Culture, And, By Luigi Pirandello

Culture is one of the most relevant elements that can define not only a society but also a country’s cumulative beliefs and system. Often noted as the origins of a country, culture is definitive in the sense that it harbors all the elements that can provide justification on the traditions and norms set by the society for its members. More often than not, the society members follow norms in order to create a harmonious community, and the beliefs and the traditions serve as the poles or grounding rules for each member to follow. Culture is very dynamic in the way that it can change over a variety of foreign influences but what is permanent about it is that original elements about it often lingers with the influences, therefore making it multi-faceted and broad. More importantly, culture serves as an individual and unique trait each society has, and therefore sets it apart from other countries and other societies.

In today 's society, culture is impacting our everyday life, experience and social relations; we are all categorized by our cultural “groups”, but this has changed rapidly throughout the years from one generation to the next. Cultural studies were developed in the late 1950’s, through the 1970’s by the British academic scholars. The British scholars were able engaged cultural analysis and the developed then transformed of the different fields, for example, politically, theoretically and empirically that are now represented around the world.

It would be in order to first examine the connotation and exact meaning of culture. Sociologists differ wide in their perceptions in explanting culture and its inter-related concepts. The best definition from the military view point is given by Leslie A. White, who quotes famous sociologists Frank Boas and Melville J. Herskovits. He writes “culture may be defined (as per Boas), as the totality of the mental and physical reactions and activities that characterise the behaviour of individuals composing a social group….”. He further quotes Herskovits and says, “When culture is closely analysed, we find but a series of patterned reactions that characterise the behaviour of the individuals who constitute a given group. Another writer Sapir quoted by Leslie white classified culture as the mass of typical reactions.’ Culture is best summarised as a way of life of the people. It is manmade part of environment. Cultures includes beliefs, ideas, religion, art, customs and other habits which the people acquire while living in a society. Another very important aspect of culture is that it is ever changing by learning and transmitting from one generation to other through a

For the purposes of this piece, culture is defined as “the full range of human patterned experience” as described by Cole (1996) cited in Gla ̆veanu & Jovchelovitch (2017, p.113). This chapter also provides a description of the importance culture plays in psychological research.

Culture is described as the symbols that individuals, groups and societies use to make decision of daily life and to assure their values. Culture is a model of basic assumptions invented, discovered or developed by a given organization as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaption and internal combination, which has worked well enough to think correctly and, so to instruct to new comers as the valid way to observe, consider and feel in relation to these problems. Culture consists of manner, mind-set, values, rituals, religious belief, law (written and unwritten), arts, ideas, custom, belief, ceremonies, social institutions, myths and legends, individual identity and behavior. Cultural pattern classifies are used to describe the dominant beliefs and values. Culture has been called the way of life for an entire society. It is a group or community living together and sharing a set of norms. Culture and society are coexistent. One does not or cannot exist without the other. Culture and society may have some common elements but the two are not the same; they are not identical.

The term culture is described as ‘a verb’. However it is explained that culture is difficult to define as it can be associated in different ways by different people. Some people think of culture as a thing while others term it as a set of beliefs,

It is not easy to define culture because culture is too broad a concept, can be both abstract and specific. However, what is agreed is culture covers all faces of our life as well as direct the way we behave, interact and communicate. (Liu et al., 2011). One popular definition is that “Culture is the total way of life of a group of people, comprising of the deposit of knowledge, experience, belief, values, traditions, religion, and notion of time, roles, spatial relations, worldviews, material objects and geographic territory”. (Liu et al., 2011, p.57). In this essay, I will analyse components and characteristics of culture, and based on that grounds, I will reflect on my own culture-being a Vietnamese. Dodd (1998) considered that culture is made up by three layers which consist of the core layer, the intermediate layer and the outer layer. I will examine what values and beliefs are considered important in my culture. Those are components of the inner core. Then, I will take some examples of the intermediate layer (expression of cultural activities by manifestation) such as communication patterns, customs and festivals.

The objective of this paper is to examine and appreciate the ways in which culture shape the way in terms of how we view the world and form relationship. As part of this exercise, I would be interviewing someone from the cultural group outside mine to acknowledge their culture in the area of language, dress, norms roles and traditions. This paper or project is aim to assist me to put into practice what I have learnt from the course concept of Understanding Diversity. Culture is that which define us; it molds our identity and has a great influence on our behavior.

The concept of culture is something that defines many aspects of one’s life. From physical objects to different ways of thinking, culture adds significance to human life and makes groups of people distinct from one another. Culture is essentially a group of people who come together with similar interests and points of view. According to the Center for Advanced Language Acquisition of the University of Minnesota, “culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization.” From a more sociological perspective, culture is a way in which people come together in order to fulfill their needs. These shared patterns and ideas identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.” Culture is one of the things that sets the United States apart from the rest of the world. Not that the rest of the world is not cultural, but the circumstance here is different. Many people of different cultural backroads come to this country in search of a better life. As a consequence, the United States has become a place where many cultures merge together like a colossal pot soup.

Many people are inspired by things that occur in their life or things they witness, which tends to motivate them to do something or express an experience in someway. Luigi Pirandello always said ¨Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels¨ ("Luigi Pirandello Quotes"). Case in point, Luigi lived by this quote, incorporating nature and reality in his works. He was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. Pirandello was mostly inspired by individual desires, physiological issues, and struggles within communities/countries.

A major aspect of society that sociologists and social scientists alike focus their studies on is culture. Culture is defined as of thought, behavior, and production that are handed down from one generation to the next by means of communicative interaction through language, gestures, writing and other forms of communication rather than by genetic transmission (Kornblum & Smith, 2011, p. 46). Commonly, culture is simple seen as a form of art or what cuisine a group of people eats, however, culture is complex network of behaviors and artifacts define a society. There are three major dimensions of culture that help one understand complexity of culture in a society: ideas, norms and material culture.

Although there is no standard definition of culture, the term has been embedded in human history. Terpstra and David (1991) define culture as members of a society with similar ideas, customs and social behaviours that distinguishes one group from another. Their work identifies several characteristics that make up culture, it is imperative that members should have a unified set of values and beliefs towards a common purpose where lessons are learnt and passed on from one generation to the next. Culture can be unique and used to differentiate one group from another and that it’s established to provide solutions to challenges that all individuals face. Furthermore, evidence suggests that cultural differences are becoming increasingly more apparent in todays current economic climate for organisations and the extent that local norms and values

The objective of this essay is to present and analyse the main definitions of the word culture through different social and historical processes, starting from the ancient times to the most modern times.

The studies into culture have been on-going and the importance of cultural significance in societies has increased in recent years due to the changing dimensions of the world we live in. Globalization itself has had a very profound effect on cross-cultural interactions through progression in the fields of communication and technology that allow the formation of virtual work teams, the elimination of borders in trade, increased labour mobility and migration between countries. While theorists over the years have tried to define culture, it is important to note that cultural experts themselves have stressed the difficulty of defining the concept without touching into different ideas and theories that contradict each other (Browaeys and Price, 2008). Hofstede (2001) defines culture as 'the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another '. In his book International Management (2003), Tayeb adds to the literature defining culture as ‘historically evolved values, attitudes and meanings that are learned and shared by the members of community and which influence their material and non-material way of life’. Some of the most commonly identified elements of culture are values, attitudes, rituals and shared meanings that are developed by individuals over the course of their lives through education, regional and national influences (Hofsede et al, 1991; Schwartz, 1992; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997). Having

Every individual is born being part of a specific society, and as part of which he learn the beliefs, customs and values shared by his society. This process called enculturation is the assimilation of an individual’s culture. The concept of culture has been described many times over the human existence; however, it is much more complex and complete of what it seems. To understand the concept of culture is necessary look at it as multidimensional, in which every element is fundamental to it, and because of it has great importance in the understanding of the human race.