Unit 3: Culture (Patterns and Processes) Flashcards
Custom
The frequent repetition of an act, to the extent that it becomes characteristic of the group of people performing the act.
Folk Culture
Culture traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation from other groups.
Habit
A repetitive act performed by a particular individual.
Popular Culture
Culture found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics.
Taboo
A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.
Terroir
The contribution of a location’s distinctive physical features to the way food tastes.
Animism
Belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, like thunderstorms and earthquakes, have a discrete spirit and conscious life.
Autonomous Religion
A religion that does not have a central authority but shares ideas and cooperates informally.
Branch
A large and fundamental division within a religion.
Caste
The class or distinct hereditary order into which a Hindu is assigned according to religious law.
Cosmogony
A set of religious beliefs concerning the origin of the universe.
Denomination
A division of a branch that unites a number of local congregations into a single legal and administrative body.
Ethnic Religion
A religion with a relatively concentrated spatial distribution whose principles are likely to be based on the physical characteristics of the particular location in which its adherents are concentrated.
Fundamentalism
Literal interpretation and strict adherence to basic principles of a religion (or a religious branch, denomination, or sect).
Ghetto
During the Middle Ages, a neighborhood in a city set up by law to be inhabited only by Jews; now used to denote a section of a city in which members of any minority group live because of social, legal, or economic pressure.
Hierarchical Religion
A religion in which a central authority exercises a high degree of control.
Missionary
An individual who helps to diffuse a universalizing religion.
Monotheism
The doctrine or belief of the existence of only one god.
Pagan
A follower of a polytheistic religion in ancient times.
Pilgrimage
A journey to a place considered sacred for religious purposes.
Polytheism
Belief in or worship of more than one god.
Sect
A relatively small group that has broken away from an established denomination.
Solstice
Astronomical event that happens twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth’s axis is most inclined toward or away from the Sun, causing the Sun’s apparent position in the sky to reach it’s most northernmost or southernmost extreme, and resulting in the shortest and longest days of the year.
Universalizing Religion
A religion that attempts to appeal to all people, not just those living in a particular location.
British Received Pronunciation (BRP)
The dialect of English associated with upper-class Britons living in London and now considered standard in the United Kingdom.
Creole or Creolized Language
A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer’s language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated.
Denglish
Combination of German and English.
Dialect
A regional variety of a language distinguished by vocab, spelling, and pronunciation.
Ebonics
Dialect spoken by some African Americans.
Extinct Language
A language that was once used by people in daily activities but is no longer used.
Franglais
A term used by the French for English words that have entered the French language; a combination of francais and anglais, the French words for “French” and “English”, respectively.
Ideograms
The system of writing used in China and other East Asian countries in which each symbol represents and idea or a concept rather than a specific sound, as is the case with letters in English.
Isogloss
A boundary that separates regions in which different language uses predominate.
Isolated Language
A language that is unrelated to any other languages and therefore not attached to any language family.
Language
A system of communication through the use of speech, a collection of sounds understood by a group of people to have the same meaning.
Language Branch
A collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago.
Language Family
A collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history.
Language Group
A collection of languages with a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.
Lingua Franca
A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages.
Literary Tradition
A language that is written as well as spoken.
Official Language
The language adopted for use by the government for the conduct of business and publication of documents.
Pidgin Language
A form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca; used for communications among speakers of two different languages.
Spanglish
Combination of Spanish and English, spoken by Hispanic Americans.
Standard Language
The form of a language used for official government business, education, and mass communications.
Vulgar Latin
A form of Latin used in daily conversation by ancient Romans, as opposed to the standard dialect, which was used for official documents.
