Six Theories of culture and how they relate to Language (Duranti Ch.2)
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Transcript of Six Theories of culture and how they relate to Language (Duranti Ch.2)
Six Theories of culture and how they relate to Language (Duranti Ch.2)
Premise: Language as cultural PracticeWhat is “Culture”?Critiques: reductive of complexity
- colonial agenda and supremacy - dichotomies “them” versus “us”
Minorities within mainstream Anthropologies need to be aware of their role
Access to elite academic culture
New explore root metaphors and conceptsAvoid danger of defining Duranti Ch.2 12/4/13
Agenda Week 2: Who is who in the class -- student intros No Bedtime stories - Engage props: books for children - Questions/aspects you want to have addressed- Handout on Mainstream children - Close reading Trackton and Roadville
- Making the most out of Preschool BREAK 2/4/13 Duranti Ch.2 2
Agenda Week 2 (cont)
Six theories of culture (PPP with handout) Looking ahead to week 3 new: writ a blog entry respond to peer response papers A page of your own
2/4/13 Duranti Ch.2 3
Six Theories of Culture
1. as Distinct from Nature (Goodenough)
2. as Knowledge (Levy Strauss)
3. as Communication (Geertz)
Duranti Ch.2 42/4/13
6 Theories of Culture (cont)
3 as a system of Mediation (Marx)
4 as a system of Practices (Bordieu)
5 as a system of Participation (Lave)
Duranti Ch.2 52/4/13
1.Culture as distinct from Nature
Evidence of culture as learnedThe “nature/culture” dichotomyEvidence of “crossroad” in Language
capacity exists, particulars come from experience.
Philosophical assumptions: Kant- Boas
Duranti Ch.2 62/4/13
Kant’s defines Anthropology
“What a human being does because of his free spirit, as opposed to the natural laws which govern Human physiology”
Duranti p. 25
Duranti Ch.2 72/4/13
Hegel
Culture as the process of estrangement or Entfremdung “getting out”
Stepping out of one’s own limited ways of seeing things
“Buildung” as in “build” and “picture” I.e. the image of God (Gadamer)
Struggle to control instinct
Duranti Ch.2 82/4/13
Socialization
Shapes the child’s mind and behavior towards ways of thinking, speaking and acting accepted by a community beyond her family.
Duranti Ch.2 92/4/13
Language as part of culture
Rich systems of language specific classification-Kant mathematics!
Linguistic labels give cues about the types of social distinctions relevant for a give group (ex. no term for privacy, or “die” for people, animals and even machines!) -questions addressed by “Linguistic relativism”
Structuralists carry out componential analysis: classes of objects, thoughts, actions, relationships, events, ideas, --
Lexical distinctions (Goodenough, Spradley) Duranti Ch.2 102/4/13
2. Culture as knowledge
Premise: If culture is learned then much of is is Knowledge about the worldRe-cognize: objects, places, people ideasShare common patters of thought, ways of
understanding the worldWays of making inferences and predictions
In sum, cognitive view of the world
Duranti Ch.2 112/4/13
Goodenough, 1957 quote p. 27
“Culture ….must consist of the end product of learning: knowledge in it’s most general sense.
..Not just things but their ORGANIZATION …The forms people have in mind, their models for perceiving, relating and otherwise interpreting them”
Linguistic homology know a culture=knowing a language. Mental. How can we “explain” that bias?
Goal of ethnography: describe cultural grammars.
Duranti Ch.2 122/4/13
Types of knowledge
PropositionalKnow-that
Referential function of language is key
Natural kinds- ethosemantics How do people turn into objects? (p. 29)
Procedural Know how
Shift toward innativist view (Chomsky)
Duranti Ch.2 132/4/13
Culture as socially distributed knowledgeHow people think is real situations (Lave)
math in weight watchers, math in grocery shopping
Two assumptionsOne, Individual is not endpoint of acquisitionTwo, not everyone has access to same
information or uses of techniquesExample Hutchings and navigation as team
Duranti Ch.2 142/4/13
Study of quarter-masters
Quote by HutchinsUnit of analysis for
talking about cognitionInclude human and
environmental resources
“Complex task involves web of co-ordination between media and processes inside and outside the individual task performance
Duranti Ch.2 152/4/13
In sum, Knowledge distributed amongstTools and Participants Learning from formal instructions is rare…
More like cooking: need to be in the task, watch an expert
Hence apprenticeship is the most common way to transmit knowledge
Duranti Ch.2 162/4/13
Stereotyping through Language
As a system of classificationAs a practice, a way to “taking and giving”
to the world (p32) Implication: using the “same” expression
does not connote the “same” meaningRather “capacity for mutual prediction”
Wallace 1962Gumpez (1982) shows how language can
be a barrier to social integration Duranti Ch.2 172/4/13
3. Culture as communication
3.1 Levy Strauss and the Semiotic approachExtends Jacobson to The Cooking
example: The raw and the cooked Binary distinctions
Duranti Ch.2 182/4/13
2.3 Clifford Geertz and the interpretative approachCultural differences are not seen as
variations for universal abstract thoughtInterest in method of inquiry “never-ending
interpretative process characteristic of human experience
Following Weber man as “animal suspended in the webs of significance he himself spun”
Duranti Ch.2 192/4/13
Ethnography as Thick description
Thick description of a human behavior is one that explains not just the behavior, but its context as well, such that the behavior becomes meaningful to an outsider.
Difference between a “blink” and a “wink” the meaning of a wink depends on the context. As the context so does the meaning of the wink
Thick description describes the context of the practices and discourse in the society
Participation produces and reproduces worldviews, including local notions of Person (or Self)
Duranti Ch.2 202/4/13
2.3.3 Indexicality and meta-pragmatics Communicative force of culture entails not just
representing aspects of reality but connecting individuals, groups and individuals to each other.
Communication as a way to point towards, bringing into the context beliefs, feelings, identities, events bringing them into the present= the indexical meaning of signs
Language through indexicalitiy provides a theory of action or a meta-pragmatics
Duranti Ch.2 212/4/13
2.3.4 Metaphors as folk theories of the worldDefine metaphor: “The use of a word or phrase
to refer to something that it isn't, implying a similarity between the word or phrase used and the thing described” Wikitionary
metaphors allow us to understand one domain of experience in terms of another
• Time flies like an arrow • She broke the silence• The head of state (states as beings with a head)
Duranti Ch.2 222/4/13
5. Culture as a system of Practices
Based on Heidegger “way of being in the world”
Heath- bedtime routines
Duranti Ch.2 242/4/13
6. Culture as a System of participation (p.46)Related to culture as system of practicesAssumes: “any action in the world
including verbal communication, is inherentlySocialCollectiveParticipatory
Duranti Ch.2 252/4/13
Perspective on Language:
How is language used in the real world? Speak as way yo participate in a world always
larger than us as individualsWords carry myriad if possible connections to
humans, beliefs, events, acts and feelingsReaffirms socio-historical connectionIndexicality of language part of any act of
speaking as participant in a community of speakers
(Quote p. 46 “if the world…) Duranti Ch.2 262/4/13
On Predicting and interpreting (p 47)
1. Social actors need to make predictions
2. Vicissitudes are part of human social life
3. How often something happens is important
4. Types of speech are never “the same” 1. Particular-general or viceversa. Be critical!
5. Social actors have “models”
6. Metaphors are good to think with
7. All theories are mortal! Duranti Ch.2 272/4/13