1、本科毕业设计（论文） 外 文 翻 译 原文 ： The Concept of National Culture 1 Definition of National Culture The term culture has various meanings, all derived from the Latin meaning “which is the cultivation of soil.”In todays colloquial language,culture is often used in the sense of“high culture,” perhaps better expr
2、essed by the German “Kultur,”when referring to painting or classical music. Culture in the anthropological sense, however,is not restricted to these things,but comprises all products of human life.Further,culture does not only refer to“civilized”societies.All human groups are said to possess culture
3、,even if they are considered“primitive”. Even if the anthropological understanding of the term culture is taken for the purposes of this research,literature provides more definitions.Though there is little agreement on the appropriate definition of culture,most definitions of national culture place
4、emphasis on shared values.When addressing the question of values,some anthropologists ask questions like“What should be?”Other approaches refer to modal practices of collectives instead of emphasizing the importance of values.Modal practices are simply acts or the ways things are. As the relevant ap
5、proaches to conceptualize national culture in social sciences are all in the tradition of value-based approaches,the development of these definitions are outlined in the following section. The first anthropological definition was set down by TYLOR in 1871.He defined culture as “that complex whole wh
6、ich included knowledge, belief, art, morals,l aws,customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” More than half a century later,the anthropologist REDFIELD defined culture as“shared understandings made manifest in act and artifact.”KLUCKHOHN,another important
7、anthropologist, stated that national culture“consists in patterned ways of thinking,feeling and reacting,acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols,constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups,including their embodiments in artifacts；the essential core of culture consists of traditional
8、 ideas and especially their attached values.”These definitions can be considered a starting point for subsequent definitions that place similar emphasis on values as distinguishing characteristics of people of different nationality.For instance,KROEBER/PARSONS define national culture as“transmitted
9、and created content and patterns of values,ideas,and other symbolic-meaningful systems as factors in the shaping of human behavior and the artifacts produced through behavior.”This definition explicitly addresses the importance of national culture for human behavior.TRIANDIS denoted culture as“an in
10、dividuals characteristic way of perceiving the man-made part of ones environment.It involves the perception of rules,norms,roles,and values,is influenced by various levels of culture such as language,gender,race,religion,place of residence,and occupation,and it influences interpersonal behavior.” In
11、 the same tradition,but more parsimoniously,HOFSTEDE determined national culture to be“the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from each other.”Another important contribution has been made by researchers involved in the the GLOBAL LEAD
12、ERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR EFFECTIVENESS research program.The authors designated culture simply as“shared motives,values,beliefs,identities,and interpretations of meanings of significant events that result from common experiences of members of collectives and are transmitted across age gener
13、ations.” This research builds on HOFSTEDEs understanding of culture,not only because the empirical part relies on his conceptual work,but also because his definition has the “merit of simplicity,instantly conveying how it is that nations differ from eachother.” 2 Definition of Values From the defini
14、tions of culture provided above,the two critical components of culture are clearly the presence of values and practices.The most popular conceptual frameworks of culture today focus on analyses of value differences.Thus,before presenting these frameworks,a short definition of values is provided is i
15、n order. The study of societal values has a long history in sociology and anthropology,while the study of individual values has a long history in psychology.The literature provides various definitions of the term“value”when describing cultures: KLUCKHOHN defines a value as a“conception,explicit or i
16、mplicit,distinctive of an individual or characteristic of a group,of the desirable which influences the selection from available modes,means and ends of actions.”Similarly,ROKEACH considers a value an“enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially
17、 preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or endstate of existence.A value system is an enduring organization of belief concerning preferable modes of conduct or end-states of existence along a continuum of relative importance.”HOFSTEDE,typically,offers are more concise description when
18、 he defines a value as“a broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others.” A comprehensive evaluation of many definitions of values by SCHWATZ found the following characteristics as most frequently attributed to values: Values are beliefs,but they are not objective, Values refer to de
19、sirable goals and to modes of conduct that promote these goals, Values transcend specific actions and situations, Values serve as standards to guide selection of and to evaluate peoples behavior, Values form a system of priorities as they can be ordered by importance relative to each other. In concl
20、usion,values refer to relationships among abstract categories and imply a preference for certain types of action. They provide people with assumptions about what is desirable.Thus,values are feelings；as such,they are non-rational.Values deal with such things as“evil versus good,”“dirty versus clean,
21、”“ugly versus beautiful,”or perhaps more relevant to the research questions at hand,“irrational versus rational.” Values are learned,or programmed,early in life.Once a value is learned,it is integrated into the value system of every individual.While the system of values is relatively stable,particular values are influenced by everyday experiences in the ecological and sociopolitical environment surrounding an individual.Thus,values are
