The Culture Iceberg

The iceberg metaphor is used quite often to describe those things in culture which we are tangible and obvious to the observer, and those things which are beneath the surface, hidden from view, and often not seen by any initial observations. The first time this was introduced it was by a man named Edward Sapir, a German-born American linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir who said there is overt culture and covert (공공연한 와 덮여있는) culture. Kluckholn, another American anthropologist, later coined the terms explicit and implicit (명백한 와 함축적인). Edward Hall later said that these were not enough, but that there are three categories: informal, formal, and technical. We will get into that, but for the time being we will focus on the iceberg template.

1. The first thing I want to do is get students to brainstorm around the word culture. Hopefully they will brainstorm many things that are visible and obvious, like food and music, but also get into things that are less visible like attitudes about elders and gender roles. I want to begin to give the idea to students the great, great depth of word culture and how deep, deep, deeper still it goes. The iceberg accomplishes this well, because we usually see the top part of a culture, and we can make judgements about what we like or don't based on that small piece. But what we don't see is a vast well of forces and influences, and only when we begin to examine this much larger part can we begin to understand a culture.

2. After we have done our initial brainstorming, I want to begin to think and brainstorm in small groups what these hidden things are, and write their ideas on their iceberg templates provided. After they have had time to do that, we will come together as a class and discuss the top visible parts, and the bottom invisible parts.

3. The third part will be to look at each person's home culture and begin to "unpack" aspects of culture, both which are visible and invisible. The small homogeneous groups will draw a poster of their icebergs and share with the class.

Journal: Write about the cultural iceberg of your home country. How does culture effect you in your life?