Chapters 4 & 5 Vocab

Alternative fact (or alt fact)

A statement that can be proved to be false.

Cultural homogenization

The process of reduction in cultural diversity through the diffusion of popular culture.

Custom

The frequent repetition of an act, to the extent that it becomes characteristic of the group of people performing the act.

Cyber espionage

The unauthorized and clandestine deployment of a computer virus to observe or destroy data in the computer systems of government agencies and large corporations.

Ecotourism

Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of local people, and involves interpretation and education.

Esports

Sports competitions using video games.

Fake news

A false report disseminated under the guise of an authentic news report, created to maliciously spread misinformation and mislead consumers of the content.

Folk culture

Culture traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation from other groups.

Franchise

An agreement between a corporation and a business owner to market that corporation’s products in a local area.

Habit

A repetitive act performed by a particular individual.

Malware (or malicious software)

Hostile or intrusive computer software designed to cause intentional harm.

Overtourism

A phenomenon whereby certain places of interest are visited by excessive numbers of tourists, causing undesirable effects for the places visited.

Popular culture

Culture found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits and seeks similar material goods despite differences in other personal characteristics.

Ransomware (or cryptoviral extortion)

A form of malware that encrypts the victim’s computer files, making them inaccessible, until a ransom is paid to decrypt them.

Responsible tourism

Tourism that minimizes negative economic, environmental, and social impacts and generates greater benefits for local people.

Taboo

A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.

Terroir

The contribution of a location’s distinctive environment to the way food produced there tastes.

Trolling

The practice of posting deliberately inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in social media in order to provoke quarrels or otherwise upset people.

Voluntourism

A form of tourism in which travelers participate in voluntary work, typically for a nonprofit organization.

Web application attack

An exploitation of a vulnerability in the coding of an app in order to gain access to a database.

African American Vernacular English (AAVE)

A dialect used by some Black Americans.

Centrifugal force

A cultural value that tends to pull people apart.

Centripetal force

A cultural value that tends to unify people.

Creole (or creolized) language

A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer’s language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated.

Denglish

A combination of Deutsch (the German word for German) and English.

Dialect

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

Endangered language

A language that is threatened or dying because it is losing users and may not be retained by the younger generation.

Extinct language

A language that was once used by people in daily activities but is no longer used.

Franglais

A combination of français and anglais (the French words for French and English, respectively).

Institutional language

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

Isoglass

A boundary that separates regions in which different language usages predominate.

Isolated language

A language that is unrelated to any other languages and therefore not attached to any language family.

Language

A system of communication through speech, movement, sounds, or symbols that a group of people understands to have the same meaning.

Language branch

A collection of languages related through a common ancestor that can be confirmed through archaeological evidence.

Language family

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

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.

Lingua franca

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

Linguist

A specialist in the study of human language.

Literary tradition

A language that is written as well as spoken.

Logogram

A symbol that represents a word rather than a sound.

Mutual intelligibility

The ability of people communicating in two ways to readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort.

Official language

The language adopted for use by a government for the conduct of business and publication of documents.

Pidgin language

A form of language that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca; used for communications among speakers of two different languages.

Received Pronunciation (RP)

The dialect of English commonly used by politicians, broadcasters, and actors in the United Kingdom.

Spanglish

A combination of Spanish and English spoken by some Hispanic Americans.

Stable language

A language in daily use by people of all ages, from children to elderly individuals.

Standard language

The form of a language used for official government, business, education, and mass communication.

Subdialect

A subdivision of a dialect.

Working language

A language designated by an international organization or corporation as its primary means of communication for daily correspondence and conversation.