Metaphorical images of culture

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 489.

Looking closer at the rules for distinguishing one culture from another: which of them strike you as particularly salient and useful for describing the culture differences between nations?

Victoria Guillén Nieto

University of Alicante

A variety of metaphorical models have been used to explain the conceptual nature of culture. For instance, the onion model sees layers of culture which can be peeled away to reveal underlying basic assumptions. The tree model shows, on the one hand, visible aspects of culture such as behaviour, clothing and food hanging from the branches of the tree; and on the other, hidden aspects such as the underlying meaning, beliefs and attitudes embedded in the roots.

However, in our view it is the iceberg model which best illustrates the multifaceted nature of culture. This model depicts culture as an iceberg, with the tangible expressions of culture and behaviour above the surface of the water, and the underlying attitudes, beliefs, values and meanings below the surface.

As we can see from figure 1, the iceberg metaphor provides an image of the dual nature of culture, i.e. the visible and the invisible. The visible face is the outer expression of culture, that is, the peripheral aspects such as: people's patterns of behaviour, their eating habits, their clothing, their body language, social etiquette, etc. It is believed that just like the observable mass of ice floating in the sea, the visible face represents only 30% of the immensity of culture.

By contrast, the invisible face is the inner expression of culture, the core beliefs, that is, how people make sense of the world, their principles, their attitudes, their values, etc. This hidden face represents 70% of the dimension of culture and is comparable to the huge mass of the iceberg hidden under the water surface.

1.11. Read what Craig Storti in his book The Art of Crossing Cultures says about flexible thinking, and the ‘flexible thinking' model that follows. Then answer the questions.

The ability to interpret situations, problems, practices – the way we do things – from multiple perspectives, from the way other people see them, is a tremendous benefit to you and your company. You begin to understand that behaviour makes no sense to you might make perfect sense to others. You're not so quick to judge any more… you give the benefit of the doubt.