unit 14

• Culture generally provides a certain framework for communication, because communication is embedded in the thinking and behavior patterns characteristic of a given culture.
• The very term "culture" comes from Latin and was originally associated with farming or animal husbandry.
• Culture can be defined as the totality of the products of people, both material and non-material: spiritual, symbolic, such as patterns of thinking and behavior
• the term was used by Cicero, who in his work Disputatione Tusculanae used the phrase cultura animi to define the first concept of philosophy in literature
• the words of the German philosopher Johann Herder, who in the 18th

  century wrote in the foreword to "Thoughts on the philosophy of history": "There is nothing more indefinite than the word culture."
• Edward Burnett Tylor - Culture, as civilization, is a complex whole that includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morality, laws, customs and other abilities and habits acquired by people as members of society
• Ruth Benedict said „Culture is a complex whole containing habits acquired by man as a member of society
• Bronisław Malinowski said „ Culture is an integral whole consisting of consumer tools and goods, creative principles of various social groups, human ideas and skills, beliefs and customs
• Ralph Linton defined – culture as a "configuration of learned behaviors and their results,

  whose components are shared and passed on by members of a given society
• Paul Herbig – stated that culture can be defined as “the sum of a way of life, including

  expected behaviour, beliefs, values, language and living practices shared by members of a

  society. It consists of both explicit and implicit rules through which experience is

  interpreted
• Group A: Descriptive definitions. The definitions included here represent the classic form of early ethnological definitions
• Group B: Historical definitions. The definitions placed here emphasize the tradition factor as a mechanism for transmitting cultural heritage
• Group C: Normative definitions. These definitions emphasize compliance with human behavior norms, patterns, values and models.
• Group D: Psychological definitions. Psychological definitions focus on mental mechanisms of culture development. They analyze learning mechanisms, forming cultural habits, internalizing the norms in force in a given community and values recognized by that community, as well as the impact of culture on the formation of individuals' personality. The main emphasis is on learning and imitation as processes of learning culture.
• Group E: Structural definitions. The definitions collected for this type are mainly interested in the structure of a specific culture, and thus its essential elements and their internal connections. There are four categories of cultural elements: material-technical, social, ideological and psychological (regarding feelings and attitudes).
• Group F: Genetic definitions. These definitions focus on the problem of the genesis of culture, explain its origin. These definitions are divided into two groups: concerning the internal development of culture, the emergence of some (higher) forms from other earlier forms (considered lower) and the problem of the emergence of culture from nature and the relationships, differences and opposites between these definitions.
• Group G: Incomplete definitions. This group includes definitions that do not match any of the above mentioned.
• The 6 several main fields of culture

  1. Material
  2. Spiritual
  3. Social
  4. Language
  5. Political
  6. Physical
• Material culture: human creations, technique and practical skills.
• Spiritual culture: beliefs, knowledge, all kinds of literature, art, including: fine arts,

  theater, music, film, fashion, as well as everything that belongs to the products of

  the mind, for example, philosophy.
• Language culture / word culture: ability to efficiently use a language in

  accordance with the standards in force in a given community and the

  requirements of a given communication situation.
• Social culture: moral norms, ideology, participation in cultural life, social and

  cultural norms.
• Political culture: value systems and behavior patterns (politicians, parties) taking

  part in the exercise of state power or aspiring to that role.
• Physical culture: behavioral system and activities related to care for human

  physical development.
• Communication is the exchange of statements (linguistic and

  non-linguistic) between two people in order to exchange thoughts, feelings, attitudes, etc.
• The tool of communication is language, meaning conventional

  signs system.
• for intercultural communication, we always have to consider language codes.
• The proper use of these codes is largely determined by cultural, social and personal factors.
• 3 types of codes:

  1. Language
  2. Para-language
  3. Non-language
• The language code includes models of sounds (phonemes) containing the rules for creating individual speech sounds, rules for creating larger significant entities from phonemes, a set of words

  present in a given language and words in larger entities (phrases and sentences).
• The para-language code includes components that occur only while speaking and that

  modify the meaning of a given spoken message. Hence, the use of a specific intonation means

  that the same statement may become a question or a negation.
• Non-language code are touch and vision, which are associated more with the reception of

  characters transmitted by the sender. This code is associated with motor expression and

  reception of speech, determines which distances and manner of placing interaction

  participants are acceptable or expected, and also determines the permissible duration of

  gaze, handshake, permissible delay or duration of the meeting.
• Pyramid Model of Intercultural Competence is based

  on knowledge, skills and attitudes and shares many problematic components.
• 5 Components of the Pyramid Model of Intercultural Competence:

  1. Attitudes
  2. Knowledge
  3. Skills
  4. Internal outcomes
  5. External outcomes
• External Outcomes: A summary of attitudes, knowledge and skills, as well as internal results,

  is demonstrated through individual behavior and communication. External results show

  how effective and appropriate this person is in intercultural interactions. Such behavior and

  communication become visible external effects of intercultural competence.
• Internal Outcomes: Attitudes, knowledge and skills create a solution that is characterized by

  flexibility, adaptability and empathy. We should define empathy here as understanding the

  behavior and feelings of others, and responding appropriately to meet their needs, not acting

  the way others want. This solution includes aspects that characterize the individual as a

  result of acquired attitudes, knowledge and skills necessary to some extent to apply

  intercultural competences.
• Skills: The skills that emerged from this pyramid concerned the processing of knowledge:

  observation, listening, evaluation, analysis, interpretation and relationship. The

  development of global knowledge is changing so quickly that it becomes necessary to use

  key skills to obtain and process information, while moving away from relying solely on

  knowledge itself.
• Knowledge: When discussing the knowledge necessary to understand intercultural

  competences, we must also remember about cultural self-awareness (i.e. how culture

  influenced identity and worldview), culture-specific knowledge, deep cultural knowledge,

  including understanding other worldviews, and sociolinguistic awareness
• Attitudes: In the pyramid proposed by K. Deardorff, three attitudes take the lead: openness,

  curiosity and respect. Openness and curiosity imply a willingness to risk and go outside the

  comfort zone. What's more, curiosity underlies more creative ways of transforming

  differences into possibilities, while openness allows perception from more than one perspective, which is invaluable when negotiating and mediating cultural differences. These

  three attitudes are the basis for the further development of knowledge and skills needed to

  develop intercultural competences.
• The other model: process model of intercultural competence