APHG unit 3

Culture

practices, technologies, attitudes, and behaviors shared through society

Cultural traits

Individual elements of culture and include arch as food preferences, architecture, and land use

Custom

Practice routinely followed by a group of people

Habit

A repetitive act that a particular individual performs

Cultural complex

Group of traits that define a particular culture

Cultural hearth

Area in which a unique culture or specific trait develops

Taboo

Behaviors heavily discouraged by a culture

Local cultures/Folk cultures

Small, homogenous, groups of people that often live in rural areas that are relatively isolated and are slow to change

Cultural regions

Broad areas where groups share similar but not identical cultural traits

Formal region

An area that has officially recognised boundaries defining it

Nodal/functional region

An area organized around a node or focal point

Perceptual/vernacular region

Based on how people think of a particular area (south, east, north, and west coast of US)

Cultural landscape

The visible imprint of human activity and culture on the landscape

Ethnic enclaves

Clusters of people of the same culture, but surrounded by people of a culture that is dominant in the region

Cultural realms

Larger area that include several regions; cultures within these realms have a few traits they all share, such as language families, religious tradition, food preferences, architecture, or a shared history

Space time compression

The increasing sense of connectivity that seems to be bringing people closer together even though their distances are the same

Globalization

The process of intensified interaction among people, govt, and companies of different countries around the globe

Modern/popular/global culture

Consists of cultural traits that spread quickly across over a large area and are adopted by various groups

Diffusion

The spreading of information, ideas, behaviours, and other aspects of culture over wider areas

Relocation diffusion

The spread of a cultural traits by people who migrate and carry their cultural traits with them

Expansion diffusion

The spread of cultural traits through direct or indirect exchange without migration

Three types of expansion diffusion

Hierarchical, contagious, and stimulus

Contagious diffusion

Occurs when cultural traits spread continuously outward from its hearth through contact among people

Hierarchical diffusion

The spread of culture outward from the most interconnected places or from centers of wealth and importance

Reverse hierarchical diffusion

The processes in which a trait diffuses from a lower class to a higher class

Stimulus diffusion

Occurs when people in a culture adopt an underlying idea to process from another culture, but modify it because they reject one trait of it

Acculturation

An ethnic or immigrant group moving to a new area adopts the values and practices of the larger group that has received them while still maintaining major elements of their own culture

Assimilation

When an ethnic group can no longer be distinguished from the receiving group

Multiculturalism

The coexistence of several cultures in one society, with the ideas of all cultures being valued and worth of study

Nativist

Anti immigrant

Relativism

Belief that moral behavior varies among individuals, groups, and cultures, as well as across situations

Sequential occupancy

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

Centripetal forces

Forces that tend to unite or bind a state together

Centrifugal forces

Forces that divide a state (internal religious, political, economic, linguistic, or ethnic differences

Language family

A collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history

Language branch

A collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago - differences are not as extensive or as old as with language families, and archaeological evidence can confirm that the branches are derived from the same family

Language group

A collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary

Instituitional language

A language used in education, work, mass media, and government

Official language

The language used by the government for the conduct of business and publication of documents

Literary tradition

A language that is written as well as spoken

Developing language

A language spoken in daily use with a literary tradition that is not widely distributed

Vigorous language

A language that is spoken in daily use but that lacks a literary tradition

Extinct language

A language that was once used by people in daily activities but is no longer used (such as Latin)

Lingua Franca

A language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different

Syncretism

Blending of 2 or more cultural or religious traditions

Colonialism

Attempt by one country to establish settlements and to impose its political, economic, and cultural principles in another territory (settlement)

Imperialism

Domination by one country of the political, economic, or cultural life of another country or region (No settlements, just ruling from afar)

Urbanization

The movement of people from rural areas to cities

Globalization

Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope

Indo-European

A family of languages consisting of most of the languages of Europe as well as those of iron, the Indian subcontinent, and their parts of Asia

Sino-tibetan

Language area that spreads through most of southeast Asia and china and is comprised of Chinese, Burmese, Tibetan, Japanese, and korean

Linguistic fragmentation

A condition in which many languages are spoken, each by a relatively small number number of people

Pidgin

A language that adopts simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a Lingua franca, used for communication among speakers of two different languages

Creole

A language that is made from the mixing of a colonizers language with he indigenous language of the people being dominated

Universalizing religion

Religion that people all around the world practice and is spread through missionaries and conversion

Ethnic religion

A religion that is identified with a specific ethnic group or region, and does not seek new converts

Cultural convergence

for cultures to converge together through technology and organizational structures

Cultural divergence

The way cultures can become increasingly different as time passes

Polytheism

Religion that believes in more than 1 god

Monotheism

Religions that believes in one god

Indigenous religions

Belief systems and philosphies practiced and passed down generation to generation in tribes or people-groups

Sect

A small group that has broken away from an established religion

Syncretic religion

The combination of 2 different religions into a distinct new religion that contains traits of both religions

Race

Identification of a group of people through a perceived trait, such as skin color or physical characteristics

Ethnicity

Identification of a group of people who share a cultural tradition or a particular hearth

Nationality

Identification of a group of people who share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a particular country

Racism

The belief that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

Ethnic enclave

A place with high concentration of an ethnic group that is distinct from those in the surrounding area

Genocide

The deliberate killing of a large people-group in attempt to erase them from existence

Ethnic cleansing

The mass expulsion, removal, or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic or religious group in society

Centripetal force

Binds a nation together

Centrifugal force

Tears a nation apart