Identity Function
As you learned earlier in this chapter, people have multiple identities—individual,
national, occupational, cultural, sexual, ethnic, social class, and familial. We maintain
that family is perhaps the most important of all identities, as it is a precursor to other
identities. Long before we have a notion of ourselves, we are sons or daughters and
are identified by family names. In this sense family is not only the basic unit of a soci-
ety but also provides individuals with their most essential social identity.^39 The family
accomplishes this by giving children knowledge about their historical backgrounds,
information regarding the permanent nature of their culture, and specific behaviors,
customs, traditions, and language associ-
ated with their ethnic or cultural group.^40
Because of the importance of identity to
intercultural communication, we will
have much more to say on the topic later
in the book.
Having established that there are simi-
larities among most families, regardless of
the culture, we now turn tocultural variationsregarding how family communication
patterns get acted out. The connection between families and communication is made
clear by Trenholm and Jensen as they write,“The family is a social construction, both a
product of communication and a context in which communication takes place. In fact,
it is one of the richest sources of communication patterns we have.”^41 By instruction,
observation, imitation, and practice, the child is introduced to the entire spectrum of
communication behaviors. Children first learn about relationships, how to share their
feeling, to argue, express affection, make adjustments to other people, and deal with
conflict, role relationships, anger, and the like in the context of the family.Cultural Variants in Family Interaction
Before beginning this section on the role offamily in cultural interaction patterns,
two disclaimers are in order. First, all of the major institutions of a culture are
linked. This means the family works in conjunction with other aspects of a culture.
As Houseknecht and Pankhurst note,“Family and religion must be viewed in terms
of their interactions with other institutions.”^42 For example, when a Christian fam-
ily sits down to dinner and says grace before eating, the children are learning about
the importance of God and family rituals at the same time. And when those same
children assist their mother in displaying the American flag for a Fourth of July pic-
nic and later sing“God Bless America,”they are also learning about three deep
structure institutions at once—church, community, and family.
Second, families within a culture may also display a range of differences. It
would be naïve to assume that every family in the United States stresses the
value of hard work, as there are families where servants pamper even the youngest
children. In short, there are variations among and within cultures. As Rodriguez
and Olswang observe,“Societies differ, between andwithin cultures, in their con-
ceptions of the desired traits in children, and therefore, parental beliefs and values
might reasonably differ as parents seek to develop culturally defined traits in their
children.”^43REMEMBER THIS
By instruction, observation, imitation, and practice, the child is
introduced to the entire spectrum of communication behaviors
found within his or her culture.80 CHAPTER 3•The Deep Structure of Culture: Lessons from the Family
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