Culture, no doubt one of the most complex words of the English language, for years, scholars

Most Americans are not aware of the many definitions the word culture has had over its course of existence in the English language. Some associate their knowledge of culture with one of Beethoven 's classic symphonies or with a beautiful painting by Picasso. These same individuals most often classify their ideal of culture in two classes- high and low culture. As the authors state, “a cultured person is someone who has achieved a certain level of refinement and

Bevan & Sole (2014) proposes that culture is the cumulative knowledge deposits, opinions, morals, occurrences, outlooks, positions, consequences, orders, moments, spatial relations, the views of the world and the significant things that a collection of people has developed over generations throughout groups and personal endeavors. Culture is not stationary; it is lively and is continuously changing through human conduct, viewpoints, occurrences, concepts and manners including other things said.

The United States is considered to be the world’s largest national economy. The United States have proven time and time again that its economy is one that should be modeled after by showcasing a proven track record. Although its economy is considered the largest, it has had its problems such as the Great Depression and the Recession that have taken placed recently beginning in 2007 lasting until mid 2009. Both of these economic down turns are similar in nature which has caused many to feel negative effects,

In the Baroque period, artists started to depict themselves as the main subject matter more often. Rembrandt had painted a lot of self-portraits in his entire life. In his self-portrait did in 1632, Rembrandt is the focus and he is dressed fashionably. Like most of the self-portraits in Baroque, he only painted his upper body so his face can be seen clearly. At the age of 26, Rembrandt showed a sense of youth and pride in his gaze. The painting is done in a realistic way which the details of clothing can be seen clearly. Back in the time when camera did not exist, painting is the only way to capture the world in graphics. Self-portrait is the record of a person’s physical appearance. At that period, self-portrait was not only appreciated as art but also a record of the people and the society.

Culture by definition is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is part of a person's self-conception and self-perception and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any type of social group that has its own distinct culture. To me that definition couldn't be more spot on but let's go more in depth over the past few months in my English class we have been trying to learn what our culture is and what part culture plays in our daily lives so in this essay I will be sharing with you what I think culture is what it means to me and how I think it impacts our way of living and the way we look at each other as human beings and how we treat each other and how all this makes up my culture

The concept of culture is polisemantic, to an extent that has almost become impossible to reach an agreement on what exactly culture means. However, the academia has found certain concomitants: it is learnt within a specific social group (Turner), it is a language of shared, symbols, values and moral constraints (Geertz) and it is constructed through experience (Vigotsky). However, when the world culture is used within law, policy or daily life, it loses its meaning, and somehow it becomes a “label” composed by a list of nouns (it used to contain adjectives, but since political correctness became the dominant discourse, this changed); somehow its meaning and foremost political

In our textbook, Real Communications by O’Hair, Wiemann, Mullin and Teven, culture is defined as, “a learned system of thought and behavior that belongs to and typifies a large group of people”. In short, culture is the way we do things that is the same as people where we came from. It can vary not only from country to country, but even different parts of the city. It is part of an identity through which we see the world and can affect how we interpret information, especially speeches and body language. Culture includes lots of things such as languages, fashion, music, art, customs, and slang.

The definition of culture offered in one textbook is “That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man person as a member of society.”

Today, we live in a culturally diverse society due to globalization. As our world grows, expands and become increasingly more interconnected, the need for effective interpersonal communication among differing cultures has become apparent. When people from different cultures interact with one another there is intercultural communication because different cultures create different interpretation and expectations about what is seen as competent behaviors that will enable the construction of shared meanings.

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,

Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory was designed to expound on the methods used by speakers who wish to mitigate face threats realised by face threatening acts toward the hearer. Two significant divisions of the theory involve the fundamental explanation of politeness and politeness strategies that also function as the core framework to the theory. The two linguists elaborately explained on the workings of ‘politeness’ as well as as how it functions in different social interactions. Complementarily, the second aspect of the theory encompasses elaborate lists of politeness strategies.

As conceptualized by Young Yun Kim, the interethnic communication theory describes the multifaceted layers and factors in communication event. Described as an open system, interethnic communication occurs between communicators and their interactant(s) who possess characteristic similarities or differences in terms of their ethnic or identity markers (Kim, 2005). There are four layers to her theory: behavior, communicator, situation, and environment. All of these layers contribute to how the communicator and their interactant decides to interact, whether it is associative or dissociative. This paper will focus on the situation layer.

People have different ways to express politeness and they usually use a range of different linguistic expressions to do so, depending on the relationship with the addressee. This research will explain Browns and Levinson’s politeness theory and will recognize how universal this theory is and weather it can be applied on Japanese language taking into account the difference in cultures.

Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1962) identify over 150 scientific definitions of the concept of culture. Indeed, many authors have tried to define culture and this is why there are so many definitions and that a unique one is hard to find. First of all, Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) assume that culture is a suite of patterns, implicit and explicit, “of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts” (p.47). Later, Hofstede adds that culture is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another” (Hofstede, 1991, p.51). This definition is the most widely accepted one amongst practitioners. For Winthrop (1991), culture is the distinctive models of thoughts, actions and values that composed members of a society or a social group. In other words,

Intercultural communication is commonly explained as an interaction between people of 'different cultures whether defined in terms of racial, ethnic or socioeconomic differences.' Human communication consists of verbal and nonverbal messages (language and gestures) which are shaped by gender, social class or culture. Thus, what perimeters define the intercultural exchange and what primary messages do we need or try to convey?