AMSCO Unit 3 ALL VOCAB

Culture

behaviors, actions, beliefs, and objects are a part of Culture

Visible culture

Artefacts, symbols, and practices, such as art and architecture, language, color, and dress, as well as social etiquette and traditions

Invisible culture

Defined as the intangible parts of a culture. Examples of types of invisible culture are belief systems, values and unspoken...

Cultural Traits

A series of interrelated traits make up a cultural complex

Cultural Complex

A single cultural artifact, such as an automobile, may represent many different values, beliefs, behaviors and traditions and be representative

Taboos

Behaviors heavily discouraged by a culture.

Traditional Culture

Used to encompass all three cultural designations. All three types share the function of passing down long-held beliefs, values, and practices and are generally resistant to rapid changes in their culture.

Folk Culture

The beliefs and practices of small, homogenous groups of people, often living in rural areas that are relatively isolated and slow to change,

Indigenous Culture

When members of an ethnic group reside in their ancestral lands, and typically possess unique cultural traits, such as speaking their own exclusive language

Globalization

to the increased integration of the world economy since the 1970s

Popular Culture

emphasizes trying what is new rather than preserving what is traditional.

Horizontal diversity

meaning each traditional culture has its own customs and language that makes it distinct from other culture groups.

Vertical diversity

meaning that modern urban societies are usually heterogeneous, or exh ibiting differences, within the society and usually contain numerous multiethnic neighborhoods.

Artifacts/Material Culture

physical objects (tangible) that humans make. These objects inevitably reflect the historical, geographic, and social conditions of their origin. ex. Art, clothing, food, music, sports, and housing types

Mentifact/Nonmaterial Culture

nonphysical objects (intangible) These objects inevitably reflect the historical, geographic, and social conditions of their origin. ex. Art, clothing, food, music, sports, and housing types

Sociofacts

which are the ways people organize their society and relate to one another.

Placelessness

in which many modern cultural landscapes exhibit a great deal of homogeneity.

Cultural Landscape

the visible reflection of a culture, or the built environment

Traditional Architecture

reflects a local culture's history, beliefs, values, and community adaptations to the environment and typically utilizes locally available materials

Contemporary Architecture

Utilizes more curves and rotational ability in order to create a more modern architectural look, they are used to exemplify a corporation's wealth, and are used to show a city's wealth.

Ethnicity

membership in a group of people who share characteristics such as ancestry, language, customs, history, and common experiences

Ethnic Enclaves

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

Gendered Spaces

"places that are considered male or female, or even gender neutral, for example woman only coffee shops. Example: Restrooms, Retail Spaces and Stores, Gyms, Kitchens, Boardrooms, Workspaces, and Private Clubs"

Cultural Regions

a portion of earth's surface occupied by a population sharing recognizable and distinctive cultural characteristics from other regions.

Sacred Places

A place marked for holy or religious purposes.

Christian Landscape

churches often feature a tall steeple topped by a cross. churches also demonstrate how the origin of the architectural style was often influenced but he environment, such as the climate and the available building materials. cultural influences similarly shape the preferred and available materials to build such structures. in most parts of the world, they bury the dead in cemeteries.

Hindu Landscape

Hindu temples often have elaborately carved outsides, and are often near water sources such as the Ganges river, in order for pilgrimages to occur. Practice ritual burning of a body.

Buddhist Landscape

practice differs widely from place to place, from ethnic group to ethnic group. however, mose emphasize meditating and living in harmony with nature. these features are represented in stupas, structures built to symbolize five aspects of nature--earth, water, fire, air, and space-- where people can meditate. among them, the decision to cremate or to bury the dead is a personal choice.

Jewish Landscape

worship in synagogues or temples. temples vary in size based on the number of Jews in an area. burial of the dead customarily occurs before sundown on the day following the death.

Diaspora

A dispersion of people from their homeland

Islamic Landscape

in places where it's widely practiced, the mosque is the most prominent structure on the landscape and is usually located in the center of town. mosques have domes surrounded by a few minarets (beacond) from which daily prayer is called. burial of the dead is to be done as soon as possible, and burials are in cemetaries

Shinto Landscape

Emphasizes honoring one's ancestors, and has a big door to symbolize the transition from the outside world to a sacred place.

Charter Group

the dominant first arrivals establishing the cultural norms and standards against which other immigrant groups were measured

Ethnic Islands (Rural)

Ethnic areas that are spaced apart from other cultural areas, and due to this factor, these ethnic islands usually maintain a strong and long lasting cohesion.

Ethnic Neighborhoods (Urban)

A voluntary community within a city where people of common ethnicity reside by choice, Thus creating small ethnic enclaves such as China Town and etc.

Sequent Occupancy

ethnic groups move in and out of neighborhoods and create new cultural imprints on the landscape

Neolocalism

the process of re-embracing the uniqueness and authenticity of a place

Cultural Patterns

related sets of cultural traits and complexes that create similar behaviors across space

Culture Hearth

where a religion or ethnicity began, and then track its movement and predict its future direction. Religions, like other elements of culture, often diffuse outward from their hearths in various ways. Ille spread of religious settlements, both locally and globally, contributes to the sense of place and of belonging for each religious group and greatly shapes the cultural landscape.

Regional distribution of religions in the US

Congretionalists remain in New England , Baptists and Methodists are common in the Southeast, where traveling preachers spread it in the 1800s, Lutherans live mostly in the Mid-West where their Many Mormons live in or near Utah, n. Roman Catholics are the most common in urban areas in the northeast and throughout the southwest, Jews, muslims, and hindus, live mostly in urban areas, the traditional home of immigrants.

Nationality

based on people's connection to a particular country—and ethnicity—based upon group cultural traits.

Centripetal Forces

those that unify a group of people or a region. These forces may include a common language and religion, a shared heritage and history, ethnic unity and tolerance, a just and fair legal system, a charismatic leader, or any other unifying aspect of culture.

Centrifugal Forces

those that divide a group of people or a region. These forces can pull apart societies, nations, and states, and are essentially centripetal forces in reverse.

Sharia

the legal framework of a country derived from Islamic edicts taken from their holy book, the Qur'an.

Blue Laws

Laws that restrict certain activities, such as the sale of alcohol, on Sunday. In Colorado and some other states, car dealerships must be closed on Sunday as well.

Food taboos

prohibitions against eating and drinking certain items.

Fundamentalism

an attempt to follow a literal interpretation of a religious faith.

Theocracies

countries whose governments are run by religious leaders through the use of religious laws.

Ethnocentric

the belief ones own cultural group is more important and superior to other cultures.

Cultural Relativism

the concept that a person's or group's beliefs, values, norms, and practices should be understood from the perspective of the other group's culture.

Cultural Appropriation

he action of adopting traits, icons, or other elements of another culture.

Diffusion

The spread of information, ideas, behaviors, and other aspects of culture from their hearths to wider areas

Relocation Diffusion

The spread ofculture and/or cultural traits by people who migrate and carry their cultural traits with them.

Expansion Diffusion

spread of cultural traits outward through exchange without migration

Contagious Diffusion

when a cultural trait spreads 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 influence.

Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion

trait diffuses from a group of lower status to a group of higher status,

Stimulus Diffusion

when an underlying idea from a culture hearth is adopted by another culture but the adopting group modifies or rejects one trait.

Imperialism

a broader concept that includes a variety of ways of influencing another country or group of people by direct conquest, economic control, or cultural dominance.

Colonialism

type of imperialism in which people move into and settle on the land of another country.

Animism

the belief that non-living objects, such as rivers or mountains, possess spirits.

Native Speakers

those who use the language learned from birth

Lingua Franca

a common language used by people who do not share the same native language (Like English)

Slang

Words used informally by a segment of the population.

Pidgin Language

When speakers of two different languages have extensive contact with each other, often because of trade

Creole Language

Over time, two or more separate languages can mix and develop a more formal structure and vocabulary so that they are no longer a pidgin language. They create a new combined language, known as

Social Constructs

ideas, concepts, or perceptions that have been created and accepted by people in a society or social group and are not created by nature.

Time-space Convergence

The greater interconnection between places that results from improvements in transportation

Cultural Convergence

Cultures are becoming similar to each other and sharing more cultural traits, ideas, and beliefs.

Cultural Divergence

is the idea that a culture may change over time as the elements of distance, time, physical separation, and modern technology create divisions and changes.

Linguists

scientists who study languages,

Language Tree

The relationship among these language families is often shown on a

Indo-European Language Family

Nearly half of the world's population speaks one of the languages of the

Romance Languages

Most of these later vanished, but Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and Romanian, among others survived and grew.

Isoglosses

The boundaries between variations in pronunciations or word usage

Dialects

Variations in accent, grammar, usage, and spelling create

Adages

sayings that attempt to express a truth about life, such as "the early bird gets the worm."

Toponyms

The name of places

Official Language

one designated by law to be the language of government,

Homogenous

of the same kind

Adherents

believers in their faith

Ethnic Religions

Belief traditions that emphasize strong cultural characteristics among their followers

Universal Religions

actively seeks converts to its faith regardless of their ethnic backgrounds. Universalizing religions are open to all people regardless of their ethnicity, language, social status or nationality.

Hinduism

Classified as an ethnic religion; includes the worship of many deities, so most scholars consider it polytheistic, which means having many gods

Polytheistic

means having many gods

Monotheistic

means having one god.

Karma

The idea that behaviors have consequences in the present life or a future

Caste System

rigid class structure, that shaped Indian society.

Buddhism

The practice of \__________ differs widely from place to place and from ethnic group to ethnic group. However, most \__________ emphasize meditating and living in harmony with nature.

Four noble truths

the four central beliefs containing the essence of Buddhist teaching

Eightfold path

A book that sought to eliminate desire and suffering

Sikhism

relatively new universalizing monotheistic faith; founded by Guru Nanak in the Punjab region

Gurdwara

A Sikh's place of worship

Judaism

s among the first monotheistic faiths.

Torah

expresses divine will. It is supplemented by other writings as well as unwritten laws and customs.

Holocaust

murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany,

Christianity

Began when followers of a Jewish teacher, Jesus (c. 4 B.C.E. to c. 30 C.E.), evolved into their own religion based on the belief that Jesus was the son of God and the savior of humans.

Islam

is the religion followed by Muslims. Muslims believe that Allah—the Arabic word for God—revealed his teachings to humans through a series of prophets. The last of these was Muhammad

Five pillars

The core principles of the Quran

Sunni

One of the major subdivisions of islam (the bigger one)