GEOG 111, Exam 2

Identity

the way a person defines themselves

Gender

cultural assumptions about differences between women and men

Religion

belief systems about the world

Language

“Mother tongue”, a language spoken to you from birth

-It is not common to have a mother tongue in the U.S

Nationality

affiliation with a particular country (an international state)

Ethnicity

based on a collective sense of identity and conscious sense of belonging

What are the characteristics of ethnicity?

• Usually based on ancestry

• Used for identity distinctions when differences in appearance are inefficient

Race

social constructions based on differences in physical appearance

Can race be socially constructed?

Yes

What is an example of socially constructed race?

In China the dominant race is Han but they are all Chinese.

What are the traits that affect identity?

1. Gender

2. Religion

3. Language

4. Nationality

5. Ethnicity

6. Race

How did the U.S census develop overtime? 1790s to 2010s

1790

-Free white males, Free white females,, Free colored males + females, Slaves

1850

Add Mulatoo (mixed between Black and white)

Mulatoo Slaves

Black Slaves

2010

The categories we have today are White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

Racialization

the creation of racial categories for some purpose

Example of racialization

Belgian colonizers in Rwanda

Hutus vs. Tutsis (1931)

Racial identification in Rwanda

Want to be a Tutsi, based on your face but you could decide

RWANDA: The Belgians gave the power to the

Tutsi’s

RWANDA: What happened when the Belgain gave the Tutsis power?

Hutus reacted severely, ultimately resulting in a genocide (800,000 killed)

RWANDA: Who was mostly killed during the genocide?

Tutsis

IDENTITY: Posionality

how a person’s identity influences their perspective and decision making

Prejudice

individual biases

-Everyone has it

Structural racism

a system in which

-Public policies

-Institutional practices

-Cultural representations

-Other norms

Work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial inequality

What is the Structural Racism + Iceberg Theory

The things underneath the big ideas are better at explaining things on top

Big Ideas: Slavery, Jim Crow Laws, “Culture of Poverty”

“Underneath”: Home Owner Loan Corp, Racial steering, “War on Drugs”

Racism begins with

dehumanization of a group of people

Example of dehumanization of a group of people

Declaration of Independence

TRUE OR FALSE. Structural racism can be perpetuated without overt forms of prejudice.

true

Residential segregation

degree to which groups live separately from one another

-Racial lines

-Class segregation

Example of Residential segregation

South Africa, a population of 45 million in 2017

The white population is relatively small but they have control

Grand apartheid

national in scale; territorially separated racial groups into “homelands”

Grand apartheid was led by

Hendrik Verwoerd’s

Petty apartheid

local in scale; designed to segregate facilities

When was apartheid abolished?

1991

What best summarizes how the Declaration of Independence references of indigenous people?

dehumanization of language

Marie’s dictionary uses what part of identity?

language

Was there an equivalent of petty apartheid in the U.S?

Yes, the Jim Crow Laws

Was there an equivalent of grand apartheid in the U.S.?

Yes, but it is more complicated

Where are the most segregated cities in the U.S?

Upper Midwest

What is the most segregated city in the U.S?

Milwaukee

What causes racial segregation in the U.S?

1. Money

2. Preferences

3. Discrimination

What are some preferences when buying a house in the U.S?

school districts, location, people of same race (for whites)

What is redlining?

the systematic denial of services

-Home loans

-Grocery stores

How were home loans affected by redlining?

cannot get if you live in an area that is “redlined”

• Hire HOLC (Home owners loan corporation)

How were grocery stores affected by redlining?

cannot get loans to put a grocery store in a redlined area

-This creates a food desert

What is a racial covenant?

racially restricted neighborhoods

-Can only live in certain areas

“Negro race or anyone married to the negro race”

This is residential segregation

Urban Renewal

slum clearance program in the U.S

1948 (1940s - 1970s)

The Urban Renewal restricted

access to public amenities

Racial steering

process by which a real estate agent consciously or subconsciously steers a family to a certain neighborhood

What are the laws in place to combat racial steering?

The Fair Housing Act but it is difficult to enforce

What does schooling look like with racial segregation?

Primary funding mechanism: Property taxes

Lack of year-round schooling

Segregated classrooms (although this is illegal)

Ex: Advanced track vs Basic track

• A lot of POC will fall into the Basic track which causes segregation because White people will fall into the Advanced track often

Primary funding mechanism

property taxes

War on Drugs

led to vastly different outcomes in sentencing

-POC higher sentences

Some welfare programs disincentivized men from

being in the home

TRUE OR FALSE. There is name discrimination in hiring.

True

Are there disparities in crime reporting in the media?

Yes. POC displayed more in the news, mugshots, over yearbook photo

TRUE OR FALSE. There are disparities in transportation funding.

True

Critical Race Theory is being banned in some U.S. states. What is it?

analyzing how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity

Language is defined as

a system of communication based on symbols that have agreed-upon meetings

-It is situational

- It is flexible, constantly changing

What is language sometimes defined as?

mutual intelligibility

Mutual intelligibility

2 people can understand each other

What is the major debate in linguistic academic communities?

Anatolian vs Kurgan

Anatolian

language that comes from 1 source

Turkey

Kurgan

language emerged from multiple sources

TRUE OR FALSE. It is more likely that languages came from various sources than one.

True, languages emerged separately most likely

Spoken languages

Tonal vs Atonal

Tonal

tone affects how you say the words

Example of a tonal language

Mandarin Chinese

Hmong

TRUE OR FALSE. Mandarin Chinese has more tones than Hmong.

False

Where is tonal language spattered throughout the world?

U.S, Canada, Latin America

Where is tonal language centralized?

East Asia, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa

Atonal

tone that does not affect words

What are the non-spoken languages?

American Sign Language (ASL)

Braille

Natural language

have emerged and evolved within living or historic communities

Artificial languages

intentionally constructed

Example of artificial languages

Tolkien’s Elvish

Esperanto

What is the purpose of the Tolkien Elvish language?

entertainment

What is the purpose of Esperanto language?

establish a universal language that is easier to learn than natural languages

Dialect

variants of language along regional or ethnic lines

What are dialects characterized by?

distinctive vocabulary, grammar, and/or pronunciation

TRUE OR FALSE. Language is a collection of dialects.

True

Dialect geography was developed by

Hans Kurath

Isogloss

geographic boundary for a linguistic feature

-This is a subset of Dialect geography

Isogloss example

Different ways Americans refer to a carbonated beverage

What does the Harvard dialect survey do?

paints a picture of how English is used across the U.S

• Includes 160 questions

Dialect differences are driven by

• Patterns of settlement (HUGE)

• Connections to other locations (or isolation)

• Social standing

• Education

What are patterns of settlement?

where people come from, terms they brought with them

How does connection to other locations (or isolation) affect language?

Connection to another location affects how you pronounce the word as well as what word you use

Isolation can cause two people to speak completely different forms of the same language or two different languages

Dialect vs Language

Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin

-These are dialects. People that speak these can understand each other therefore they are not different.

Purpose of differentiation between dialect and language

to establish a cultural identity and make the case for greater autonomy

-Why you need your own state is usually associated with language

Top 10 Languages by Number of Native Speakers

1. Mandarin Chinese 939M

2. Spanish 485M

3. English 380M

4. Hindi 345M

5. Portuguese 236M

6. Bengali 234M

7. Russian 147M

8. Japanese 123M

9. Cantonese 86M

10. Vietnamese 85M

Where do majority of native Portuguese speakers live?

Brazil

Where do majority of native Bengali speakers live?

Bangladesh and East India

What are the language families?

1. Indo-European

2. Sino-Tibetan

3. Niger-Congo

4. Afro-Asiatic

5. Austronesian

6. Dravidian

Language families are

based on spoken characteristics

What languages fall into the Indo-European family?

Spanish, English, Hindi

What languages fall into the Sino-Tibetan family?

Mandarin, Cantonese

Where are Niger-Congo languages found?

Sub-Saharan Africa

Where are Afro-Asiatic languages found?

Northern Africa and the Middle East

Ex: Arabic, Hebrew

Dravidian

Mostly in South India

Ex: Talmil

TRUE OR FALSE. The six largest language families account for 80% of the world’s population.

True

What is unique about India in regards to language?

• Each state has its own language

• There are 1,635 mother tongues (some say as few as 200 or up to 19,500)

• Perceptual dialectology

What is perceptual dialectology

the study of how lay people (non-linguists) feel about language (both their own language and others’)