The cycle of culture, communication and identity

by Rosa Grieser

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Communications - Intercultural Communication, 1.3, Charles Darwin University, English, When human beings are in the company of relatives, friends and neighbors, they might take it for granted that communication is a complex continuous process which has many nonverbal as well as verbal components. It is in the encounter with a stranger or being in a strange situation which inherent uncertainness. Having expectations how a stranger may act or how to act in a strange situation can help to reduce this uncertainness. These expectations are based on particular social convention, which are part of what is vague called culture ( 2011). If a situation cannot meet the expectations, people become suddenly aware that, because all customary behaviors convey information, they struggle to understand the happening until they know the particular cultural code ( ). A cultural code describes the system of representation by which signs and their meanings are arranged by cultural convention to temporarily stabilize significances in particular ways (Barker 2005: 436). Traffic lights are coded in a red for stop, orange for pause and green for go.

24 pages, Paperback

Published April 12, 2013