Culture Flashcards
poor or inadequate adaptation that occurs when a group pursues an adaptive strategy that, in the short run, fails to provide the necessities of life or, in the long run, destroys the environment that nourishes it.
Cultural maladaptation
the territorial nucleus from which a country grows in area and over time, often containing the national capital and the main center of commerce, culture, and industry.
Cultural core
a concept based on the tendency of both formal and functional culture regions to consist of a core or node, in which defining traits and purest or functions are headquartered, and a periphery that is tributary and displays fewer of the defining traits.
Cultural periphery
broadly defined, the study of the relationships between the physical environment and culture; narrowly defined, the study of culture as an adaptive system that facilitates human adaptation to nature and environmental change.
Cultural ecology
the artificial landscape; the visible human imprint on the land.
Cultural landscape
a total way of life held in common by a group of people, including such learned features as speech, ideology, behavior; livelihood, technology, and government; or the local, customary way of doing things- a way of life; an ever-changing process in which a group is actively engaged; a dynamic mix of symbols, beliefs, speech, and practices.
Culture
the unique way in which each culture uses its particular physical environment; those aspects of culture that serve to provide the necessities of life- food, clothing, shelter, and defense.
Adaptive strategies
architecture that comes from the collective memory of groups of traditional people. These buildings are based not on blueprints but on mental images that change little form one generation to the next and use locally available raw materials
Folk Architecture
a small cohesive, stable, isolated, nearly self-sufficient group that is homogeneous in custom and race; characterized by a strong family or clan structure, order maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family, little division of labor other than that between the sexes, frequent and strong interpersonal relationships, and a material culture consisting mainly of a handmade goods.
Folk Culture
traditional, rural; the opposite of “popular”
Folk
traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances, or art forms preserved among a people
Folklore
all physical, tangible objects made and used by members of a cultural group, such as clothing, buildings, tools and utensils, instruments, furniture, and artwork; the visible aspect of culture.
Material culture
the wide range of tales, songs, lore, beliefs, superstitions, and customs that passes from generation to generation as part of an oral or written tradition.
Nonmaterial culture
a dynamic culture based in large, heterogeneous societies permitting considerable individualism, innovation, and change; having a money-based economy, division of labor into professions, secular institutions of control, and weak interpersonal ties; producing and consuming machine-made goods.
Popular Culture
a pattern of original land survey in an area.
Survey pattern
a language derived from a pidgin that has acquired a fuller vocabulary and become the native language of its speakers.
Creole
a distinctive local or regional variant of a language that remains mutually intelligible to speakers of other dialects of that language; a subtype of a language.
Dialect
the border of usage of an individual word or pronunciation.
Isogloss
a mutually agreed-upon system of symbolic communication that has a spoken and
usually a written expression.
Language
a group of related languages derived from a common ancestor.
Language family
an existing, well-established language of communication and commerce used widely where it is not a mother tongue.
Lingua franca
an area protected by isolation or inhospitable environmental conditions in which a language or dialect has survived.
Linguistic refuge area
speaking only one language.
Monolingual
the ability of two people to understand each other when speaking.
Mutual intelligibility
speaking more than one language
Multilingual
in multilingual countries the language selected, often by the educated and politically powerful elite, to promote internal cohesion; usually the language of the courts and government.
Official language
a composite language consisting of a small vocabulary borrowed from the linguistic groups involved in international commerce
Pidgin
place name
Toponym
the belief that inanimate objects, such as trees, rocks, and rivers, possess souls
Animism
a religion identified with a particular ethnic or tribal group; does not seek to converts.
Ethnic religion
community faith in traditional societies in which people follow their shaman— a religious leader, teacher, healer, and visionary. At times, an especially strong shaman might attract a regional following. However, most shamans remain local figures.
Shamanism
the idea that ethical and moral standards should be formulated and adhered to for life on Earth, not to accommodate the prescriptions of a deity and promises of a comfortable afterlife.
Secularism
the system of Islamic law, sometimes called Qu’ranic law, unlike most Western systems of law that are based on legal precedence, it is based on varying degrees of interpretation of the Qu’ran.
Sharia law
a state whose government is under the control of a ruler who is deemed to be divinely guided, or of a group of religious leaders, as in post-Kohomeini Iran. It’s opposite is a secular state.
Theocracy
religions that attempt to be global, to appeal to all people, wherever they may live in the world, not just to those of one culture or location.
Universalizing
