WHAT IS CULTURE? AND HOW DO WE STUDY IT?

Prof. Marina Fernando
City College of the City University of New York

DEFINITIONS OF CULTURE

• Culture is a way of life.

• Culture is the way humans solve problems of adapting to the environment and living together.

• Culture is the product of geography, the physical environment, and history. Inasmuch as the geography, environment, and history change, culture evolve, adapting to the changes, and are continually redefined and reconstituted.

• Culture is a way of life that is shared – shared values, shared myths (history), shared symbols, shared symbolic meanings, giving rise to customs and traditions, and perpetuating the social bonds of the community.

• Culture represents collective learned behaviors that act as a template, shaping consciousness and behavior, from generation to generation.

• These learned behaviors are reflections of abstract values, beliefs, and perceptions of the world.

• Culture consists chiefly in values/beliefs, behavior that reflect those values, and communication patterns that define that behavior.

• Culture is expressed in material and non-material ways.

Emic and Etic interpretations of culture:

Emic (from phonemic) – from a local, specific, peculiar perspective.

Etic (from phonetic) – from a universal perspective.