tell me somethng about ur culture.tell me more and more?

Question

choose one culture. find out more about that culture. write about 200 words

Answer 1

Sorry, I am DONE doing homework for the YEAR. Get back with me in the Fall. September!!!

Answer 2

Sounds like you want someone to do your homework.

Answer 3

Some other time, as I'm tired now, sorry.

Answer 4

The word culture has many different meanings. For some it refers to an appreciation of good literature, music, art, and food. For a biologist, it is likely to be a colony of bacteria or other microorganisms growing in a nutrient medium in a laboratory Petri dish. However, for anthropologists and other behavioral scientists, culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns. The term was first used in this way by the pioneer English Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his book, Primitive Culture, published in 1871. Tylor said that culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." Of course, it is not limited to men. Women possess and create it as well. Since Tylor's time, the concept of culture has become the central focus of anthropology.

Culture is a powerful human tool for survival, but it is a fragile phenomenon. It is constantly changing and easily lost because it exists only in our minds. Our written languages, governments, buildings, and other man-made things are merely the products of culture. They are not culture in themselves. For this reason, archaeologists can not dig up culture directly in their excavations. The broken pots and other artifacts of ancient people that they uncover are only material remains that reflect cultural patterns--they are things that were made and used through cultural knowledge and skills.


Layers of Culture

There are very likely three layers or levels of culture that are part of your learned behavior patterns and perceptions. Most obviously is the body of cultural traditions that distinguish your specific society. When people speak of Italian, Samoan, or Japanese culture, they are referring to the shared language, traditions, and beliefs that set each of these peoples apart from others. In most cases, those who share your culture do so because they acquired it as they were raised by parents and other family members who have it.




The second layer of culture that may be part of your identity is a subculture . In complex, diverse societies in which people have come from many different parts of the world, they often retain much of their original cultural traditions. As a result, they are likely to be part of an identifiable subculture in their new society. The shared cultural traits of subcultures set them apart from the rest of their society. Examples of easily identifiable subcultures in the United States include ethnic groups such as Vietnamese Americans, African Americans, and Mexican Americans. Members of each of these subcultures share a common identity, food tradition, dialect or language, and other cultural traits that come from their common ancestral background and experience. As the cultural differences between members of a subculture and the dominant national culture blur and eventually disappear, the subculture ceases to exist except as a group of people who claim a common ancestry. That is generally the case with German Americans and Irish Americans in the United States today. Most of them identify themselves as Americans first. They also see themselves as being part of the cultural mainstream of the nation.

These Cuban American
women in Miami, Florida
have a shared subculture
identity that is reinforced
through their language,
food, and other traditions

The third layer of culture consists of cultural universals. These are learned behavior patterns that are shared by all of humanity collectively. No matter where people live in the world, they share these universal traits. Examples of such "human cultural" traits include:

1.
communicating with a verbal language consisting of a limited set of sounds and grammatical rules for constructing sentences

2.
using age and gender to classify people (e.g., teenager, senior citizen, woman, man)

3.
classifying people based on marriage and descent relationships and having kinship terms to refer to
them (e.g., wife, mother, uncle, cousin)

4.
raising children in some sort of family setting

5.
having a sexual division of labor (e.g., men's work versus women's work)

6.
having a concept of privacy

7.
having rules to regulate sexual behavior

8.
distinguishing between good and bad behavior

9.
having some sort of body ornamentation

10.
making jokes and playing games

11.
having art

12.
having some sort of leadership roles for the implementation of community decisions


While all cultures have these and possibly many other universal traits, different cultures have developed their own specific ways of carrying out or expressing them. For instance, people in deaf subcultures frequently use their hands to communicate with sign language instead of verbal language. However, sign languages have grammatical rules just as verbal ones do.


Culture and Society

Culture and society are not the same thing. While cultures are complexes of learned behavior patterns and perceptions, societies are groups of interacting organisms. People are not the only animals that have societies. Schools of fish, flocks of birds, and hives of bees are societies. In the case of humans, however, societies are groups of people who directly or indirectly interact with each other. People in human societies also generally perceive that their society is distinct from other societies in terms of shared traditions and expectations.

While human societies and cultures are not the same thing, they are inextricably connected because culture is created and transmitted to others in a society. Cultures are not the product of lone individuals. They are the continuously evolving products of people interacting with each other. Cultural patterns such as language and politics make no sense except in terms of the interaction of people. If you were the only human on earth, there would be no need for language or government.


Is Culture Limited to Humans?


Non-human culture?
This orangutan mother is
using a specially prepared
stick to "fish out" food from
a crevice. She learned this
skill and is now teaching it
to her child who is hanging
on her shoulder and intently
watching.
There is a difference of opinion in the behavioral sciences about whether or not we are the only animal that creates and uses culture. The answer to this question depends on how narrow culture is defined. If it is used broadly to refer to a complex of learned behavior patterns, then it is clear that we are not alone in creating and using culture. Many other animal species teach their young what they themselves learned in order to survive. This is especially true of the chimpanzees and other relatively intelligent apes and monkeys. Wild chimpanzee mothers typically teach their children about several hundred food and medicinal plants. Their children also have to learn about the dominance hierarchy and the social rules within their communities. As males become teenagers, they acquire hunting skills from adults. Females have to learn how to nurse and care for their babies. Chimpanzees even have to learn such basic skills as how to perform sexual intercourse. This knowledge is not hardwired into their brains at birth. They are all learned patterns of behavior just as they are for humans.



Return to Menu Practice Quiz
Next Topic

What is Culture

"Culture ...is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society" (Tylor, Primitive Culture, 1871)
Culture is the webs of significance spun by man that he is suspended in (Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973)

How is culture transmitted

Enculturation
the process by which a child learns his or her culture
transmitted both by direct instruction and by observation
used to define the world, express feelings and make judgements
Culture

Culture is shared by individuals as members of a group
Culture is based on the human ability to use symbols
linguistic and non-verbal
Humans interact with nature through their cultural construction of nature
Some culturally determined traits

The proper way to eat
using the right hand only, knife and fork, chopsticks
Personal space
the comfortable physical distance between people talking
Concepts in culture

Material culture
physical products of a culture
Non-material culture
values, beliefs, ideology
Ideal culture
how people should behave
Real culture
how people behave

Culture is a system

Culture is integrated
when one aspect changes, others will also change
Cultural practices are not always in the best long-term interest of the people in a culture
example: industrialization and car exhaust causing pollution

Levels of culture

National culture
shared by people within one nation
International culture
cultural traditions shared by people in more than one nation
Subculture
share cultural traditions of a larger group, but have certain cultural traits of their own

Cross-cultural comparisons

Cultural universals are traits that are found in all human societies
long period of infant dependency, incest taboo, life in groups, food sharing
Cultural generalities are traits found in many cultures
Cultural particulars are traits unique to one culture

Ethnocentrism

Using one’s own cultural values to judge people from another culture
Finding other cultures behavior strange or threatening
It is a cultural universal and help to give a sense of solidarity to people within one culture


Cultural relativism

Behavior and values in one culture should not be judged by the standards of another culture
Cultural rights
the right of a culture to preserve their knowledge, language and economic base
Human rights
universal, unalienable, individual human rights

Culture change

Diffusion
borrowing of cultural traits from another culture
can be direct or indirect, forced or voluntary
by trade, intermarriage or warfare
examples: religion, domesticated animals
Acculturation
extensive borrowing of cultural traits by one group (usually subordinate) from another (also called cultural assimilation)
exchange of cultural traits between cultures in long-term, close contact
Independent invention
creating solutions to a problem in the society
example: invention of agriculture in the Near East, Middle America and China
Convergent cultural evolution
development of similar cultural traits by groups in similar environments
Globalization

Nations and people today are interlinked and mutually dependent
Promoted by economic and political forces, modern systems of transportation and communication
Allows larger economic and political systems to dominate local cultures

Culture at Work
Culture
Our Services
Negotiation & Conflict
Culture at Work
Japan
Communication
Home






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other pages in this series:
» What is "Culture"?
» "Culture" Metaphors
» 3 more metaphors
» Create metaphors
» Iceberg
» High and Low Context
» Culture "embodied"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Creating your own metaphors
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Culture is like a ________________________ "
Here are some of the metaphors for culture people have sent in. Sorry, no graphics!

Spice Tray--engages 5 senses
Favorite pair of jeans--only fits you, you love them even though they may wear out or get out of style
Painter's palette--creating self (or group) from palette of several cultures
Covered Wagon--the sense of being a pioneer, new frontiers. Culture is your coping mechanism for previous situation, may not fit in new lands, new eras.
Window--you can see out the window to what's beyond, forget to look in, notice own side of window.
Fishbowl
Cloth, embellished textile, warp and weft are basic human needs and representation
The Universe: stars, moon, galaxies--vast. More than one culture. See light from other cultures long after it is first emitted. Internal universe also.
Handbuzzer--it still surprises me, even though I think I know the culture well. Glasses--perspective of events still that of an outsider.
Handcuffs--culture as limiting, controlling, shaping human minds, hearts, lives.
Elephant--messy, smelly, soft, loud, invigorating, different parts feel different: "I love them but who produced them?"
Forest --eco-interdependent
NYC Subway pass, go one stop or all the way out to Coney Island, thru train or local, 24 hours a day.
Culture to me is like tombstones. They come in many different shapes, sizes and styles. Just like the different people in the culture. But they are used as a marker for the dead. Away to identify the person who was buried. Just like culture, in some ways it cripples those who are marked by it.Tombstones define the situation that the person is in. Cultures are used to try to define the people in it.This is why tombstones are like different cultures. They both are supposed to fit the person that they are trying to define.
Culture is like a PIZZA -- everyone prefers different toppings or combinations of toppings, but all are necessary for a complete menu
Culture is like a Monet painting. There are different colors in the painting, but they all mix together at the edges and form a coherent whole.
Now it's your turn. Send us a metaphor that puts a finger on an important aspect of what "culture" is, and we'll add it to this list. Email [e-mail]

«« 3 metaphors I use Culture "embodied" »»





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Services
Negotiation & Conflict
Culture at Work
Japan
Communication
Home

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 1997-2003 Jennifer E. Beer Fair use policy
»» Creating your own Metaphors
http://www.culture-at-work.com/concept4.html