Unit 3: Cultural Patterns And Processes Flashcards
Acculturation
Cultural modifications resulting from intercultural borrowing usually implying changes in
an indigenous culture caused by the imposition of a technologically more advanced
culture and a oneway transfer of culture traits.
Assimilation
The process by which immigrants acculturate into and are eventually absorbed into the
mainstream society through increasing interaction over time, gradual merging of
foreigners and natives, and loss of cultural traits.
Buddhism
The universalizing religion started by Siddhartha Gautama in India 2500 years ago.
Centrifugal Forces
Forces within a state that cause division among populations that live there.
Centripetal Forces
Forces within a state that cause unity among populations that live there.
Christianity
The universalizing religion based in the life of Jesus that began in the Middle East in
approximately 30 C.E.
Colonialism
The subjugation of one people to another through permanent resettling of a population to
a new territory while maintaining political allegiance to their country of origin.
Contagious Diffusion
The spreading of phenomenon through direct contact between individuals.
Creolization
The borrowing of ideas and commodities between cultures, most often applied in
processes of borrowing of words, phrases, meanings between two languages.
Cultural Convergence
When cultures or aspects of culture are adopted by a group of people who live away from
the aspect’s/culture’s hearth; could be forced or for practicality; often occurs as
interactions between locations increase in intensity or frequency.
Cultural Divergence
When cultures become less similar to other cultures either through choice governments
resisting and restricting the spread of culture or through lack of interaction and sharing
of ideas.
Cultural Landscape
The visible record of values, tastes, fears, technologies, etc. that create the identity of a
place in the humanbuilt landscape (buildings, structures).
Cultural Relativism
The idea that moral codes vary from culture to culture and that a person’s beliefs, values,
and practices should be understood based upon the context of that person’s culture,
rather than judged by the criteria of another cultural group.
Culture
Shared or learned behaviors of a group of people related to the immaterial (beliefs,
values, knowledge, etc.) and material objects and possessions.
Dialects
Language variants based in pronunciation, spelling, grammar, that are spoken by entire
groups of people and are geographically distinct from other groups.
Ethnic Neighborhoods
A voluntary community where people of similar origin reside by choice showing a desire
to maintain group cohesiveness.
Ethnic Regions
The shared spaces of an ethnic group that occurs through two means longstanding
ethnic homelands and as a result of chain migration to regions. For example: Ethnic
homelands in North America Acadiana Louisiana French identity with Cajun people;
Spanish America New Mexico, Colorado, South Texas; French Canadian Quebec;
whereas ethnic neighborhoods often represent the result of migration.
Ethnicity
People of a common ancestry or homeland and cultural tradition based in religion, beliefs,
customs, and memories of migration or colonization.
Ethnocentrism
The practice of viewing other cultural groups in relation or compared to one ethnic group’s
moral values; the practice of viewing one’s own cultural moral codes as verifiably correct
and using them to judge cultural practices and beliefs of other groups based upon one’s
own.
Expansion Diffusion
The spreading of phenomenon in a fast and continuously growing manner from its hearth
through either contagious, hierarchical, or stimulus forms.
