Culture: The Enculturation Process

Likewise, human beings belongs to the Primate Order, which is known to consist mainly of apes, monkey and lemurs. These primates all share a similar evolutionary process as well as they all possess a characteristic present in humans, that is the enculturation process. For example, Koko the gorilla was taught sign language from an early age through exposition and nurture, resulting in mastering it perfectly. Hence, if primates are able to adapt and change to its culture, how is the enculturation process of human beings? I based the research on my own enculturation process having been exposed to two different cultures, in order to perceive, how nurture and nature affects and correlates with ones personality, culture and language proficiency.

Migrating to a foreign country and once starting its own enculturation process, a different kind of process come across, called acculturation. Acculturation can be seen as the key factor of nurture when residing abroad. For instance, to adapt to a foreign culture and their way of living, one have to start to learn the appropriate behavior according to their culture. Hence, in El Salvador it is inclined in addressing others by their name no matter their age, and the social cultural background in terms of education is not as harsh as in Corea, so it was a productive way of learning another language without having to constantly being anxious about grades and tutoring. Also, a proper etiquette for greeting one is by kissing on the cheek of the other person, as it shows respect and politeness. This way of acting was ingrained to my mind by interacting and observing my surrounding, allowing me to acquire new knowledge of the new culture brought by nurture. Simultaneously, although I came from a tender age of six to El Salvador, I was up to a certain extend able to maintain my ethnic cultural knowledge provided by nature Anthropologist E. Adamson Hoebel once state that "both a conscious and an unconscious conditioning process whereby man, as child and adult, achieves competence in his culture, internalizes

Moreover, the most important features taken into consideration is talking and interacting with other society. Exploring this specific field of nurture, it made me aware within my enculturation process the following; language. The area of language is broad, not only in the spoken language but also through gesture, body, sign, written, art and many more. Within this variety of languages, acquiring an unfamiliar one takes time and ones will to learn. It is evident, having observed through my own experience, the younger people acquire linguistic ability faster than when trying to learn in adulthood. For instance, I was exposed to 3 different languages; english, spanish, and korean; as I had the opportunity to attend an international british school. Attending a British School, I had to learn not just the british culture but also the language and their unique gesture. At first, due to my shy nature and lack of confidence, expressing myself was difficult and was once considered mute. Nevertheless, through gestures I was still able to deliver my message to the others. Through this experience, expressing abstract ideas in conversations, demonstrated the infinite capacity of communicating. Also, this basic observations identifies the innate capabilities present within one self, earlier on in life; in other words since birth. Universally, crying symbolizes hurt, sadness as well as hunger; so