Exploring culture by ah forough ameri

Exploring Culture
ahfameri@gmail.com
By:
Amirhamid Forough Ameri
Feb. 2016
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Exploring Culture
 As teachers we have two responsibilities:
1. To familiarize students with their
new target culture and language
2. To be aware of the impact culture
has on our students’ daily lives
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Tips for Exploring Culture
1. Have students articulate their own definition of culture
2. Raise culture to a conscious level
3. Point out the hidden aspects of culture
4. Show how cultures may value the same thing differently
5. Help students understand how culture works
6. Build awareness about stress caused by cultural adjustment
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1. Have students articulate their own definition of culture
 Students have different ways of explaining what culture means to
them.
 It is helpful to have students describe what they think culture is.
 What the research says
 Culture is a dynamic concept, an ever-changing phenomenon.
 The following disciplines have contributed to our understanding of
culture: anthropology, sociology, psychology, linguistics, and
communication.
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 Three features of culture:
 Its historical dimension
 Its interdependency of components
 Its complex nature
 Three interrelated components of culture:
 Products or artifacts
 Practices or actions
 Perspectives or meanings.
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 Robert Kohls (1996) offers this comprehensive definition:
Culture = an integrated system of learned behavior
patterns that are characteristics of the members of any given
society. Culture refers to the total way of life of particular
groups of people including everything they think, say, do, and
make. Culture is learned and transmitted from generation to
generation.
 There is no firm agreement on a definition of culture.
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 What the teacher can do
 Help students by talking about how we have come to define
culture and how it is related to our own lives
 Help them to become bicultural as well as bilingual
 Use class activities that encourage them to articulate their own
ideas
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2. Raise culture to a conscious level
 Often students are not conscious of how culture affects their
daily lives.
 Errors in appropriate cultural behavior can often pass
without comment.
 Atkinson (1999):
Culture had not been adequately addressed by TESOL
profession in the 15-year period leading up to his study.
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 Damen (1987), a pragmatic ethnographer, sets forth six
observable characteristics of culture:
CHARACTERISTIC INTERPRETATION
Culture is learned Culture can be taught
Cultures and cultural patterns change Adapt to a culture, not just learn about it
Culture is a universal fact of human life No human group exists without culture.
Cultural patterns are closely aligned to human
needs.
Culture offers blueprints for living and values
and beliefs to support it
Values and beliefs are linked strongly.
Language and culture are related and interactive Culture is conveyed through language
Culture functions as a filter between its
possessor and the environment
Intercultural communicators need to be able to
go beyond their own filters
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 What the teacher can do
 Introduce Damen’s characteristics of culture
 Use them as discussion topics
 Teachers can share their own stories about experiencing new
cultures
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3. Point out the hidden aspects of culture
 Many aspects of culture are hidden below the surface, not visible.
 A teacher can bring these hidden features to the surface.
 Peterson (2004):
Big C culture: classic or grand themes visible tip of an
iceberg or invisible
Little c culture: minor or common themes invisible bottom
of an iceberg or visible
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Big C visible culture:
Literature
Classical music
Architecture
Historical figures
Geography
Big C invisible culture:
Core values
Attitudes
Society’s norms
Legal foundations
Assumptions
Cognitive processes
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Little c visible culture:
Gestures
Body posture
Use of space
Clothing styles
Food
Hobbies
Little c invisible culture:
Popular issues
Opinions
Preferences or tastes
Trivia and facts
Intercultural Competence: skills,
knowledge, attitudes, and cultural
awareness we need to interact successfully
with sb from another culture.
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4. Show how cultures may value the same thing differently
 Many of us believe the behavior of our own family provides the
definition of NORMAL behavior.
 We assume our own cultures’ values are the norm and other ways of
doing things are strange.
Example:
Teacher: what do you think about the economic problems in Japan?
Makoto: it’s not my place to suggest causes.
Paul: they’re the result of poor advice.
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o Beliefs, values, norms, and attitudes are fundamental elements
of any culture which affect people’s behavior.
Beliefs:
Convictions of the truth of sth;
Specific statements people hold as true;
They vary inter and intra-culturally.
e.g.
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 Norms:
 Principles of appropriate
behavior which guide
proper behavior in terms
of what members should
and should not do.
e.g.
 Values:
 Our feelings about the worth,
usefulness, or importance of sth;
 Our standards about what is right
or wrong.
e.g.
Mores: morally
binding behavior
distinguishing
right from wrong
Taboos: banned
actions
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 Attitudes:
 Mental stances we take regarding a fact.
 Feelings we show toward sth
e.g.
 Attribution:
 How we interpret the behavior of others with
our own cultural lens.
 Our Beliefs, values, norms, and attitudes are
used to explain what we ‘’see’’.
e.g.
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 Ethnocentrism:
 Our tendency to consider our own
cultural practices superior to those of
others, usually unconsciously
e.g.
 Enculturation:
 The act of learning a primary
culture and becoming
socialized into it as a lifelong
process.
 Acculturation:
 The learning of a
supplementary culture when
we deliberately learn about a
2nd culture as we are living in
the new culture, without
abandoning our native cultural
identity.
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 Enculturation:
A young immigrant who has lived most of his life in the US
calls himself an American and identifies with the American
culture, yet his home life still includes beliefs from his native
country.
 Acculturation:
A woman from the US who lives and works abroad for a
number of years continues to self-identify with her home
country, though she is fluent in the 2nd language and enjoys
its culture.
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 What the teacher can do:
Help students see that Beliefs, values, norms, and attitudes are
part of every culture and
that different cultures value the same things, though it is not
always evident.
Help students understand why others view the world in a
different way.
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5. Help students understand how culture works
 Hofstede et al. (2002) categorize five dimensions of a culture:
Dimension Continuum
Identity Collectivism Individualism
Hierarchy Large power distance Small power distance
Social
gender role
Feminine Masculine
Truth value Strong uncertainty avoidance Weak uncertainty avoidance
Virtue Long term orientation Short term orientation
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1. Identity
Collectivism
Group rights
Group-oriented needs
Dependence as a way to
promote cooperation within
the group
We identity
Individualism
Individual identity
Individual rights
Individual needs
Individual goals
I identity
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2. Hierarchy
 Power distance: the degree of acceptance of the unequal distribution of
power by the less powerful members of a culture.
 In cultures with a small power distance, people value an equal
distribution of power, equal rights, and the idea that rewards or
punishments should be granted based on how a task is executed.
 In cultures with a large power distance, people accept an unequal
distribution of power, a chain of commands regarding one’s rights,
unbalanced role relations, and the idea that rewards or punishments
should be determined by factors such as age, rank, status… .
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3. Social gender role
 It includes the question of roles for females and males.
 Traditional gender roles:
 Social gender role: the degree to which a society reinforces the
traditional male and female roles.
Men Women
Forceful
Tough
Materialistic
Humble
Sensitive
Worried about the quality of life
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4. Truth value
 Uncertainty avoidance: the degree to which members of a
culture feel threatened by situations that are uncertain or
unknown to them.
 If uncertainty avoidance is strong, the individual feels a
powerful threat and tries hard to stay away from that.
 Weak uncertainty avoidance cultures promote risk taking,
whereas strong uncertainty avoidance cultures favor rules and
laws.
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5. Virtue
Long-term orientation
Such societies
 stress social order
 respect hierarchy
 believe in collective face-saving
 practice long-term planning
 are centered on thrift
 focus on long-term outcomes
Short-term orientation
Such societies
 emphasize personal survival
 respect personal dignity
 believe in individual face-
saving
 practice short-term planning
 are centered on spending
 focus on short-term outcomes
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 What the teacher can do:
 Teachers can introduce the concept of critical incident.
 A critical incident offers
students a brief story in which
some type of cultural
miscommunication takes place.
 They read and discuss the
incident trying to understand
why the miscommunication
took place and how it could be
resolved.
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6. Build awareness about stress caused by cultural adjustment
 When students spend time in another culture, their adjustment to
the new culture can cause feelings of stress.
 Barna (1988) highlights potential stumbling blocks hindering
effective intercultural communication:
 Assumption of similarity
When people from different cultures first meet and each person wears similar
clothes and speaks the same language, we feel a sense of confidence. Only by
assuming that subtle differences do exist can our interpretation be adjusted.
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 Language difference
 Misinterpreting nonverbal communication
• Components of language: vocab, grammar, idioms, slang, dialects,…
• Sociocultural aspects of language also include cultural competence, or knowing
what to say, how to say it, when and where to say it, and why it is being said.
• Sometimes we think we understand what is being said when in fact we do not.
• Gestures, postures, …, which are easily observable, are often misunderstood.
• Time and spatial relationships, which are more subtle, are more prone to
misinterpretation.
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 Preconceptions and stereotypes
 Immediate evaluation
• Rather than attempting to understand the thoughts and feelings of others, many of
us all too quickly move to approve or disapprove of the actions and assertions of
other people, which hinders open-mindedness.
• Stereotypes: overgeneralized beliefs that provide conceptual bases from which to
‘make sense’ out of what goes on around us. They are firmly rooted as either myths
or truths in our culture.
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 High anxiety or ‘internal noise’:
 What the teacher can do:
 Making students aware of these stumbling blocks
 Help them begin to develop empathy towards people who
are different from them.
• Anxiety is a basic part of the other stumbling blocks.
• Being positive prepares us to meet these challenges energetically.
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