The Importance Of Learning Culture

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Introduction Communication is very important to human beings. Good communication skills can help people achieve success in life. “When we communicate we always have a purpose. We don’t just communicate for its own sake.” (O'Sullivan, 1994) When students communicate with teachers, they can know what they can do or what they cannot do which may lead to better teaching and learning. When employers communicate with employees, they can know their employees’ wishes, as well as, feelings about their jobs, so they can cooperate well which can contribute to the sustainable growth of companies. Moreover, when people communicate with other people, especially people from other countries, they should know those people’s cultures which can help them avoid …show more content…

Learning culture is very necessary. Many authors claimed definitions of cultures. Culture is “a complex system of concepts, attitudes, values, beliefs, conventions, behaviours, practices, rituals, and lifestyle of the people who make up a cultural group, as well as the artefacts they produce and the institutions they create” (Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarino, & Kohler, 2003). In 1995, Shen stated that “Culture is how people act in different situations, and how they use language to express their ideas.” “Cultures have different values and beliefs which influence the way people behave and communicate.” (Zhu, 2014). The emphasize is on ways people act, behave or believe which are accepted by many people from those cultures. For example, asking about age, marital status or salary seems to be normal to many elderly people in Vietnamese culture. When grandfathers or grandmothers meet their grandchildren, the first words after greetings are usually about their grandchildren’s marital status or salary. Those elderly people consider it normal. If the grandchildren are Vietnamese and have lived in Vietnam since they were born, that can be alright. However, if the grandchildren just come back from countries like the USA, they might get annoyed because in the USA culture asking private questions seems to be very cruel. Another example of …show more content…

Studying subgroups, as well as, the language used in those subgroups is also a good way to improve communication among people. Subgroups are groups having members who have commons in some aspects and also “pose similar problems as cultures” (Jandt, 2001). However, subgroups “usually do not involve the same large number of people as cultures and are not necessarily thought of as accumulating values and patterns of behavior over generations in the same way as cultures” (Jandt, 2001). For example, there are many subgroups, such as subgroup of members who like football, subgroups of members who are teachers or subgroups of members who are

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