Literature Review

On
Culture

Introduction
Every country, nation has its own set of characteristics that differentiates them from another
country or nation. This is simply called culture. Culture is considered a central concept in
anthropology. The word culture derives from a latin term “Colere”, which means to tend to the
earth and grow. Although each nation has its own culture, yet culture can also vary even within a
country.

In simple term, Culture is the social behavior and norms found in human societies. But defining
culture can be difficult sometimes.

Various author defines culture in different way. According to Cristina De Rossi, an anthropologist,
"Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage,
music, what we believe is right or wrong, how we sit at the table, how we greet visitors, how we
behave with loved ones, and a million other things,"

According to an article by Banks and McGee, it's been said that, "Most social scientists today view
culture as consisting primarily of the symbolic, ideational, and intangible aspects of human
societies. The essence of a culture is not its artifacts, tools, or other tangible cultural elements but
how the members of the group interpret, use, and perceive them. It is the values, symbols,
interpretations, and perspectives that distinguish one people from another in modernized societies;
it is not material objects and other tangible aspects of human societies. People within a culture
usually interpret the meaning of symbols, artifacts, and behaviors in the same or in similar ways."

Louise Damen in his paper, Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension on the Language Classroom.,
mentioned that "Culture: learned and shared human patterns or models for living; day- to-day
living patterns. These patterns and models pervade all aspects of human social interaction. Culture
is mankind's primary adaptive mechanism".
Schwartz also mentioned in his work, ‘Culture consists of the derivatives of experience, more or
less organized, learned or created by the individuals of a population, including those images or
encodements and their interpretations (meanings) transmitted from past generations, from
contemporaries, or formed by individuals themselves.’

Key Characteristics of Culture

To understand the culture properly we must understand some nature of culture. These are
mentioned below:

 Culture is manifested at different layers of depth

 Culture affects behavior and interpretations of behavior
 Culture can be differentiated from both universal human nature and unique individual
personality
 Culture influences biological processes
 Culture is associated with social groups
 Culture is both an individual construct and a social construct
 Culture is always both socially and psychologically distributed in a group, and so the
delineation of a culture’s features will always be fuzzy
 Culture has both universal and distinctive elements
 Culture is learned
 Culture is subject to gradual change
 The various parts of a culture are all, to some degree, interrelated
 Culture is a descriptive not an evaluative concept
Elements of Culture:
Culture consists of various broad and specific elements. Broadly culture has the following
elements-

Symbols
Every culture is filled with symbols, or things that stand for something else and that often evoke
various reactions and emotions. Some symbols are actually types of nonverbal communication,
while other symbols are in fact material objects.

Norms
Cultures differ widely in their norms, or standards and expectations for behaving. We already saw
that the nature of drunken behavior depends on society’s expectations of how people should
behave when drunk. Norms of drunken behavior influence how we behave when we drink too
much.

Language
Language is crucial to communication and thus to any society’s culture. Children learn language
from their culture just as they learn about shaking hands, about gestures, and about the significance
of the flag and other symbols.

Rituals

Different cultures also have different rituals, or established procedures and ceremonies that often
mark transitions in the life course. As such, rituals both reflect and transmit a culture’s norms and
other elements from one generation to the next. Graduation ceremonies in colleges and universities
are familiar examples of time-honored rituals.
Types of Culture

Cultures around the world can also be classified based on following manner:

Real Culture
Real culture can be observed in our social life. We act upon on culture in our social life is real,
its part which the people adopt in their social life is their real one.
Ideal Culture
The culture which is presented as a pattern or precedent to the people is called ideal. It is the goal
of the society. It can never be achieved fully because some part of it remains out of practice. It is
explained in textbooks, our leaders’ speeches and guidance.
Material Culture
Material culture consists of man-made objects such as furniture, automobiles, buildings, dams,
bridges, roads and in fact, the physical matter converted and used by man. It is closely related
with the external, mechanical as well as useful objects.
Non-Material Culture
The term 'culture' when used in the ordinary sense, means non-material culture'. This term when
used in the ordinary sense, means non-material. It is something nonphysical ideas which include
values, beliefs, symbols, organization and institutions etc.

Conclusion:
https://www.livescience.com/21478-what-is-culture-definition-of-culture.html
http://open.lib.umn.edu/sociology/chapter/3-2-the-elements-of-culture/