Question

Define culture. Share your thoughts regarding communication in our diverse society and how race/ethnicity, social class, generational differences, regional differences and disabilities make a difference in communication styles and can cause barriers in communication.

Answer 1

If we look back, we will realize that we learned most of our communication skill by interacting with a certain group of people over and over again. During childhood, we practiced our basic communication skill with our parents, during our teens we did that with our classmates and friends, when we became adult we modified our communication skill to match the society.

At every stage we have been surrounded by people with home we are comfortable. The other way of looking at it is that we became comfortable with people around us. Naturally if this process of evolution in communication skills did not include the groups mentioned in the question then it is likely that we are not used to speaking with racial minorities, different social classes, age groups and disabled individuals. This is likely because we are not sure what exactly may or may not offend them. This is why we often become overly conscious and careful while speaking in public or speaking to a group of diverse people.

This inhibition of not offending people may cause disturbance in our natural way of communication. It could be channels, our tone, or even the vocabulary that we use. Nonetheless this inhibition takes us away from our natural mode of communication and makes us uncomfortable. This puts us in unknown territory than our usual culture.

Our culture can be defined as the concepts, ideas, customs, and norms that are part of our society and the method of operation that we are familiar with. This means communication is a strong part of our culture and when our culture is disrupted, it causes barrier not only in communication but in other aspects as well.