Cultural Approaches to Communication

Cultural Approaches to Communication there be cardinal handed-d consume come outes to confabulation transmission and ritual. The transmission approach views converse as conveying information over a distance for the purpose of avow whereas the ritual approach views it as a facsimile of sh ard tenets (C atomic number 18y, n.d.). The traditional approaches ar viewed as counter posed views of chat as no(prenominal) of the approaches contests what the otherwise(a) has to offer. However their insights into the process of converse impart given hiking to a saucily pagan approach to communication where communication is defined as a exemplary process whereby macrocosm is produced, maintained, repaired, and trans make (Carey, 1988, pp. 23-24). This approach helps in understanding the existing communication processes in a disarmingly simple manner which makes it a wonderful experience. The objective of this attempt is to analyze the cultural approach to communication with the help of a communication process, in this case, bound. This essay attempts to describe the process of cultural approach to communication with the help of dancing as a communication process. Dance was chosen for the case business firm because it is a social and cultur each(prenominal)y significant process. most(prenominal) people pass water an intuitive understanding of bound, even from assorted cultures, except what they lack is the office to explain it to others in terms of a communication process.In his leger Experimence and Nature, Dewey claimed that the of all things communication is the most wonderful (1939, p. 385). However, the e trulyday activities interchangeable conversations, openhanded and receiving instruction, sharing of information, entertaining others and getting entertained which are collectively termed as communication (Carey, 1988, p. 23) are routine activities. They happen so practically and are so redundant that they are almost trivial and stop r eceiving our attention. thither is nothing wonderful about these activities unless there is excessive masochism like a brilliant opera or a sensational bare-asss item. much(prenominal) wonderfulness is rare which leads umteen communication scholars to term day-to-day communication as a common and mundane human experience. However, Carey does not occupy to this view as he believes that Dewey must have meant something deeper when he termed communication as the most wonderful thing. According to Carey, communication come out of the closets mundane as people focus in like manner much on trivial aspects that they stymy the awesomeness in it. In his cultural approach to communication, Carey proposed to make communication appear problematic by inversing the relationship between realism and symbolic forms. Carey apply the term symbolic process which renders universe to explain the wonderfulness in communication.By the term symbolic process, Carey meant a representation for communi ty ideals in the material forms. The material forms or symbols can be artistic reflexions like song, leaping, plays, painting or journalism or scientific subjects such as anthropology or biology. The common belief among majority of people is truthfulness is ancient and symbolic representation is secondary. This means that there is an all encompassing truthfulness which does not change, what changes is the peoles perception of reality which they represent by an artistic expression or scientific subject. For spokesperson, a painter who is pessimistic and sees everything which is wrong in the society is likely to produce darker paintings because it is his perception of reality. The cultural apporach however counters this belief by contesting that the symbols are primary. The symbolic process creates reality or as Kenneth Burke says reality is the signs of words. Carey argues that there is no single reality which is all encompassing, rather reality is brought into existence by mu ltiple symbolic processes deviation on in the universe at any point of metre. For example, a news item (symbolic process) may lead people to act in a certain way which bequeath create new reality. This reality is different for different people and thus reality is not a given.Dance is a non-verbal communication process which is social and culturally significant. Most people have an intuitive understanding of dance which helps them in evaluating dance from various cultures. There are some(prenominal) genres of dance from important concert dance to popular dance forms, from ritual dance to forms of sport such as figure skating. Different forms of dance are prevalent in different separate of the world such as classical ballet in Europe and ritual dance in Asia. Each culture has its own crotchety element in dancing, for example, association of musical instruments such as drums with dancing in most of Africa. A common understanding of the eventful elements of dance across cultures is thus important to understand the communication process.There are several attempts made by researchers to define dance in their cultural context. The Websters Third International Dictionary defines dance as rythmic movemement having as its aim the creation of visual designs by a series of poses through space in time and executed by body parts with a certain temperament and purpose (Kurath, 1960, pp. 234-235). According to Hanna, the pattern of series of poses stands good in traditional dance categories such as classical ballet and ritual dance, however fail in modern dance forms such as Tharp in which the dancers bodies just keep spiralling and there is no distinct series of poses (1987). which stand good in their own cultures nevertheless fail in their understanding of cross-cultural elements.Kealiinohomoku (1972, p. 387) defines dance as an affective mode of expression which requires both time and space, employs motor behaviour in redundant patterns which are closely linke d to the definitve features of musicality. According to Hanna, this definition is too limited as dance can occur without expression of emotions. Moreover, redundancy is not a feature of many dance forms and they often have a comical beginning and climax. The association of musicality with dance is very limited in scope as music and dance are two separate activities and need not happen together. In fact, several dance forms such as figure gymnastics take ordinate without music.The present definitions stand good in their limited cultural context, but fail when applied to diverse cross-cultural dance forms. These definitions of dance are limited in their understanding of important elements of dance across cultures. They every incorporate unnecessary elements (such as transcending utility in Kuraths definition) or impart out important elements (such as culturally patterned sequence in Kealiinohomokus definition. Hanna attempts to bridge this gap in cross-cultural understanding of da nce by establishing four criteria which must be fulfilled for an activity to be termed as dance i) purposeful, ii) intentionally rhythmical, iii) culturally patterned sequences of iv a) non verbal body movements, b) extra ordinary motor activites, c) motion having inherent and aesthetic determine (Hanna, 1987, p. 19).To analyze dance from a cultural approach to communication, Careys notion of communication, that is, reality is produced, maintained, repaired and transformed has to be evaluated in the context of dance. While dance is influenced by a culture, it also creates a culture (producing reality) of its own. Like any other artists, dancers vie to be unique in their art by incorporating unique steps in their movements which are not necessarily influenced by their culture. A prime example will be Michael capital of Mississippi who influenced a new fashion and dance culture of his own throughout the world with his unique steps. capital of Mississippis dance works have lasted in t he memories of viewers in the forms of records beyond the actual dance situation. This has influenced thousands of youngsters to copy Jackson which has produced reality by creating a form of dance and even fashion which previously did not exist.in one case the reality has been produced, the creators look to maintain the reality in the wake of new generations who might find it problematic by creating frozen rules and regulations. This maintenance of reality is visible in popular dance forms such as classical ballet. Brinson (1991) observes that the national dance culture in elitist Europe has often rigid formality and artificiality which forces the dancers to be within the realm of existing reality. The dance schools and theatres chitchat this rigidity on students of dance which can be viewed as an endeavor to maintain reality. It has been moderately successful in some cases. The traditional Indian dance forms such as Bharatnatyam and Kuchipudi are said to have retain their origi nal form after(prenominal) even centuries of their origin despite many external modernizing pressures.In most cases, however, the new generation finds the existing dance forms too problematic and seek to incorporate newer changes (repairing and transforming the reality). A prime example can be Isadora Duncan who worked towards loosening the restrictions on classical ballet and formed a modern dance tradition known as Twyla Tharp. In most cases, however, the repaired reality is caused due to cultural (external) changes. In Duncans case, the rise of theatre dance and vaudeville created an appropriate condition for her to introduce changes to the classical and more(prenominal) rigid form of ballet. This contradicts with Careys notion that transformation in reality will happen due to symbolic process. In the case of Twyla Tharp and most other modern dance forms, the symbolic process has happened due to transformation in reality or cultural changes.This can mean two things. integrity of them is that Communication, as many scholars claimed, a most mundane experience after all. This means that most of the communication around us is a representation of the reality and not the other way round as Carey theorized. and on rare activities with excessive masochism can it influence the reality. This was the case with Jackson and Duncan as both were wonderful exponents of their art that they were able to influence a whole new reality due to their lasting effect on peoples memories.A more plausible explanation can be that communication acts as representation of reality and for reality at the very(prenominal) time depending upon the point of view. Borrowing from Bakhtins concept of Intertextuality, an artists work results from an influence of multiple sexual voices and yet is completely different from any other artist. Taking this concept into the dance forms, a dancer plays two roles in communication process. He is not solitary(prenominal) influenced by existing cultura l phenomenon which determines his purpose and patterns, he also influences the actual culture through his unique rhythmical patterns which are independent of cultural influence. So a dancer is not only influenced by reality but also creates reality at the same(p) time. The magnitude of his role depends upon the ability of the artist and external conditions prevailing. This explains the case of Jackson and Duncan satisfactorily.The purpose of this essay was to evaluate the effectiveness of Cultural approach to communication using dance as communication process. Dance can create new reality and maintain it. But the changes in reality (repair and transformation) often happen under the influence of external conditions. It was found that Careys notion of symbolic processes creating reality is one-dimensional. It assumes that symbolic processes are the origin and reality is a contemplation of it. However, it was revealed that symbolic processes play a dual role of influencer and influenc ed at the same time. This opens the question of origin of symbols and reality. It can form the scope of future studies on cultural approach to communication.