II. Culture

1. Definition of culture

Culture is a learned set of interpretations about beliefs, values, norms and social practices which affect the behaviors of a relatively large group of people. Culture is learned from the people you interact with as you are socialized; cultures provide their members with a set of interpretations that they use as filers to make sense of messages and experiences. Culture exists in the minds of people, not in external or tangible objects or behaviors.

2. Atkinson’s definition of culture: a) received view of culture 2) an alternative view of culture

Atkinson refers to two views of culture: ‘a received, commonsense view of culture’ and ‘non-standard notions of culture’. For him, these two views of culture are inadequate for they are extreme possible interpretations of the notions of culture. By the received view of culture, Atkinson refers to an outdated notion of culture that is “nationally distinct, homogeneous, relatively unchanging, and as all-encompassing systems of rules or norms that substantially determine personal behavior”. By non-standard notions of culture, Atkinson refers to concepts emanating from critiques of received views of culture. An alternative view suggests that culture is not as homogeneous as one might believe within various levels of society. For instance, in modern urban societies there is a dynamic interaction between subcultures, socioeconomic strata, ethnicity, sex/gender, views of morality and ethics etc.

So the definitions of ‘‘culture’’ is changing. It may range from the ‘‘received’’ definition of culture as static (referring to ‘‘big,’’ ethnic cultures) to alternative definitions of culture as dynamic (often referring to ‘‘small’’ cultures, e.g. disciplinary, classroom, local).

3. Cultures interacting cultures in an educational setting: a) characteristic features of large cultures; b) characteristic features of small cultures

Large cultures (normative and prescriptive): national, universal, religious, ethnic

Small cultures (dynamic, changing, nonessentialistic): professional (doctors, teachers), academic, youth culture, subculture.

Atkinson proposes a model of culture that both considers culture as a product instead of a process and examines ‘‘big’’ culture versus ‘‘small’’ culture. Instead of focusing on the big culture (i.e. national or ethnic culture), intercultural rhetoric research needs to consider the complexly interacting small cultures in any educational or other intercultural situation. Drawing on the work of Holliday (1994, 1999), Atkinson shows how small cultures (i.e. classroom culture, disciplinary culture, youth culture, student culture, etc.) interact with the national culture. According to Atkinson, ‘‘In no sense, then, could the ‘cultural action’ taking place in any particular educational setting be accounted for solely in terms of the national culture in which that educational setting appeared to be located, as has often been done in the past.’’

Holliday’s view of culture. Holliday (1999) distinguishes between two paradigms of culture in applied linguistics: large and small cultures. He develops a definition of culture by contrasting the two paradigms in such a way that ‘large’ signifies “ethnic, national, or international” cultural differences, and ‘small’ signifies “any cohesive social grouping”.)