Intercultural Communication

Two types of communication:
Verbal - refers to use of language
Non-verbal - refer to the use of gestures, facial expressions and other body movements.

Language - is an abstract system of word meaning and symbols of culture. It includes speech, written characters, numerals, symbols and gestures and expressions of non verbal communication.

Paralanguage - is the language of gestures, expressions and postures.

Communication - is far more than speech and writing.

For effective communication to take place, 6 components must be present ; a communication source or sender, a mesage, a channel, a receive, feedback and the environment

A man's language is a reflection of the kind of person he is,  the level of education he has attained, and an index to the behavior that may be expected from him.

Language is the key factor in the success of the human race in creating and preserving culture, for without language the ability to convey ideas and traditions is impossible.

Phonology refers to a system of sounds.
semantics is a study of word meanings and word combinations.
grammar refers to the structure of langauge through its morphology and syntax.
pragmatics is concerned rules for the use of appropriate language particular contexts.

If culture can affect the structure and content of its language, then it follow that linguistic diversity derives in part from cultural diversity.

Edward Sapir - a linguist, acknowledged the close relationship between language and culture, maintaining that they were inextricably related so that you could not understand or appreciate the one without a knowledge of the other.

The linguistic relativity hyphothesis asserts that language determines thought and therefore culture. in reality language and culture influence each other. -edward

every society has a culture, no matter how simple the culture may be and every human being is cultured in the sense of participating in some culture or other.

culture refers to the attitudes, values, customs, and behavior patterns that characterize a social groups.

culture is:

• learned
• shared by a group of people- shared by some population
• cumulative-knowledge is stored and pass on generation
• dynamic-cumulative quality
• ideational-ideal pattern of behavior
• diverse-sum total of human culture consists of a great many separate cultures each of them different.

culture

• changes- all cultural knowledge does not perpetually accumulate
• gives us a range of permissible behavior patterns-allows a range of ways in which men can be men and women can be women.

cognitive components
ideas - are mental representations used to organize stimulus they are the basic units out of which knowledge is constructed and a world emerges.
Values - standards of desirability, goodness and beauty which serves as broad guidelines for social living.
Accounts - ow people use that common language to explain, justify, rationalize, excuse or legitimize our behavior to themselves and others.

behavioral component
norms-are rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members
types of norms:
mores- customary behavior patterns of folkways which have taken on a moralistic value.
laws- constitute the most formal and important norms, formalized norms
folkways - these are behavior patterns of society which are organized and repetitive,
rituals-highly scripted ceremonies or strips of interaction that follow a specific sequence of actions.

Rituals are highly scripted ceremonies or strips of interaction that follow a specific sequence of actions.
material compoents of culture refer to physical objects of culture such as machines, equipment, tools, books, clothing, etc.

How is culture transmitted:
Enculturation - the proccess of learning culture of one's own group.
Acculturation - learning some new traits from another culture
Assimilation - process in which an individual entirely loses any awareness of his or her previous group identity an dtakes on the culture and attitudes of another group.

Here is an illustration of cultural relativism:
practices considered immoral or taboo to a certain group of people but are accepted by other groups with a different cultural orientation.