Communication & Culture

1. COMMUNICATION
& CULTURE

3. SYMBOLS & CULTURESymbols don’t cary the same meaning across cultures
Culture influences the meaning of symbols

4. What is your
doctor’s job?

5. Which should be named? Streets or Blocks?
When should you pay your doctor?

6. JAPANNaming the block
or the space in
between blocks?

7. CULTURAL ICEBERG
There were apparently too many conflicts
with place names and numbers were
adopted.

8. CULTURAL ICEBERG
HARMONY
Avoiding conflict is
valued.
There were apparently too many conflicts
with place names and numbers were
adopted.
View of Language
Numbers are considered
more objective than
language. Objectivity is
better than subjectivity.
HISTORY
Value history of a space.

9. CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN
Greeting behaviors

10. A near-mouth kiss between former Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbatchev and East German Leader Erich Honecker

11. A cheek kiss between the Iraqi President and the U.S.
ambassador to Iraq

12. An air kiss between the Saudi King and President Bush

13. A facial touch between Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer

14. A hand kiss between Jacques Chirac and Secretary of
State Condoleeza Rice

15. Cultural Relativism:
none is superior - no need to adopt it though
VIEWSONCULTURE Ethnocentrism
my culture’s form of greeting is superior
=

16. VIEWSONCULTURE
Ethnocentrism:
use of one’s own culture & its practices as the standard
for interpreting the values, beliefs, norms of other cultures

17. Cultural Relativism:
all cultures are different, none is superior
VIEWSONCULTURE
Ethnocentrism:
use of one’s own culture & its practices as the standard
for interpreting the values, beliefs, norms of other cultures

18. CULTURE
What is
?

19. Set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in
the past have increased the probability of survival and
resulted in satisfaction for the participants in an ecological
niche, and thus became shared among those who could
communicate with each other because they had a common
language and they lived in the same time and place.
• Transmitted through communication, not genes
• Learned and shared
• Based on symbols
• Dynamic

20. Communication is a
systematic process in which
people interact with and
through symbols to create
and interpret meanings.

21. ENCULTURATION VS.ACCULTURATION
National GeographicTV ReportHow is culture passed on?

22. Acculturation, Integration, Loss of Cultural Identity?

23. ?
Communication is symbolic
• Words have no inherent meaning
• Symbol: arbitrary signals created by humans to represent
experiences, objects, or concepts
• Referent: the object or experience to which a symbol refers
Communication is personal
• Meaning is in the people, not in the words
REASONS FOR AMBIGUITY

24. SIGNIFIERS & REFERENTS

25. SIGNIFIERS & REFERENTS
Symbol
C H A I R

26. SIGNIFIERS & REFERENTS
Symbol Referent
C H A I R

27. SIGNIFIERS & REFERENTS
Symbol Referent
C H A I R

28. SIGNIFIERS & REFERENTS
Thoughts / Reference
Symbol Referent
C H A I R

29. SIGNIFIERS & REFERENTS
Symbol Referent
C H A I R

30. SIGNIFIERS & REFERENTS
Symbol Referent
C H A I R

31. SIGNIFIERS & REFERENTS
Referent
an open back
wooden red chair
with lattice
scrollwork and
velvet cushion

32. SIGNIFIERS & REFERENTS
Referent
an open back
wooden red chair
with lattice
scrollwork and
velvet cushion

33. SIGNIFIERS & REFERENTS
Referent
an open back
wooden red chair
with lattice
scrollwork and
velvet cushion
Thoughts / Reference

34. SIGNIFIERS & REFERENTS
ReferentSymbol
Thoughts / Reference

35. Referent English German French Lux.
Pencil Bleistift Crayon Blaisteft
Shoes Schuhe Chaussures Schong
Pear Birne Poire Bier
Tree Baum Arbre Baam
Same referent, diff. symbol

36. Love
Consider the meaning of the following words:
COMMUNICATION IS PERSONAL
Meaning is in the people, not in the words
BeautyExcellence

37. Arbitraryyet powerful

38. GREENRequires your brain to respond to conflicting information
Takes longer because the mind automatically determines the semantic
meaning of the word (it reads the word "green" and thinks of the color
"green"), and then must override this first impression with the identification
of the color of the word -- a process that is not automatized.
60 second brain game