Subculture

A subculture is a culture within a culture. Thus, the idea of subculture is not demeaning. A subculture is not "less than" nor "subordinate" to another culture. It merely exists within the context of a larger culture. For example, a broad range of ethnic subcultures exists within the broad context of American culture. Subcultures in the United States, in general, share language, a sense of place, and so forth.

In some ways, each subculture resembles the larger culture, but each one may be identified as unique and separate from the larger culture by certain distinct features. Race, age, geography, national origin, linguistic patterns, and a large number of vocational and avocational mores and norms identify specific subcultures. Given such a definition, it could be said that as a "college student" you are part of the "college subculture."

The implication embodied in these definitions is that if you don't share the communication behaviors, the history, the beliefs and customs, and the basic assumptions, then you cannot participate in the culture. This is the problem of intercultural communication.

Americans tend to take others for granted; thus, they tend to ignore the differences between themselves and people from different cultures. Sometimes, they may assume that American culture is the dominant culture of the universe and that all other cultures are either derived from that or inferior to it. Too often, Americans violate basic behavioral norms when they travel across a cultural boundary. Too often, they decide that people who are different from them are inferior to them.

Culture Shock

Some individuals, when they sojourn across a cultural boundary, especially for an extended period of time, experience a phenomenon called culture shock. Culture shock is the psychological reaction of stress that sometimes occurs when an individual enters a culture very different from their own. Whether or not you experience culture shock, you may find that communicating across cultural boundaries is stressful.

At least six phenomena contribute to the stress that some people experience when they move into another culture:

1. Strain resulting from the effort required to adapt psychologically to the new culture.

2. Sense of loss of friends, of status, of profession, of possessions, and so forth.

3. Rejection by (or of) the new cultural group.

4. Confusion of role and role expectation, of values, and so forth.

5. Emotional response to striking cultural differences.

6. Feelings of impotence resulting from the inability to cope with the new culture.

Imagine a situation in which the traveler exercises nearly complete control of the decision making. A long-awaited vacation trip provides an example. The traveler plans carefully, saves money, and then travels to an island in the Caribbean to escape the winter weather.

In contrast, the refugees from war torn Southeast Asia, who have settled in many American cities, may have been forced by political factors into their cross-cultural encounter. Their stress levels are probably higher than those experienced by the vacationer.