Exam 1 Flashcards
A major subfield that focuses on the interrelationships among language and other aspects of a people’s culture.
anthropological linguistics
The study of humankind (Homo sapiens) from a broad perspective, focusing especially on the biological and cultural differences and similarities among populations and societies of both the past and the present.
anthropology
The use of anthropological methods, theories, and concepts to solve practical, real-world problems; practitioners often are employed by government agencies or private organizations.
applied anthropology
A major subfield that studies past cultures through the excavation and analysis of artifacts and other material remains.
archaeology
A major subfield of anthropology that studies the biological dimensions of humans.
biological (physical) anthropology
Insistence by anthropologists that valid hypotheses and theories about humanity be tested with data from a wide range of cultures.
comparative perspective
A major subfield of anthropology that studies the way of life of
contemporary and historically recent human populations.
cultural anthropology (social anthropology, sociocultural anthropology)
The notion that one should not judge the behavior or beliefs of other peoples using the standards of one’s own culture.
cultural relativism
The attitude or opinion that the morals, values, and customs of one’s own culture are superior to those of other peoples
ethnocentrism
A written description of the way of life of some human group.
ethnography
Research that involves observing and interviewing the members of a society, region, or community to describe their contemporary way of life.
fieldwork
Biological anthropologists who identify and analyze human skeletal remains.
forensic anthropologists
Worldwide process through which diverse peoples and nations are integrated into a single system involving flows of technology, transportation, communications, travel, and market exchanges.
globalization
The part of archaeology that supplements historical research through excavating sites and studying material remains
historic archaeology
The assumption that any aspect of a culture is integrated with other aspects, so that every aspect of culture must be understood in its total context
holistic perspective
Anatomical and physiological differences among human populations, researched primarily by biological anthropologists.
human variation
The part of physical anthropology that specializes in investigating the biological evolution of the human species.
paleoanthropology
The study of peoples who lived before the development of writing by excavating sites and analyzing material remains
prehistoric archaeology
The study of primates, including monkeys and apes.
primatology
The culturally variable ways people perceive social and natural reality and divide those realities into categories, as illustrated by the cultural (social) construction of race.
cultural constructions
The cultural tradition a group of people recognize as their own; the shared customs and beliefs that define how a group sees itself as distinctive.
cultural identity
Culture
Shared, socially learned knowledge and patterns of behavior of some human group.
The transmission of culture to succeeding generations by means of social learning.
enculturation (socialization)
Shared ideas and expectations about how people ought to act in given situations.
norms
The behaviors that most people perform when they are in certain culturally defined situations.
patterns of behavior
A social position in a group, with its associated and reciprocal rights (privileges) and duties (obligations).
role
A cultural identity within the legal boundaries of a nation-state, based upon various recognized and relevant criteria.
subculture
Objects, behaviors, and so forth whose culturally defined meanings have no necessary relationship to their inherent physical qualities.
symbols
Shared ideas or standards about the worthwhileness of goals and lifestyles.
values
The way a people interpret reality and events, including how they see themselves in relation to the world around them.
World view
A morpheme that is attached to a free morpheme to alter its meaning.
bound morpheme
A regional or subcultural variant of language
dialect
A morpheme that can stand alone as a word
free morpheme
The total system of linguistic knowledge that allows the speakers of a language to send meaningful messages and hearers to understand them.
grammar
A combination of phonemes that conveys a standardized meaning.
morpheme
The study of the units of meaning in language.
morphology
The smallest unit of sound that speakers recognize as distinctive from other sounds.
phoneme
The study of the sound system of a language.
phonology
The idea that language profoundly shapes the perceptions and world view of its speakers.
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
A class of things or properties, hierarchically organized, that are perceived as alike in some fundamental respect.
semantic domain
The study of how language is related to culture and the social uses of speech.
sociolinguistics
Languages in which changing the voice pitch within a word alters the meaning of the word
tone languages
The exchange of people, diseases, domesticated animals and plants, and cultural knowledge between the peoples of the Old World and the New World.
Columbian Exchange
The economic exchange of goods and other products between the different peoples of the world via established trade networks.
Global trade
The peoples who were native to the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania at the start of European expansion.
Indigenous peoples
The land masses of North America, South America, and the islands of the Caribbean.
New World
Refers to the land masses of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Old World
The feeling of uncertainty and anxiety that an individual experiences when placed in a strange cultural setting.
culture shock
Analyzes cultural elements in terms of their useful effects for individuals and/or for survival and persistence of the whole society or other group.
functionalism
An early twentieth-century approach that challenged evolutionism by emphasizing that each culture is a unique result of its distinctive past, which makes cross-cultural generalizations questionable
historical particularism (historicism)
Methods of collecting information about a culture by systematic questioning; may be structured (questionnaires) or unstructured (open-ended questions).
interviews
A member of a society who is especially knowledgeable about some subject and supplies information to a fieldworker.
key consultant (key informant)
A theory holding that the main influence on human ways of life is how people produce and distribute resources from their environment.
materialism (cultural materialism)
The main technique used in conducting ethnographic fieldwork, involving living among a people and participating in their daily activities.
participant observation
The orientation that questions the truth value of beliefs and knowledge, including those of science; focuses especially on how power relationships affect the creation and spread of ideas and beliefs.
postmodernism
Methods used by fieldworkers to gather information from a lot of individuals or families very quickly
surveys
The nineteenth-century theory that held that all cultures pass through a similar sequence of stages in their development.
unilineal evolution
Adaptation based primarily on the planting, tending, and harvesting of domesticated plants (crops).
agriculture (cultivation)
A small foraging group with flexible composition that migrates seasonally
band
A form of complex society in which many people live in cities.
civilization
The patterned ways in which productive tasks are divided up along the lines of gender, sex, skill and knowledge, interest, and other criteria.
division of labor
The process by which people control the distribution, abundance, and biological features of certain plants and animals in order to increase their usefulness to humans.
domestication
The process in which companies located in one country relocate their production facilities to other countries to reduce costs and be more competitive.
globalization of production
Adaptation based on the control and breeding of domesticated livestock, which are taken to naturally occurring pastureland.
herding (pastoralism)
A method of cultivation in which hand tools powered by human muscles are used.
horticulture
Adaptation based on harvesting only wild (undomesticated) plants and animals.
hunting and gathering (foraging)
The productive technology that harnesses the energy of fossil fuels (petroleum, coal, and natural gas) to satisfy human material needs and wants.
industrialism
A system of cultivation in which plots are planted annually or semiannually; usually uses irrigation, natural fertilizers, and (in the Old World) plows powered by animals.
intensive agriculture
A form of seasonal mobility, usually referring to pastoral peoples who move their livestock to seasonally lush pasturelands
nomadism
Rural people who are integrated into a larger society politically and economically.
peasants
Food or other goods produced by a worker in excess of the amount needed for his or her own consumption as well as the needs of his or her dependents.
surplus
The widespread pastoral pattern of migrating to different elevations in response to seasonal differences in temperature and pastureland.
transhumance
