Cross Cultural Understanding

• Culture comes from Latin cultura, means cultivation

• Culture is a kind of social inheritance instead of biological heritage;

• It is shared by the whole community, not belonging to any individual;

  It is a symbolic meaning system in which language is one of the most important ones;

• It is a unified system, the integral parts of which are closely related.

​ØMaterial culture as the product of human manufacture

ØSocial culture as the people‘s form of social organization

ØIdeological culture including people‘s belief and values.

• Corporate culture (for example, the culture of Apple, Microsoft)

• Professional culture (for example, the culture of doctors, lawyers)

• Gender (different cultures of men and women)

• Age ( the different cultures of young, middle-aged, and old-people)

• Religious culture (for example, Catholicism, Islam, Budha)

• Regional culture (for example, Western, Eastern)

• Class culture (for example, working class, middle class, upper class)

​v Language is a key component of culture as the primary medium for transmitting much of culture.

v Children learning their native language are learning their own culture; learning a second language also involves learning a second culture.

v Language is influenced and shaped by culture.