Roots, Routes, and Communication

Cultural Roots and Cultural Routes

There are two basic concepts that are important for understanding intercultural communication. They are cultural roots and cultural routes, and they are interconnected. For our purposes, we will define culture in a broad sense, as the totality of learned and socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behaviors or ways of life. Culture consists of both material culture (the physical and technological aspects of our lives) and nonmaterial culture (such as customs, values, beliefs, and patterns of communication).

Cultural roots refer to the specific ties that people have to particular places. These spaces are knowable places with which we identify. These particular places can be at the macrolevel of society, such as a nation, and at the microlevel of society, such as our homes and neighborhood. Cultural roots are formed through socialization, or the learning process by which we become functioning social beings. It is through the socialization process that we learn the values, beliefs, and norms that make up our particular culture and society, forming a cultural boundary, so to speak. Our cultural roots provide us with a framework for understanding and explaining the world. While our roots help us make sense of the world around us and help us navigate it, they can also hinder our understanding of the world and the various people with whom we interact. We may be so entrenched in our cultural roots that we are resistant to other people's way of life and cultures. This can result in us having a difficult time accepting people who are different from us. Our entrenched cultural roots can foster prejudices, stereotyping, and ethnocentrism, all of which make communication with others difficult.

As we journey on life's paths, we discover cultural routes. Cultural routes are passages, or movements, beyond our cultural roots. It is along this road or these roads that we come into contact with people who are...