What Is Culture?

Introduction: What is Culture?

In order to fully understand how humanity functions as a whole, we must thoroughly consider the concept of culture, for the reason that this idea comes hand in hand with learning about the different nationalities of the world. Edward B. Tylor, in his anthology, Primitive Culture, states that "Culture ... is 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." (Tylor, 1871). The idea of being a "complex whole" which is made up of the list demonstrates that culture is a multi-faceted feature of life and is not limited to only the components above.

As Anna Mindess' stated in her second edition of Reading between the Signs, I too feel that culture is acquired through socialization and can be inherited from parents and relatives. Also, a person is not confined to just one culture since so many are omni-present; it is likely that a person may be involved in a number of cultures. Considering this, how then can we define what culture is? The following thoughts, experiences, and research results is a proposal of what factors make up the broadly used term, culture, as well as the categories of existing cultures, communication across cultures, and the emerging cultural crises that is present among society.

Culture and its many Categories

Cultures should be categorized by what the uniting factor happens to be. One example of a uniting factor may involve hobbies, similar interests, knowledge, and experience. A type of culture that stands as an example is a canine lover's club. The members in this type of culture are united by an interest in training, managing, and breeding dogs. Another example of a uniting factor is beliefs, values, traditions, religion and theories of the universe. A type of culture in this category would be a belief system like Shamanism or a practiced religion such as Christianity.

Both of these types of cultures can become an interest because the parents were involved in the type of activity, or just simply acquired because of interest or socialization with others involved in this type of culture. Sometimes, a person can acquire a culture biologically, or by being born into it, as categorizing by nationality or ethnic group. However, at this point, he or she can choose whether or not they want to associate themselves with the group.

Personally, all of the mentioned examples are examples of cultures that I am involved in. As a child, I loved learning about canines and that experience and interest has put me in the dog -owning culture today. As a young Hmong woman, I was raised in a family that practiced Shamanism as a form of treatment, as well as acquiring my Hmong culture biologically and embracing it by practicing modern Hmong customs, which include wearing the traditional apparel and celebrating the Hmong New Year. All of the cultural categories have differing motives for uniting but they all have one thing in common. As analyzed in James Rachel's fourth edition of The Elements of Moral Philosophy, "There are some moral rules that all societies must have in common, because those rules are necessary for society to exist." (Rachel, 2003, p. 26). Simply stating, cultures may have their differences, but will always have some type of found similarity.

Communication across Cultures

In communicating across different cultures, such as interpreting or translating, one should consider studying the "Domains of Intercultural Communication," as outlined by Anna Mindess' in Reading the Between the Signs. (2006). This area of study consists of proxemics, which is "The study of social and personal space." In addition, this field involves paralinguistics, which is "The study of the way something is said, intonation, speech rate, and the use of silence," and kinesics, "the study of body motions such as