How Does Culture Affect Meaning and Communication Essay

Nowadays we kick the bucket in what is considered a global village, e reallywhere time we have conjointly make fored towards this end. The need and desire to create a closer global partnership is not only seen as a technological advantage just an economic benefit. The world as we have it a demeanor it gets sm completelyer constantlyy day, convey to a new generation of social media applications such as face view as or twitter, which links vast communities together communities and civilisations be no longer wind off or remote.Take facebook for example, it has over 1 billion occasionrs, if it were a country it would be the third largest by population. (www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2013/012313.htm) Whether you live and work in remote Antarctica or bustling Hong Kong, technology and the studies of inter- coating converse ensures that people, governments and organizations endure work effectively together in a pure and beneficial way. Naturally, this is an ideal situation , but as experience tells us, nothing is ever as simple.This essay explores how pagan take issueences effect meaning and communion. In doing so it will look at the definition of gardening, what it is, and how it ex bleed tos meaning. Furthermore, it will look at the acclaimed Dutch researcher, Geert Hofstedes quadruplet proportions of unified horticulture as a framework to define and categorize cultural differences. Finally, it will raise latent problems raised in the field of inter-cultural dialogue theory and provide suggestions to overcome them.What is culture? Currently there atomic number 18 over 7 billion charitable inhabitants living on this planet. Each of these earth dwellers comes from a specific culture. (geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm) As the world becomes smaller, not physically, but by the use of new media and technology, as they traverse earth looking for new or better opportunities, so must they face the modern conundr um of apprehension firstly, what is culture, and secondly, how the differences amongst cultures effect meaning and communications.Without an understanding of antithetical cultures, the potential for interpret is high, with the ever-present possibility of a breakdown in relationships and opportunities. (Dostine, 2008, pg 58) text book suggests that all humans can be broadly defined by our culture. In essence, we are all born into a culture that over time has been passed down from previous generations, go aroundowing a rich history, significant culture defining traits such as its religion, its value and ethics, its ceremonies, rites and rituals, languages, customs, laws and business practices. Moreover, verbal and non-verbal communications practices that differ from one culture to the next. Therefore, suffice to say that the more we know about each others cultures the more effective our communication and co-habitation of the planet will be.How does cultural effect meaning? At the best of times, communication between individuals can be somewhat challenging. Add to that mix, communicating with people from another cultures and suddenly, the propensity for misunderstanding and in some cases offensive can very easily take place as a result of the differences between the cultural backgrounds, understanding and meaning between the vector and receiver can be in stark contrast. This can be due to the increase in variables in the communication mix, therefore reservation global interaction more complex. Furthermore, peoples perception or way of thinking, hearing or seeing can vary sort of extensively from one culture to the next.It could be strongly argued that it would be extremely advantageous for both parties to be aware of the differences and therefore the potential for problems that maturate from inter-cultural communication. Nowadays, m either multi-national organizations, governments and educators have training and education programs in place. They see th e importance in creating a clear, concise and respectful flow of communications between cultures. An example of this could be the department of foreign affairs and trade (DFAT) in Canberra.One of its main functions is to liaise internally and externally to better military posture itself to and for greater opportunity. It would be super likely that the department has educated its employees in the science of how to deal effectively with other cultures (governments, organizations, businesses). One of DFATs main objectives is to work with other government agencies to ensure that Australias pursuit of its global, regional and symmetrical interests is coordinated effectively. (dfat.gov.au/dept/what-we-do.html) In the field of organizational cultural studies, a Dutch researcher known as Geert Hofstede went on to publish his highly regarded findings. These findings have become a highly influential and acceptable way in which modern organizations can asses the difference between national culture and organizational culture. Hostede, seen as a pioneer in arena of corporate culture, created a framework in which to asses national cultural groups and how they may affect or influence behaviors within an organization.Hofstedes research in the 1980s, include the survey and analysis of hundreds of thousands of employees across fifty countries, to further increase the rigor of his findings he followed up several years later by re-surveying these workers.In his work Hofstede asserted that the values that differentiated counties from each other overleap into four dissimilar categories or clusters. Through the process of his study in corporate culture, Hofstedes created a framework whereby he classified culture into four different dimensions. These dimensions looked at four anthropological problem areas that societies tend to handle differently to one another. Such as, ways in which they lie with with inequality, uncertainty, the relationship between the individual and thei r primary group and implication of the soulfulnesss sex. born(p) from this was Hofsteds four dimensions of national culture. They become knows as occasion Distance, disbelief Avoidance, Individualism versus Collectivism, and Masculinity versus Femininity. (www.geerthofstede.nl/dimensions-of-national-cultures)In discussing the Four Dimensions of Culture, Hofstede claims that Power Distance Power distance is the extent to which the less agencyful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a high societys level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any society and anybody with some international experience will be aware that all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others. question Avoidance Uncertainty avoidance deals with a societys perimeter for uncertainty and ambiguity. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, and different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by unbending laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth there can only be one Truth and we have it. People in uncertainty avoiding countries are also more emotional, and motivated by sexual nervous energy. The opposite type, uncertainty accepting cultures, are more charitable of opinions different from what they are used to they try to have as few rules as possible, and on the philosophical and religious level they are relativist and exit many currents to flow side by side. People within these cultures are more phlegmatic and con templative, and not expected by their environment to pull out emotions. IndividualismIndividualism on the one side versus its opposite, collectivism is the story to which individuals are integrated into groups. On the individualist side, we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose everyone is expected to look after her/himself and her/his immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) that continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The word collectivism in this sense has no political meaning it refers to the group, not to the state. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world. MasculinityMasculinity versus its opposite, muliebrity refers to the distribution of emotional roles between the genders which is anothe r fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions are found. The IBM studies revealed that (a) womens values differ less among societies than mens values (b) mens values from one country to another contain a dimension from very assertive and competitive and maximally different from womens values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to womens values on the other. The assertive pole has been called masculine and the modest, caring pole distaff. The women in feminine countries have the same modest, caring values as the men in the masculine countries they are more assertive and more competitive, but not as much as the men, so that these countries show a go between mens values and womens values. (www.geerthofstede.nl/dimensions-of-national-cultures)Whilst Hofsteds four dimensions are highly regarded, further research has highlighted other areas that effect intercultural communication and understanding. These include context, language and non-verbal communic ations.Firstly, it is almost impossible to investigate research into the cross-cultural issues without making mention of Edward Halls research in the area he asserted that cultures are defined by context. (Hansen & Lee, pg,30) A persons behavior can be affected by its cultural context. (Dostine, 2008) From here, he broke context down into low context cultures these take direct verbal interaction with minimal regard to context. Examples include Australia, USA, Germany, Switzerland, and Norse cultures.