Unit 4-Culture and Language

J. Brumbelow

Alvin High School

Unit 4

Culture

What is culture?

Culture is the complex mix of values, beliefs, behaviors, and material objects that form a peoples’ way of life.

Cultural landscape-the modification of the natural landscape by human activities.

Cultural Ecology is the field that studies the relationship between the natural environment and culture.

Adaptive culture

How a person adapts to a new culture. We all use adaptive strategies.

People moving from the North to the South

Ex. People in the south using the word Ma’am

Material Culture

A wide range of concrete human creations, sometimes called artifacts that reflect values, beliefs and behaviors.

Non-material culture (cultural geography)

Consists of abstract concepts of:

Values-culturally defined standards that guide the way people assess desirability, goodness, beauty and serve as guidelines for moral living.

Beliefs-statements people hold to be true, and they are almost based on values.

Behaviors or actions that people take based on beliefs, values and norms (rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of members.)

Customs and habits are different

A habit is a repetitive act that a particular individual performs.

Example: jeans on Friday, getting dressed.

A custom is a repetitive act of a group performed to the extent that it becomes a characteristic of the group.

Example: 4th of July fireworks

Culture Region

An area marked by culture that distinguishes itself from other regions

Culture Trait

A single attribute of a culture

Culture Complex

A related set of culture traits descriptive of one aspect of a society’s behavior.

Nationalism is a culture complex.

Example: Proud to be American.

Cattle herding among African tribes.

Culture System

A group of interconnected cultural complexes.

China is a culture system-life in different parts of China can be different , dialects of Chinese are different.

Cultural Hearth

Areas where civilization first began.

Mesopotamia

Indus Valley

Nile Valley

Cultural diffusion

Diffusion-the movement of goods, people or ideas.

Cultural diffusion has spread culture traits to most parts of the world.

Independent inventions

Developments that can be traced to a specific civilization.

Greek democracy.

Carl Sauer and Torsten Hagerstrand

Both Geographers wrote about Cultural Diffusion.

Expansion Diffusion

An innovation or idea develops in a source area and remains strong there while spreading outward.

Types of expansion diffusion

Contagious Diffusion: nearly all adjacent individuals are affected (like dropping a rock in water).

Time –distance decay-trait weakens as distance increases.

Hierarchical Diffusion

Ideas and artifacts spread first between larger places or prominent people and only later to smaller less prominent people.

Diffusion

Your own

Example of these?

Stimulus Diffusion

A genuine invention sparked by an idea that diffused in from another culture. 

The invention of a unique Cherokee writing system by Sequoyah around 1821 after seeing English is an example.

Relocation Diffusion

Relocation Diffusion: the actual movement of individuals  who have already adopted an idea or innovation and carry it to a new, perhaps distant locale, where they proceed  to disseminate it.          

Migrant diffusion: when an innovation originates somewhere and enjoys strong but brief adoption there

Italian immigrants to New York City taught Irish-Americans how to make pizza (pizza, of course, originated in Italy).

Acculturation

A less dominant culture adopts the traits of more influential ones.

Americans adopting Indian Culture

Assimilation

The dominant culture completely absorbs the less dominant one.

Portrait of Native Americans from the Cherokee, Cheyenne, Choctaw, Comanche, Iroquois, and Muscogee tribes in American attire. Photos dates from 1868 to 1924.

Transculturation

There is an exchange between two cultures, with both cultures functioning as sources and adopters.

When the Spanish overthrew the Aztec kingdom, Spanish culture prevailed in religion, Aztec crops taken back to Spain-corn and chocolate.

Regional holiday differences.

Syncretism

The fusion of old and new cultures.

Culture A

Culture C

Culture B

Kwanzaa It is an African American and pan African culture

Culture

Culture can be categorized according to spatial distribution into two basic types:

Folk CulturePopular Culture

Folk Culture

Folk Culture is traditionally practiced by small, homogenous groups living in isolated rural areas.

Folk Culture

Small

Incorporates homogeneous population

Typically rural

Cohesive in cultural traits

Work to preserve those traits in order to claim uniqueness

Folk Culture

Folklore-stories passed on from generation to generation.

Folk culture is in a relatively small area.

Popular Culture

Popular Culture is found in large heterogeneous societies that are bonded by a common culture despite the many differences among the people who share it.

Popular Culture

Practiced in wider area, popular culture usually spreads through contagious diffusion.

Popular Culture

Large

Incorporates heterogeneous populations

Typically urban

Experiences quickly changing cultural traits

Practiced by people across identities and across the world

Also encompasses material and nonmaterial culture

Culture

Let’s look at several segments of culture:

Music

Food

Sports

Architecture

Hip Hop Map

Music

Culture can be analyzed through music.

Music

Listening habits of a particular group of people is to analyze the radio stations they listen to.

What radio station do you listen to?

What’s your ringtone?

Music

Country

Bluegrass

Blues

Tejano

Cajun

Polka

Motown

Dance

dance2

Food

Food is a terrific way to understand culture because certain areas have dishes that are distinct to their cuisine

Think USA

Chowder

NE-is a white chowder

NY- is tomato based

BBQ—some sauces are mustard, ketchup, tomato or vinegar based.

Dry BBQ-sauce cooked in

Wet BBQ-sauce added after meat is cooked.

Meat-port or beef?

Food attractions and Taboo 

Taboo to eat things that are thought to embody negativity

May establish food taboos to protect the environment

Religion and social values also play a role in food taboos

The nutritional value is one of the determining factors in whether someone eats something or not

Some things are eaten because they enhance some characteristic the culture deems important

Food Taboos

USA-swan, dog, cat, elephant, rats, mice

Hindu’s-Cow

Judaism-shellfish, elephant, pork

Somali Clans-fish

Quebec-horse meat

Muslim’s-pork

England, Ireland-snails

Rastafarians-no salt

Food around the world

Denmark-sandwiches called smorrbrod, eaten open face with a knife and fork.

Iceland

Rotted Shark-Once the shark is “ripe” enough it is eaten.

Yummy?

Andes of South America

Guinea pigs called cuy are a delicacy. Served for special occasions such as anniversaries and birthdays.

Food

Blowfish or Fugu is a delicacy in Japan. Costing as much as $200/plate.

You can die, if prepared incorrectly.

UK--Fish and chips

Pica

Clay

Paint chips

Cornstarch

Coffee grounds

Cigarette ashes

Glue

Hair

Feces

Paper

sand

Geophagy

The habit of eating clay, mud or dirt.

Many say there are health benefits and that dirt from different areas tastes different.

El Santuario de Chimayo

People travel to this site in New Mexico.

They believe the ground is sacred and travel here to eat dirt.

Sports

Sports are associated with culture.

The spread of baseball and basketball around the world from the USA is a form of hierarchical diffusion.

Sports

Soccer is the #1 sport in the world.

Sports

Football

Soccer

Baseball

Basketball

Lacrosse

Cricket

Tennis

Golf

What sports fan are you?

Architecture

The architecture of residential, commercial and spiritual structures vary greatly throughout the world.

Housing

Housing styles vary according to climate and available building materials.

Brick/wood

Flat/peaked roof

Basement?

One story/multi-story

Single/multi family

Mongolian Yurts

Onion Domes

Popular Culture

Popular Culutre

Popular culture flourishes in countries here people have sufficient income to acquire the tangible elements of popular culture.

Pop culture is ever changing

Food

American fast food has invaded the world.

Jeans

1960’s jeans were associated with low status laborers and farmers.

Levi’s are a status symbol in may parts of the world.

TV and popular culture

TV is the most popular leisure activity in MDC’s throughout the world.

TV is the most important mechanism by which popular culture such as sports is rapidly diffused throughout the earth.

TV Ownership/internet

TV

Diffusion from the USA to Europe and other MDC’s then to LDC’s.

In the USA, TV stations are owned by private corporations, who are licensed by the government.

In most of the rest of the world the government owns the TV Stations.

British Broadcasting Corporation

Have you ever watched the BBC?

It’s very different than American TV.

Government Control of TV

Many governments see TV as a way to foster cultural integration.

Show what leaders are doing and accomplishments of political system.

People watch what the government wanted them to see.

Satellite TV has enabled people to see stations other than government controlled.

The internet

Diffusion of internet follows a pattern of television diffusion.

The internet connects the world, making cultural diffusion happen at a rapid pace.

Without the internet, what would you do?

Globalization of popular culture

Threat to folk culture

Subserviance of women in folk customs threatened.

Women acting and becoming “westernized”.

Threat to folk culture

Increasing incomes fuel the demand for possessions of popular culture.

Uniform Lanscapes?

Environmental Impact

1. Uniform landscapes-buildings look alike, arranged on uniform streets.

2. Increased demand for natural resources-Fads increase demand for items like animal skins, eating habits (chicken wings).

3. Pollution-high volumes of wastes, solids, liquids and gasses. Ex. Plastic bottles.

Chapter 5

Language

Language

Language is a system of communication through speech.

Oldest cultural trait on earth.

Language not only allows for communication, but continuity of culture

In most cases language is spoken and written.

Language

Official language-language used by government for laws, reports, and public documents.

A country can have more than 1 official language.

Standard language-a particular variety of a language that has been given either legal or quasi-legal status.

Languages of the world

Languages of the world

Top 10 Most Commonly Spoken Languages

1. Chinese-14.9%(Mandarin, Wu)

2. Spanish-5.05%

3. English-4.84%

4. Hindi

5. Arabic

6. Portuguese

7. Bengali

8. Russian

9. Japanese

10. Standard German

Linguistic Geography

The study of speech areas and their local variations by mapping word choices, pronunciations or grammatical constructions.

All languages are grouped into language families that have a shared by distant origin.

English Speaking Countries

English

Spoken by more than ½ a billion people.

The British were responsible for the diffusion of English.

Migration of British to other parts of the world diffused English.

Dialects

You may not be able to understand the regional dialects.

Dialects

Differences between American and British English

American English

Line

Motor home

Mail

Fries

Parking lot

Sweater

Highway

Apartment

Cookie

British English Queue

Caravan

Post

Chips

Car park

Jumper

Motorway

Flat

Biscuit

Language group

A collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past.

Displaying a relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.

Romance Languages

Evolved from Latin.

Spain, Portugal, France and Italy- are the countries of the original Romance Languages. Romanian is the 5th Romance Language

Latin and Hebrew have literary traditions.

Dialects exist within the Romance Languages-Castilian.

Romance Languages

Other language families

Sino-Tibetan-Mandarin Chinese

Afro-Asiatic-Arabic

Austronesian-SE Asia

Dravidian-India

Altaic

Asia

Niger-Congo-Africa

Japanese

Chinese ideograms

Represent concepts rather than sounds

240 characters build are built into complex words.

Preserving Local Languages

Thousands of extinct languages-once in use but no longer spoken or read in daily activities anywhere.

Examples include: Gothic-E/N Europe

Welsch-Wales

Quechua-Peru

Hebrew

Multi Lingual States

Belgium is a language divided country.

Multi Lingual States

Belgium-Flemish( dialect of German)in North

French in South

The division between the two languages is difficult to determine.

Switzerland

4 languages in the country.

German, French, Italian and Romansh

Canada

English for the majority of the country.

Quebec is the French speaking province.

Isolated languages

A language unrelated to any other and therefore not attached to any language family.

Basque-Pyrenees Mts. of Spain/France.

Icelandic-less need for new words and change to language.

Global Domination of English

Need for common language for communication.

Lingua Franca-language of international communication is English.

Mix elements of two languages into a common language.

Global diffusion of English

Pidgin-mixing of lingua franca and their native language.

90% of all students in the European Union learn English.

Expansion diffusion of English

Ebonics-a combination of Ebony and phonics. Example: She be at home

Ebonics is controversial.

Appalachian dialects-

Quick, call an am-bew-lance.

Many are considered a sign of poor education by outsiders.

Diffusion into other languages

Franglais-a combination of French and English. Le Jogging

Spanglish-Spanish and English. The word carpeta is "folder" in standard Spanish. In some Spanglishes

it means "carpet" (room rug).

Denglish-German and English

Ich musste den Computer neu booten / rebooten, weil die Software gecrasht ist.I had to reboot the computer because the software crashed.

Toponymy

The study of place names.

Cultural identity and history can be revealed by noticing names of geographic and political features.

New York

Rio Grande-”Big River” in Spanish

Rock Mountains

Language Barriers

Language can be a barrier for many international travelers.

Language barriers for immigrants.

Language dialects as a part of regional culture.

Literacy-the ability to read and write.