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TASK

“CROSS CULTURE COMMUNICATION”

Name : Defrianus Wadu


Class : IV A
Reg. No : 1701020162

UNIVERSITY OF NUSA CENDANA KUPANG


2019
 Definition of Language
Language, a system of conventional spoken, manual, or written symbols by means of which
human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express
themselves. The functions of language include communication, the expression of identity,
play, imaginative expression, and emotional release.

1) Henry Sweet : “Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds


combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination
answering to that of ideas into thoughts.
2) Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager : “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal
symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.” Any succinct definition of
language makes a number of presuppositions and begs a number of questions.
3) Language is a system that consists of the development, acquisition, maintenance and
use of complex systems of communication, particularly the human ability to do so;
and a language is any specific example of such a system (Wikipedia).

 Definition of culture

Culture is a way of life. It comprises of language, religion and specific lifestyles. It can never
be easy to define culture, because there exists no static definition of it. Rather, it is a
continuously evolving, having dynamic entity, which characterizes the entire lifestyle of a
certain group of people.

1) According to UNESCO, “We speak of culture in connection with the behavior of


people, the moral values, and human relations. We denote it by action, behavior and
attitudes considered useful for the interests of the society, or of a certain social
group.” There are many layers associated with the word culture, and hence it is often
sub-divided into categories with narrower definitions enabling identification of
various elements of culture. One such classification could be material and non-
material culture, the former including arts, architecture, etc., and the latter including
belief systems, myths, legends. The etymology of the word ‘culture’ can be traced
back to Roman times. It originally meant cultivation of soul or mind, and it is only
after the influence of German thinkers of 18th century that it came to acquire its
present meanings.
2) Talcott Parsons had conceived of culture as the system of value-orientation whose
generalized symbols of action orientation solved the problem of double contingency
in social systems (Parsons/Shils 1951). But already when concluding the famous
"truce" between anthropology and sociology concerning the use of the terms culture
and social system, respectively, he rather ambivalently accepted culture as a factor
which shapes human behavior by "transmitted and created content and patterns of
values, ideas, and other symbolic-meaningful systems", but compared this to a notion
of social system which is interested in "the specifically relational system of
interaction among individuals and collectivities" (Parsons/Kroeber 1958, p. 583).
There seems to be something more basic going on with respect to the social which
poses problems that may or may not be solved by cultural rules. Without really
revising either the notion of the solution of the problem of double contingency or the
terms of the truce, Parsons later went on to relegate culture to a distinction between
correct and incorrect behavior (Parsons 1973)
3) Definitions Culture is ordinary by Raymond Williams Originally published in N.
McKenzie Convictions, 1958“Culture is ordinary: that is the first fact. Every human
society has its own shape, its own purposes, its own meanings. Every human society
expresses these, in institutions, and in arts and learning. The making of a society is
the finding of common meanings and directions, and its growth is an active debate
and amendment under the pressures of experience, contact, and discovery, writing
themselves into the land. The growing society is there, yet it is also made and remade
in every individual mind. The making of a mind is, first, the slow learning of shapes,
purposes, and meanings, so that work, observation and communication are possible.
Then, second, but equal in importance, is the testing of these in experience, the
making of new observations, comparisons, and meanings. A culture has two aspects:
the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to; the new
observations and meanings, which are offered and tested.

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