Chapter 5- Textbook Flashcards

Question

What do some critics of the philosophy of cultural relativism argue?

Answer 1

That by adopting the position, people give up the ability to determine if an action is right or wrong, moral or immoral. Critics argue that some things are wrong regardless of cultural context. One some level, universal human rights are contradicted by narrowly conceived ideas of cultural relativism.

Answer 2

The feeling of disorientation, alienation, depression, and loneliness experienced when entering a culture very different from one's own that subsides only once a person becomes acclimated to the new culture.

Answer 3

1) Honeymoon: a feeling of admiration and awe regarding the newest culture, and cordial interactions with locals. 2) Crisis: differences in values, signs, and symbols begin to inspire feelings of confusion and disorientation that lead to feelings of inadequacy, frustration, anger, and despair. 3) Recovery: crisis is gradually resolved with a growing understanding of the host culture and recognition that its values are consistent with its view of the world. 4) Adjustment: an increasing ability to function effectively and enjoy the host culture despite occasional feelings of anxiety or stress.

Answer 4

Something that stands for or represents something else.

Answer 5

A shared symbol system of rules and meanings that governs the production and interpretation of speech.

Answer 6

established meanings

Answer 7

Agreed-upon meanings shared by a group of people

Answer 8

Society (and culture) is socially constructed. This principle suggests that every time we interact, we interpret the interaction according to the subjective meanings each of us brings to it.

Answer 9

The culture to which is belonged loses one of its most important survival mechanisms?

Answer 10

When dominant language groups are adopted by young people whose parents speak a traditional language.

Answer 11

- 7000 | - half of these

Answer 12

A little bit of culture dies with it.

Answer 13

1) As a human collective, each time we lost a language we lose knowledge, because each language serves as a vast source of information about the past and about how we have a adapted to our environments 2) When a language dies, so do its related cultural myths, folk songs, legends, poetry, and belief systems. This is called "cultural amnesia" and lessens our ability to live peacefully with diverse populations because our understanding of cultural diversity decreases. 3) The demise of the world's languages hinders our exploration of the mysteries of the human mind. Without the ability to convey ideas, we cannot hope to see the world from another's perspective.

Answer 14

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf

Answer 15

The assertion that language influences how we perceive the world (also known as linguistic determinism). Our perception of the world is influenced by the limitations of our language; people who speak different languages comprehend the world differently.

Answer 16

1) Linguistic determinism | 2) Linguistic relativism

Answer 17

Language determines how we perceive the world. The way you think is determined by the language you speak.

Answer 18

Language reflects how we perceive the world. The differences between languages do not determine but reflect the different worldview of their speakers.

Answer 19

A strong version (linguistic determinism) and a weak version (linguistic relativism).

Answer 20

Strong version - language determines how we see the world | Weak version - language reflects the way we think

Answer 21

language hotspots

Answer 22

roughly 20

Answer 23

Shows very little support for the assertion that language defines how e interpret the world.

Answer 24

A complex system of body language that conveys a great deal about what we feel is important.

Answer 25

1) Body language- uses motions to convey meaning 2) Proximity- uses personal space 3) Haptics- uses personal contact 4) Oculesics- uses eye contact 5) Chronemics- uses time 6) Olfactics- uses smell 7) Vocalics- uses voice 8) Sound symbols- uses audible cues 9) Adornment- uses accessories 10) Locomotion- uses movement

Answer 26

unconscious

Answer 27

Largely uncontrollable, instantaneous full-face emotional reactions that last about one-thirtieth of a second before they are suppressed or covered up with a smile. They are a window into a person's true emotions.

Answer 28

A group within a population who values, norms, folkways, or mores set them apart from the mainstream culture.

Answer 29

Race, ethnicity, and religion mainly. But they can also be based on age, sexuality, occupation, recreational activities, or any activity, belief system, or special interest that the participants value enough to want to associate with others like themselves.

Answer 30

To promote their members' interests but not in a manner that is contrary to the larger culture that surrounds them.

Answer 31

A type of subculture that strongly opposes the widely held cultural patterns of the larger population. When members of a subculture become increasingly distinct from the larger society around them.

Answer 32

The anti-war movement became associated with rock music, sexual experimentation, and illegal drug use. They were viewed as subversive,dangerous, and immoral. They wanted to live differently from their parents, and they questioned traditional values such as nationalism and patriotism. They wanted to live for the moment and to act as thinking and questioning individuals rather than as robots stuck on they conveyor belt of life.

Answer 33

People who gather at international conferences to fight what they perceive as the threat of globalization and corporate culture, people who seek a freer and more egalitarian society, or people who chain themselves to trees slated to be bulldozed so that highways can be built. Other groups such as the Aryan Nation and the Heritage Front have racist, anti-Semitic agendas and have been implicated in numerous violent activities. Still, other countercultures, such as youth street gangs, have no interest in social reform; instead, they seek a sense of belonging, often expressed through special clothing , secret signs, and specialized language.

Answer 34

They provide feelings of belonging as well as support for their members.

Answer 35

An intricate and diverse set of geographic, historical, and social circumstances.

Answer 36

Canada's adaption to a harsh physical environment. It has defined why it means to be Canadian.

Answer 37

The coexistence of and conflict between the English and the French. The influence of Quebec society on Canadian culture is beyond challenge.

Answer 38

What they are not: Americans

Answer 39

That Canadians are more elitist and ascriptive than Americans (that is, they are more inclined to accept that people are born with different statuses). They are also more community-oriented than Americans and more appreciative of racial and ethnic variation.

Answer 40

The american revolution. The US emerged as a manifestation of the classic liberal state, rejecting all ties to the British throne. On the other hand, English Canada fought to maintain its imperial ties through the explicit rejection of liberal revolutions.

Answer 41

Canadian identity was not defined by a successful revolution but by a successful counterrevolution. The US was defined by a rigid and stable ideology Lipset calls Americanism.

Answer 42

- In each countries literature - US literature concentrates on themes of winning, opportunism, and confidence - Canadian writing focuses on defeat difficult physical circumstances, and abandonment by Britain.

Answer 43

- US: "the frontier," which inspires images of vitality and unrealized potential - Canada: "survival," Canadians are forever taking the national pulse; not to see whether the patient will I've well but simply to see whether he will live at all

Answer 44

He suggests that they do not exist in a vacuum but, rather, are embodied in and reinforced by social and political institutions.

Answer 45

1) Discovery 2) Invention/innovation 3) Diffusion

Answer 46

Occurs when something previously unrecognized or understood is fund to have social or cultural applications.

Answer 47

Occurs when existing cultural items are manipulated or modified to produce something new and socially valuable.

Answer 48

- Invention: refers to creating something completely new that has not existed before - Innovation: refers to manipulating existing ideas or technologies to create something new, or to applying them to something for which they were not originally intended.

Answer 49

Occurs when cultural items or practices are transmitted from one group to another.

Answer 50

From the premise that, since every society must meet basic needs, culture can be be understood as playing a role in helping to meet those needs. Different societies go about it differently.

Answer 51

common cultural features found in all societies.

Answer 52

Develop and persist because they are adaptive and improve a people's chances of survival

Answer 53

The position that social life is best understood by considering what individual practices or beliefs do for the collective.

Answer 54

The process by which environmental pressures are addressed through changed in practices, traditions, and behaviours as a way of maintaining stability and equilibrium.

Answer 55

Any practice that diminishes a culture's ability to prosper will be unlikely to survive.

Answer 56

By focusing nohow cultural elements work together to maintains stability, functionalism does not take into account tension from subcultures or countercultures. Even though a countercultural movement may inspire progressive social change, the overriding assumption of functionalist theory is stability. to assume that cultural traditions are always useful for the suite denies the real pan and suffering they sometimes cause. Cultural traditions may help to bind people together, but it may be impossible to justify or defend how they benefit society as a whole.

Answer 57

Conflict theorists assert that those who hold power define and perpetuate a culture's ideology, and create a value system that defines social inequality as just and proper.

Answer 58

The culture and the values that support the belief that success requires money are a demonstration of the power of ideology. Conflict theorists view the link between money and success as an expression of the ruling elite's power and influence.

Answer 59

They can use their power to dominate the less powerful.

Answer 60

An abuse of power and a demonstration of the dominant culture's attempt to absorb a less powerful one.

Answer 61

The dominant culture eventually becomes part of the oppressed group's value system. Ultimately, the oppressed group begins to view its own culture as inferior and tries to improve its position by adopting the ways of the dominant culture.

Answer 62

By defining what the dominant classes perceive as positive, cultural elements promote social inequality through the belief that to be successful you have to be like the elite and perpetuate their control and power. By the oppressed culture maintaining their traditions, they are isolating and marginalizing themselves from the dominant culture, thus, overall the conflict approach favours the notion that cultural change is more beneficial to the oppressed people than is cultural continuity.

Answer 63

Functionalism

Answer 64

Conflict Theory

Answer 65

Recognizing that culture can be used as a vehicle for oppression.

Answer 66

Acknowledging the potential social benefits gained by uniting people into a common cultural group.

Answer 67

Investing how culture is actively create and recreated through social interaction. Theses, as people go about their everyday lives, they create and modify culture as they engage in the negotiation of reality based on shared meanings grounded in cultural symbols.

Answer 68

The result of mutual interaction and social definition. People interpret and actively engage with nonmaterial cultural artifacts (symbols) in every social situation they encounter.

Answer 69

By interacting individuals na manifests itself in society through negotiated social interaction.

Answer 70

Since these meanings are actively negotiated, as well as the fact that they are fluid an constantly open to reinterpretation and reflection.

Answer 71

Culture is the set of symbols to which we collectively assign values and the result of our active engagement with those around us.

Answer 72

By suggesting tha changing cultural definitions requires changing how we define and classify people diminishes the reality that some cultural definitions result from structural oppression and discrimination. Symbolic interactionism, while tremendously insightful about interpersonal definitions of cultural meanings, is less able to explain large cultural manifestations than are functionalist or conflict theories.