Chapter 9, Situation-Culture's Building Block Summary and Analysis

The definition of analytical components that can be examined in the study of cultures is an important development. Cultures can be considered to be made up of situational frames, which are made up of situational dialects, material appurtenances, situational personalities, and behavior patterns, all of which occur in recognizable settings and specific situations. Common settings and situations include greeting, eating, fighting, and governing. Within a specific culture there will be thousands of frames containing these situations. This situational frame is the smallest unit of a culture that is amenable to analysis and transmission and exists as complete entities. A frame will contain linguistic, kinesic, proxemic, social, personality and many more components.

This framing concept is important for the decomposition of a culture into identifiable units and also as a basis to learn a new culture...