Cultural Patterns and Processes Flashcards
What is folk culture?
a culture traditionally practiced by small, homogenous groups living in isolated rural areas
What is popular culture?
a culture found in large, heterogenous societies that share certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics
How does folk culture diffuse?
relocation diffusion; spreads slowly
How does popular culture diffuse?
hierarchical; spreads rapidly
What are characteristics of folk culture music?
tells about daily activities; uses traditional equipment; purpose to tell a story
What are characteristics of popular culture music?
tells about love, relationships; very catchy; uses highly technical skill, studio equipment; purpose to sell to large audience
What are characteristics of food in popular culture?
little local variation due to franchises and transportation; regional variation does exist
What are characteristics of housing in popular culture?
only small regional variations; more generally trends over time
What are characteristics of folk culture clothing?
style of clothing worn in response to agricultural practices and climatic conditions
What are characteristics of popular culture clothing?
style of clothing generally reflects occupation and income rather than environment
What are the three job levels and their focus?
primary: agriculture
secondary: industry/factory (blue collar)
tertiary: anything that provides a service (white collar)
What clothing article is an important symbol of Western Culture?
jeans
What is central to rapid diffusion in popular culture?
improved communications
How did sports originate? (i.e. folk vs pop.)
Sports originated as isolated folk customs and diffused via relocation diffusion
T/F: Culture is learned, not biological.
True
What is material culture?
The things a group of people construct, such as art, houses, clothing, sports, dance, and food
What is nonmaterial culture?
The beliefs, practices, aesthetics, and values of a group of people, such as religion, language, traditions, and customs
What is cultural landscape?
the imprint of people on the land; how humans use, alter, and manipulate the landscape to express their identity
What is a cultural realm?
a set of cultural regions showing related cultural complexes and landscapes, having assumed fundamental uniformity in its cultural characteristics and showing significant differences from surrounding realms
What is the impact of popular culture on landscape?
creates homogenous, “placeless” landscape (roads, highways, commercial structures, planned communities)
How are hearths of popular culture traits established?
begins with an idea/good and contagious diffusion
T/F: both individuals and companies can create/manufacture popular culture.
true
What three countries dominate worldwide media?
US, UK, and Japan
What are globalized media networks unlikely to focus on?
third world perspectives or issues
In developing countries, news media is dominated by the…
government
What is the principle obstacle to accessing popular culture?
Lack of access to electronic media
The most important electronic media format to pop. culture is…
TV
What are four things some governments attempt to limit (internet content-wise)?
political content, social content (gambling, sex, etc.), conflict and security, internet tools
What is neolocalism?
seeking out the regional culture and reinvigorating it in response to the unceratinty of the modern world
What is commodification?
the process by which a cultural practice becomes something that can be bought or sold
What is syncretism?
a fusion of old and new to create a new cultural trait
What are the universalizing religions?
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Baha’i
What are the ethnic religions?
Hinduism, Judaism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shintoism
What three religions practice burial of the dead?
Christianity, Islam, and Judaism
What religion practices cremation?
Hinduism
What region of the United States is primarily Baptist?
The Southeast
What state is primarily Mormon?
Utah
What area of the US has many Lutherans?
The North central US
What denomination are most US states?
Roman Catholic
What Middle Eastern country primarily has Shia Muslims?
Iran
Why is Jerusalem the center for religious conflict in the Middle East?
Christians, Jews, and Muslims all wish to control the region due to shared origin there.
Where was the hearth of Buddhism?
Northern India
How did Christianity spread?
Firstly by relocation diffusion, then contagious diffusion, then hierarchical, then relocation as it moved to other continents
How did Islam diffuse?
Relocation diffusion as followers took over areas
How did Buddhism diffuse?
hierarchical diffusion and then relocation diffusion when Indian merchants brought it to China
How does Hinduism have an impact on the landscape?
Through either building or by the pilgrimages believers make to sacred rivers or other places; temples are often near rivers
How does Christianity have an impact on the landscape?
Roman Catholic immigrants gave religious toponyms to settlements in Quebec and the Southwest US
What are some ancient hearths?
Nile River, Yangtze River, Ganges River, and the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers
T/F: Food preference is based on location and religion
True
How does the region affect the type of home built in the region?
The availability of building materials in the region; i.e, adobe in US SW, brick in the South, wood in Northeast
What is ethnocentrism?
the belief that one’s culture/ethnicity is superior
What threatens endangered languages?
Globalization and need of a lingua franca
How has English diffused?
English first diffused west from England to US in the 17th century and then from England to British colonies from the 17th to the 19th centuries
West Germanic languages include…
English, German, Dutch, and Afrikaans
North Germanic Languages include…
Danish, Norweigan, and Swedish
Major Romance languages include…
French, Spanish, Portugese, and Italian
Major Baltic-Slavic languages include…
Russian, Ukranian, Polish, and Serbo-Croatian
What branch do languages like Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, and Persian come from?
Indo Iranian (and all are Indic except for Persian, which is Iranian)
What is a dialect?
A regional variation of a language distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation
How does American English differ from UK English? (three ways)
vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation
What are the eight branches of the Indo-European family?
Indo-Iranian, Romance, Germanic, Baltic-Slavic, Albanian, Armenian, Greek, and Celtic
Which branch of Indo-European has the most speakers?
Indo-Iranian with over 100 individual languages
The Indic language group is used in which three countries?
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh
India has which four major language families?
Indo-European, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic
The most widely used Slavic languages are in which group?
The East Slavic and Baltic Groups
Where did the languages of the Romance branch evolve from?
Latin in Rome 2000 years ago, extended across Roman Empire and variations emerged due to isolation after Roman Empire fell
What is the evidence for a common single ancestor for all of Indo-European?
Some words for nature or animals share common roots
What country is the Sino-Tibetan family mainly in?
China
What two Asian languages have distinctive families due to isolation?
Japanese and Korean
What is an important detail about the Afro-Asiatic language family?
Holy books for Christianity/Judaism and Islam were written in these languages (Hebrew and Arabic)
Altaic languages are spoken in and near this country…
Turkey
What three European countries are not dominated by Indo-European speakers?
Estonia, Finland and Hungary
There are more than ____ African languages documented
1000
How many African languages are spoken by more than 10 million people?
8
What African language in the Niger-Congo family is a second language for communication for many?
Swahili
What language family do speakers of Madagascar belong to?
The Austronesian Family, despite being principally located in Indonesia
