Free Essay Example - Co-Cultures

Culture refers to the customs, beliefs, and social behaviors of different people or societies. Other scholars may equate culture to various languages, values, traditions, and beliefs the different people share (Samovar et al., 2010). Culture is comprised of two different groups, which include, the in-group which represents the group where one belongs, and the out-group, which is viewed as a separate group. Their various cultures, for example, foods, holidays, music, styles of dressings, how we interact as well as address other people. Different groups of people have diverse methods of communicating with each other, and this makes each person unique in the way of language and symbols used during communication. Cultural groups vary in scale; thus, most people belong to various co-cultures. Co-culture comprises a smaller group of people who can be differentiated by multiple features such as gender, religion, language, age, education, race, economic status, occupation, and other various aspects of life. From the text of Wiemann, the author presents a lady by the name Anna who belongs to multiple co-cultures, for example, Anna is an American, an African American, a lawyer married with two children and her income is over $100000 per year, she is a Democrat and a catholic (O'Hair & Wiemann 2011). Anna's life, communication, how she presents herself to others, and how she perceives other people's behavior is primarily affected by the above co-cultures. Hobbies and interest can also play a vital role in explaining the culture of a person, for example, a person who likes music will be able to know varieties of music, for example, rock, soul, and hip-hop, and might further break down these music styles as, old-school, freestyle and R& B (O'Hair & Wiemann 2011). People who are not much interested in music, they do not care about various styles of music provided they can listen to any music.

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In most American families, co-culture can be described as a branch and part of a culture. In my culture, being educated is part of co-culture. Being an undergraduate student of 20 years of age, living on campus is quite challenging, trying to think of how life is likely to be after finishing my undergraduate course. Will I get a job immediately, or will I join the group of people who finish school and spend years without being employed? This is a stage where parents start to depend on their children for help; thus, I have to work hard to ensure that I succeed in my education and help them after securing a job. Another co-culture which I belong in is the economic status. It can be hard a time to differentiate between a person who is educated and that who is not learned; however it is easier to tell when one is poor and rich, my family's economic stats can be termed as average; however, it has been my burden to work hard every day to change it for the better. Religion is another co-culture that can best describe me; every person has the Supreme Being whom they believe and worship (Piller 2017). I believe in the doctrines and teachings of Christianities since I am a Christian, and this does not make other people who believe in other religion to inferior because I have a variety of friends from different denominations, but still we do meet and share and learn from each other, and it is fascinating. Other co-cultures that I would use to describe myself include; I am a lover of music in general, an American, and a lover of sports activities.

Among all the co-cultures that can be used to describe me, the most dominant one is education. My mother always teaches me that the best weapon on this earth is not military equipment but knowledge. This has made me value education very much that some of my friends who know me well do call me 'Mr. Professor.' The currents full of modern technologies in almost every aspect of life; thus, for people to be a better position of having a better life experience, they have to be learned. The only way to t eradicate poverty is by going to school. Hence, most of my time, I would spend educating my friends or learning from them. I do read lots of books and attend every class activity, and this has helped me improve my knowledge and communication with other people. I love being described by my education because it is non-discriminatory; for example, every person has an opportunity to be learned, however not everybody has the opportunity to belong to the same race, gender, or family background.

I have always desired to travel all around the world and tour various places, and this means that I will have to interact with different kinds of people with different cultures and norms; hence I don't want to limit myself to only one co-culture so that I will be able to relate with a variety of people. In life I have learned that people live their lives on a different scale from each other, some people are poor compared to others, some are while others are white, some people have different talents others have few talents; hence these co-cultures will help me to interact with each other easily and accept everybody without any discrimination, this will enhance my communication every person (Piller 2017).

Intercultural Communication is the process through which members of two or more cultures or co-cultures talk to each other through the influence of their difference in cultural perceptions and symbol systems, and this includes both verbal and non-verbal communication (Kurylo, 2012). In Mediterranean culture, men do touch each other when communicating, while in North America, men keep a distance between them when talking as an example of non-verbal communication (Samovar et al., 2010). The above co-cultures, therefore, may influence my interaction with other people outside my culture in various ways; for example communication system is featured by behavior that is symbolic and intentional, sometimes I do use gestures, as assign to pass information to my friends especially when we a little it far from each other. Knowing the religion of my fellows helps me to learn and accept each person's doctrines and beliefs; thus, when communicating with them, I become cautious in my speech. Education, plays a significant role in shaping the communication of a person, therefore being educated has helped me to be able to interact with people from various parts of the world quickly, and people of different positions, age and occupations, for example, an educated person can differentiate how to talk to the Vice-Chancellor and a colleague or student.

In conclusion, communication is part of the culture of different groups of people around the world. To be able to communicate well with a different party, one must first learn and understand the culture and co-culture of each person; this will help to avoid problems of violence between people, thus leading to peace, love, and unity. Every society has its norms, rules, and practices, while each person has their co-cultures or believed that acts as a principle in guiding their lives. Therefore it is indispensable to always learn to embrace the cultural practices of everybody, despite their position in life. Everyone should have a co-culture that can be used to describe them; however, they should not confine them to only one particular co-culture, as this will help in embracing, understanding, and accepting everybody without any discrimination.

References

Kurylo, A. (2012). Inter/Cultural Communication: Representation and Construction of Culture.

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2011). Real Communication + The Essential Guide to Interpersonal Communication. Purdue University Global Bookshelf.Piller, I. (2017). Intercultural communication: A critical introduction. Edinburgh University Press.

Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., & McDaniel, E. R. (2010). Communication between cultures. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.