Unit 3

• Ethnocentrism


  Viewing actions of other cultures through the lens of one's own culture, Belief that one's own culture is superior to others
• Cultural Relativism


  Regarding and valuing the practices of a culture from the point of view of that culture (Promotes understanding of unfamiliar cultural practices)
• Cultural landscapes


  The visible cultural impact of an area, including physical features, Agricultural practices, industrial practices, religious and linguistic characteristics, land-use patterns, and evidence of successive occupance
• Global (popular) culture


  Changes rapidly, in the present, spreads through media, worldwide
• Traditional culture


  Changes very little, in the past, varies over space not time, handed down in small communities
• Syncretism


  Blending of multiple cultural traits
• Acculturation


  Cultural modification of an individual, group or people by adapting to traits of another culture
• Assimilation


  Completely adopt ways of another culture
• Types of cultural diffusion

  • Relocation diffusion (diffusion due to migration)
  • Contagious diffusion (person to person)
  • Hierarchical diffusion (spreads from people of power/wealth to the rest of the population)
  • Stimulus diffusion (an idea spreads and gets changed by the new adopters)
• Toponym


  Place names
• Pidgin


  A language formed from multiple other languages to allow communication between native speakers of different languages (e.g. Spanglish)
• Indo-European language families


  • Germanic languages (e.g. English, German, Dutch)
  • Romance languages (e.g. French, Spanish, Italian)
• Lingua franca


  A language that people use between people who don't share a language
• Endangered language


  A language that has a low number of speakers and is at risk of becoming extinct, often due to factors like colonialism, boarding schools and pacification. Preservation is achieved through documentation and dictionaries.
• Buddhism


  • Hearth: India, Universalizing, Cultural landscape includes red color, Buddha, wheel of law, wings on tips, Pagoda (geometric stacked buildings)
• Christianity


  • Hearth: Jerusalem, Universalizing, Cultural landscape includes crosses, twin bell towers, Notre Dame, also includes Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy
• Islam


  • Hearth: Saudi Arabia, Universalizing, Cultural landscape includes Mosques (domes, minarets), crescent moon symbol
• Judaism


  • Hearth: Israel, Ethnic, Cultural landscape includes star of David, Hebrew, prayer shawls
• Hinduism


  • Hearth: India, Ethnic, Cultural landscape includes Ganges river, clothing, appearance of bindi (forehead), Pyramid structures, Complex highly decorated temples
• Race


  Socially constructed categories based on physical appearance
• Ethnicity


  The cultural heritage one identifies with, often place-based and related to ancestry
• Ancestry


  Lineage, based on the place of origin and heritage of one's ancestors