Cultural Anthropology Exam 1

Four subdisciplines of Anthropology

Biological, Archaeological, Applied, Cultural Anthropology, Linguistics

Archaeology

Prehistoric bones, stones, and pots, with historical additions of written records

Biological Anthropology

Forensics, paleontology, and primatology

Linguistics

The study of languages

Applied Anthropology

Problem solving within a culture

Cultural Anthropology

Ethnology and participant observation

Holistic Perspective

The view that no single dimension of humanity can be understood alone

Comparative Perspective

The view that understanding the diversity of cultures requires a large sample

Cultural Relativism

The principle that no one culture is superior to another culture

Ethnocentrism

Belief that one's own culture is superior

Culture is shared

Understood not as individual traits, but as a group trait

Enculturation

The process by which infants learn the ways of their culture

Acculturation

Exchange of cultural traits between different cultures or groups

Roles

Patterns of behavior people learn to expect and adapt to

Norms

Shared ideals about how people should act in certain situations

Classifications of reality

How we divide up the world around us

World View

Beliefs going beyond the physical world to include the cosmos, our role in the world, religion, and notions of good and evil

Diffusion

The movement of traits between groups (direct and indirect)

Independent Invention

The development of the same cultural traits without contact

Three categories of traits

Universal, Generality, Particularity

Phonemes

The smallest sound units of a language

Morphemes

Sequences of phonemes which convey actual meaning

Free Morphemes

Words

Bound Morphemes

Prefixes and suffixes

Sociolinguistics

Study of language in relation to social factors, such as regional dialects

Code Switching

Changing the way you speak in different situations

Kinesics

Body language

Forms of Communication

Speaking, writing, ASL, primate call systems, and Morse code

Properties of Language

Versatile, discrete, arbitrary, and productive

Lexicon

List of words

Focal Vocabularies

Words that are important within a culture

Ways of Collecting Data

Notebooks, unstructured interviews, semi-structured interviews, structured interviews, and key consultants

Issue of Reactivity

Changing behavior when being observed

Materialists

Theorists who believe technology and environment play the greater role in shaping culture

Idealists

Theorists who believe a culture's ideas and beliefs are fundamental in shaping culture

British Functionalism

Approach that asks what function a trait serves and how it meets basic human needs

Three Basic Needs of Human Life

Food, shelter, reproduction

Three Traditional Races

Mongoloid, Caucasoid, Negroid

Race in Terms of Cultural Anthropology

A cultural construct rather than a biological reality

Fieldwork

Ethnographic research that involves observing and interviewing members of a community to document and describe their way of life

Ethnography

Written description of the way of life of a human population

Rapport

Working relationship between the researcher and the members of the community being studied

Ethnic Boundary Marker

Any overt characteristic used to indicate ethnic group membership

Ethnogenesis

Creation of a new ethnic group

Ethnic Homogenization

Elimination of ethnic differences within a region or country, historically involving ethnic cleansing or assimilation