

The various tools and interactions form a unique and individual subculture that exists within the context of the new family. Common culture consists of those communication interactions (day-to-day communication) and cultural tools (communication acts learned from one’s culture previous to the marriage) that each person brings into the marriage or family. The first three aspects of Burgess’ definition are pretty easy to conceptualize, but the concept of common culture deserves further explanation. 1 The term “family” was described as “two or more persons joined by ties of marriage, blood, or adoption constituting a single household interacting and communicating with each other in their respective social roles of husband and wife, mother and father, son and daughter, brother and sister and creating and maintaining a common culture.” 2 According to Burgess a family must be legally tied together, live together, interact together, and maintain a common culture together. Burgess was the first widely used definition by academics. The definition of the family developed by Ernest W. One of the biggest challenges for family researchers has been to define the “family.” The ambiguity of the term “family” has often been seen in the academic literature. These differences and our tendency as humans to make comparisons cause individuals to assess the value of the various styles of family communication. Yelling is their baseline interaction, whereas another family never raises their voices and may seem to speak so infrequently that it appears that they have nothing to talk about within their family unit. You may notice that the family down the street yells at each other almost constantly. Interactions with other families reveal that there are vast differences between families. Families are comparable to cultures in that each family has its own values, rituals, customs, beliefs, values, and practices. We interact within our families and begin learning our family communication pattern from the time we are born. Explain family systems theory and its utility for family communication researchers.


Describe the term “family communication patterns” and the two basic types of family communication patterns.Differentiate among various definitions of the word “family.”.
