learned from previous generation. It is important to note that although culture is neither genetic nor about individual behavior, it is contained within the knowledge systems of individual behaviors. These knowledge systems are formed during childhood and reinforced throughout life (Triandis,1995) Culture is shared and learned of another society.
To define to the broad sense of the culture from (Herskovits,1955,Cultural Anthropology). He thinks that the culture is all the environments of the artificial creation, also to say, in addition to the
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natural original ecosystem that things are created by people called culture. The artificial creation includes two major types: one type is an objective culture(hardware product), the other one is a subjective culture(software product). Hardware is those things we can see and touch, for example construction, road, computer and various of tools, ect. Software is those things we can not touch but seems to be everywhere, for example belief, value and society norms. They are like air and sunlight that affect people. Although this is a comprehensive theory of culture, but it has not been adopted by most of scholars.
The most been adopted theory of culture is (Hofstede, 1991.) something shared by members of particular group. He describes culture as mental programming that lies between human nature on one side and personality on the other. He pointed out that culture would influence people about what to focus, and how act and judge others and things. Similar to this, culture is defined by other scholars as “artificial creation, recognized by people, brought people together, interacting with the outside environment, and to be delivered from generation to generation.
Moreover there is another theory of culture from the book《Riding the waves of culture》(Trompenaars,1983,1988). He thinks culture is the method adopted by a community to solve problem and interact with environment, rather than it is only a concept of value system. This theory
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has a connotative assumption that all human being face some common problems and difficulty such as time, space, outside world and natural environment, etc. The understanding, perception, attitude and behavior of the particular group of environment become special culture of this group. In this theory, the culture includes subjective and objective two levels. Summarizing from above the theories of culture I discussed, I think culture could be defined as “the creation of mankind, the material and spiritual wealth precipitated through
history. It is learned by each new generation.”
2.2 Model of culture
While discussing culture usually use a figure to describe the abstract definition of culture. I would like to use Schein’s (1985) model(iceberg of culture). He describes three levels of culture: artifacts and creation, values, and basic assumptions. The surface are cultural artifacts, which include all the visible features of a culture, such as the architecture of its physical environment, language, technology, clothing, manners, dress, and so on. Just below the surface are the espoused values of the culture. These consciously held values relate directly to the observed artifactual level. Deep below the surface are the basic underlying assumptions shared by the culture, which are the ultimate source of values and action. These
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beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings operate at an unconscious level and are taken for granted by member
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