anthropology Flashcards
memorizing
What are the four fields of Anthropology?
Linguistics, cultural, archeological, and biological
What major concerns shaped the foundation of 19th century European/American Anthropology?
Industrialization in Europe and America, rise of evolutionary theories, the spread of European colonialism
How is ethnocentrism defined? Weak? Strong?
Weak definition: judging other cultures using on’s own cultural standards
Strong definition: the assumption that one’s way of doing things is correct, diminishing other people’s way of life as inferior
Cultural relativism
The idea that behavior should be evaluated not by outside standards but in the context of the culture in which it occurs
What is the most basic difference between a description that is familiarizing, versus one that is defamiliarizing?
Familiarizing is making the strange familiar and defamiliarizing is making the familiar strange
Very basic understanding of the historical particularism of Franz Boas
Anthropological theory that each culture should be understood on its own terms
What is significant about the idea of universals and particulars in the field of anthropology. What does Laura Bohannan’s reading, “Shakespeare in the Bush,” teach us about universals and particulars as she attempts to translate Hamlet to the Tiv, and they attempt to interpret it for her?
Something occur to everyone like during adolescence there is a biological change in people
Or are something specific to the culture and context in which people were raised
Some of the themes are universal but the relationship between the characters and how they would interact varies from place to place
The Seven Elements of Culture
Learned, symbolic, dynamic and changing, integrated, shapes everybody’s life, shared
what is ethnocentrism?
judging other cultures using one’s own cultural standards. The assumption one’s own cultural ways of doing this are correct, dismissing others as ignorant or inferior
Overcoming ethnocentrism is key to cultural understanding (or recognizing one’s own ethnocentrism and bracketing, through methodological relativism, is crucial for cross cultural engagement)
If culture is always changing and contested, why does it seem so stable?
It is because of enculturation- the idea that people have been doing or beliving things for much of their lives
Symbols, norms, and traditions
Reinforced and expressed through social institutions
Methodological relativism
uses cultural relativism as a technique for bracketing one’s own preconceptions to learn about and describe unfamiliar worlds.
How has the cultural/ symbolic life of corn flakes changed since the 19th century into the present?
- In the 19th Century is was the cure for sexual deviance and masturbation
- Bland food was the way to soothe sexual urges compared to meats and spicy
What do linguistic anthropologists study?
The study of language and linguistic changes in cultural and historical contexts
Language is a form of social action
Draws on historical and/or contemporary long-term ethnographic research as well as linguistic analysis
Cultural Transmission
how the concepts from one culture are passed down from generation to generation
Productivity
Using rules of language to produce entirely new yet comprehensible statements
Vs. call system- limited sounds tied to environmental stimuli
Displacement
The ability to speak of or symbolize things or events that are not present
Referential
Generally focuses on describing a situation, object or mental state
Poetic
Focuses on the message for its own sake and is the operative function in poetry
Emotive
Relates to the feelings of the speaker and best illustrated by interjections, such as “wow”
Conative
Addresses the listener directly “john, go inside and eat”
Phatic
Language used for the purpose of interacting with another, especially for initiation or ending communication
metalinguistic
using language to describe itself
what are microaggressions?
everyday, subtle, intensional, and oftentimes unintentional- interactions or behaviors that communicate some sort of bias
What is second order information?
- The background knowledge of a situation and expectations of communications that allows one to interpret the words
- Accompanies the phrases in the message itself, guides people in how to interpret others’ actions and intentions
Basic understanding of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Linguistic Relativity
- Different languages produce different patterns of thought; differing grammatical categories, constructions of time
- People interpret the world differently because of difference in our languages
- The idea that people speaking different languages perceive or interest the world differently because of the difference in their language
- Language habits of communities lead people to think about things in a certain way