESSOR entails such expressive or emotive
functions as identification of the source,
expression of attitude toward one or another
component or the situation as a whole, thinking
aloud, etc. FOCUS ON THE ADDRESSEE entails such
directive or conative functions as identification
of the destination, and the ways in which the
events and message may be governed by
anticipation of the attitude of the destination.
RHETORIC, PERSUASION, APPEAL, and DIRECTION enter
here.
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FOCUS ON CHANNELS entails such phatic functions
as have to do with the maintenance of contact and
control of noise, both physical and
psychological. FOCUS ON CODES entails such
functions as are involved in learning, analysis,
devising of writing systems, checking code in
conversation, etc. FOCUS ON SETTINGS entails all
that is considered contextual, apart from the
event itself, verbal and nonverbal, etc. FOCUS
ON MESSAGE-FORM entails such functions as
proof-reading, mimicry, poetic and stylistic
concerns, etc.
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FOCUS ON TOPIC entails such functions as having
to do with reference to objects in the world, to
people, to events, to ideas, etc.--all we usually
associate with content. FOCUS ON THE EVENT
ITSELF entails whatever is comprised under
metacommunicative types of function.