Ap HUG - Culture

Culture

The shared set of beliefs, values, practices, and material objects that characterize a group of people and are transmitted from one generation to the next.

Material Culture

Tangible artifacts that a group possesses and leaves behind, such as tools, clothing, buildings, art, and food.

Nonmaterial Culture

Beliefs, values, ideas, knowledge, and customs such as religion, language, education, and political systems.

Culture Traits

Individual elements of culture, such as specific beliefs, customs, and skills.

Culture Complex

A collection of interrelated culture traits functioning together within a particular culture.

Cultural Hearths

Specific areas where cultural traits originated.

Cultural Diffusion

The process by which cultural traits spread from a hearth to other areas.

Relocation Diffusion

Spread of culture through the physical movement of people from one place to another.

Expansion Diffusion

Spread of culture from one place to another in such a way that the number of people and places influenced grows continuously.

Contagious Diffusion

Rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population by person-to-person contact.

Hierarchical Diffusion

Spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority or power to other persons or places.

Stimulus Diffusion

The underlying principle or idea diffuses but the specific form fails to spread, leading to the adoption of an adapted form.

Acculturation

The process by which one cultural group adopts some traits of another while retaining its distinct identity.

Assimilation

The process by which a less dominant culture loses its distinctive traits over time and adopts the traits of the dominant culture.

Transculturation

A two-way exchange of cultural traits between two equally powerful cultures, resulting in a new cultural blend.

Multiculturalism

The presence of, or support for the presence of, several distinct cultural or ethnic groups within a society.

Folk Culture

Traditional culture originating from anonymous hearths, typically small, homogeneous, and resistant to change.

Popular Culture

Culture that originates from specific identifiable hearths, often in developed countries, characterized by rapid diffusion and consumerism.

Language

A system of communication through speech, understood by a group of people to have the same meaning.

Language Family

A collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed long before recorded history.

Dialect

A regional variation of a language distinguished by distinct vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.

Lingua Franca

A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages.

Pidgin Language

A simplified language created by combining elements of two or more languages for communication.

Creole Language

A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people.

Religion

A system of beliefs and practices that attempts to order life in terms of culturally perceived ultimate priorities.

Universalizing Religions

Religions that attempt to be global and appeal to all people, not just one culture or location.

Ethnic Religions

Religions that appeal primarily to one group living in one place, closely tied to physical geography and specific ethnicities.

Ethnicity

Identity with a group of people who share the cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth.

Race

Identity with a group of people descended from a biological ancestor, often based on perceived physical characteristics.

Cultural Landscape

The visible imprint of human activity on the landscape, transforming the natural environment into a cultural one.

Sequent Occupance

The notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape.

Sense of Place

The feeling evoked by people as a result of experiences and memories associated with a place.