What it is culture ?

A. Definitions of Culture by scientist

1.      Damen, L. (1987). Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension on the Language Classroom. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

"Culture is 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".

2.      Hofstede, G. (1984). National cultures and corporate cultures. In L.A. Samovar & R.E. Porter (Eds.), Communication Between Cultures. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

"Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another."

3.      Kluckhohn, C., & Kelly, W.H. (1945). The concept of culture. In R. Linton (Ed.). The Science of Man in the World Culture. New York. (pp. 78-105).

"By culture we mean all those historically created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational, and nonrational, which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behavior of men."

4.      Lederach, J.P. (1995). Preparing for peace: Conflict transformation across cultures. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

"Culture is the shared knowledge and schemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them".

5.      Linton, R. (1945). The Cultural Background of Personality. New York.

"A culture is a configuration of learned behaviors and results of behavior whose component elements are shared and transmitted by the members of a particular society".

In conclusion,culture is The system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning.

B. Why culture is important ??

Culture is important because when the word "culture" is mentioned, we can think of many things as "cultural", such as language, clothings... etc, because we classify cultures of different places. However, culture is so valuable that it has to be kept for thousands of years,and passed on by one generation to another. Culture is so important that it is more than its distinct visible features, if we extends this to the inner self of a person, to members within a society, further to the whole community, maybe we can find some answers by finding out how they are affected by culture,and also since culture can form invisible bonds between members in the community, this can hold people with the same cultural background together, passing on the values. This propogation of values is can not only transmit culture knowledge and retain the relationship among people, it also builds up a long term tradition after years and years. Culture is strengthened in this way because it can give background and reference to its later generations of its ability of keeping the long-term tradition, gaining the sense of belonging of people to the country of that culture.

C. The examples of different culture in the other countries

• Shaking the head in a horizontal direction in most countries means ”no”, while in India it means “yes”, and in hindi language the voice lowers in pitch at the end of a question.
•  Showing the thumb held upwards means in Latin America, especially Brazil, but also in many other countries “everything’s ok”, while it is understood in some Islamic countries as well as Sardinia and Greece as a rude sexual sign. Furthermore, the sign of thumb up may signify the number "one" in France and a few other central european countries 
• “Everything ok” is shown in western European countries, especially between pilots and divers, with the sign of the thumb and forefinger forming an “O”. This sign means in Japan “now we may talk about money”, in southern France the contrary (“nothing, without any value”), in Spain, some Latin American countries, Eastern Europe and Russia it is an indecent sexual sign.
• In North America as well as in Arabic countries the pauses between words are usually not too long, while in Japan pauses can give a contradictory sense to the spoken words by the meaning of pauses. Enduring silence is perceived as comfortable in Japan, while in Europe and North America it may cause insecureness and embarrassment. Scandinavians, by Western standards, are more tolerant of silent breaks during conversations. 
• Laughing is connoted in most countries with happiness - in Japan it is often a sign of confusion, insecureness and embarrassment 
• In the UK Ireland and Commonwealth countries, the word „compromise” has a positive meaning (as a consent, an agreement where both parties win something); in the USA it may rather have negative connotations (as both parties lose something). 
•  In Mediterranean European countries, Latin America and Sub Saharan Africa, it is normal, or at least widely tolerated, to arrive half an hour late for a dinner invitaiton, whereas in Germany and Switzerland this would be extremely rude. 
•  If invited to dinner, in many Asian countries and Central America it is well-mannered to leave right after the dinner: the ones who don’t leave may indicate they have not eaten enough. In the Indian Sub-Continent, European and North American countries this is considered rude, indicating that the guest only wanted to eat but wouldn’t enjoy the company with the hosts. 
•  In Africa, saying to a female friend one has not seen for a while that she has put on weight means she is physically healthier than before or had a nice holiday, whereas this would be considered as an insult in Europe, North America and Australia.