Anthropology

cultural relativism

we should understand people's beliefs/behaviours from the perspective of their own culture

Deductive

create hypothesis and then designs a study to prove/disprove the hypothesis

* results can be generalized to other settings

Enculturation

learning characteristics and expectations of culture/group

Ethnocentrism

tendency to view one's won culture as more important + measure other culture

Ethnography

study of everyday practices and lives of a people

process/result of cultural anthropology research

research is inductive and ethnographic is the result of fieldwork

hominin

Humans and their close relatives/immediate ancestors

inductive

specific info to draw general conclusions. Collect evidence without proving/disproving a hypothesis

Paleoanthropologist

bio anthrax that study ancient relatives

Participant Observation

observes while participating in activities that informants are engaging in

Armchair Anthro

people who never went to the field but relied on others for their ethnographic data

cultural determinism

behavioural differences are cultural, not genetics

cultural evolutionism

suggested that societies evolved through stages from simple to advanced

Culture

beliefs, practices and symbols that are learned and shared that bind ppl together and shape their worldview

Functionalism

emphasize the way that parts of society work together to support functioning of the whole

social institutions exist and work together to maintain social stability, social cohesion or social order over time

critique - views cultures as stable and orderly and ignores or cannot explain social change or why one chooses once institution over another

going native

fully integrated into cultural group through acts like leadership position, assuming key roles in society, marrying etc.

holism

how aspects of human life influence one another

kinship

blood ties, common ancestry and social relationships that form families

Structural Functionalism

focus on customs/insitutions that contribute to society and social order in culture

"The Other"

people whose customs, beliefs or behaviours are different from one's own

Contested Identity

dispute about collective identity(ies)

Diaspora

people who left go homeland and live in various locations

Emic

people who study culture from in the culture

Key Informants

more knowledgeable about their culture than others

land tenure

how property rights to lands are allocated

Noble Savage

"innocent, childlike or uncorrupted by negative characteristics of civilization

remittances

money migrants send by home to fam

Thick Description

describes behaviour/cultural event , context it occurs in, and anthropology interpretations of it

arbitrariness

relationship between a symbol and its meaning (referent). No natural connection

bound Morpheme

meaning that cant stand alone (must be attached to other morpheme)

Closed system

form of communication that cant create new meaning/messages

Only convey preprogrammed messages

code switching

2 or more languages in particular interaction

Creole

a language developed from a pidgin to become the native tongue of a society

pidgins

structurally simple communication systems that arise when people who share no common language come into constant contact

Critical age range hypothesis

a child will gradually lose the ability to acquire language naturally and without effort if they are not exposed to other people speaking a language

cultural transmission

* the need for some aspects of the system to be learned
* a feature of some species' communication systems.

Design Features

* descriptive characteristics of the communication systems of all species, including that of humans,
* linguist Charles Hockett to serve as a definition of human language

Dialect

variety of speech

Discreteness

feature of human speech that can be isolated from others

Displacement

communicate about things outside the here and now

Gesture-call system

using other senses outside of voice to communicate

duality of patterning

at the first level of patterning, meaningless discrete sounds of speech are combined to formwords and parts of words that carry meaning.

In the second level of patterning, those units of meaning are recombined to form an infinite possible number of longer messages such as phrases and sentences.

historical linguistics

study of how languages change

Interchangeability

ability of all individuals to send/recieve messages

Kinesics

study of all forms of human body language

Language death

exinction of language

language

idealized form of speech, usually referred to as the standard variety

language shift

stop using old language and begin using a new one

Language universals

characteristics shared by all linguist

Larynx

voice box; containing the vocal cords

lexicon

language vocab

linguistic relativity/ Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

structures/words influence how speakers think, behaviour and ultimate culture itself

Whorf is the father of american linguistic anthropology

Middle English

1066 AD - 1500 AD

Minimal response

the vocal indications that one is listening to a speaker

Modern English

1500 A.D. - Present

Morphemes

basic meaningful units in a language

Morphology

study of morphemes

Old English

before 1066 AD

open system

infinite # of new messages

only human language

Oralist Approach

emphasize lib reading and oral speaking while discouraging sign language for deaf kids

Palate

roof of the mouth

Paralanguage

speech beyond words ex) pitch, tone, tempo

Pharynx

Throat Cavity

Above Larynx

Phonemes

meaningless sounds of a language

Phonology

the study of speech sounds in language

Pragmatic Function

the useful purpose of a communication. Usefulness is a feature of all species' communication systems.

pragmatic

use of social context in interactions

Productivity/Creativity

produce + understand messages that have never been expressed before

Proxemics

study of personal space

Register

speech varying on who speaks and in what context

semanticity

meaning of signs in communication system

Semantics

how meaning is conveyed @ word/phrase level

Speech act

intention/goal of an utterance

standard

variant of any language thats been given special prestige in community

symbol

anything that serves to refer to something else

groups decide what symbols mean

syntax

rules which language combines morphemes into larger units

Taxonomies

system of classification

universal grammer

template for human languages is in our genes

Noam Chomsky

unbound morpheme

a morpheme that can stand alone as a separate word

vernaculars

non-standard varieties of language

Agriculture

cultivation of domesticated plants/animals via tech

can support big fans

broad spectrum diet

diet based on wide range of resources

Built environment

human made spaces that include cultivated lands and buildings

Carrying capacirty

amount of calories that can be taken from the land

Commodity cHAIN

Steps food from production to stores

Delayed Return System

investing before food is available ex) farming

domestic economy

work to get food for family/house

Foodways

norms/attitudes surrounding food/eating

Foraging

aka hunting and gathering

relying on wild plant/food resource

“nasty, brutish, short”

Historical ecology

how human cultures have developed over time due to interactions with environment

Horticulture

small cultivation of crops for house/community consumption

modes of subsistence

tech used by members of society to get food

4 modes: forage, pastoralism, horticulture and agri

mono-cropping

rely on single plant for food

Neolitic Revolution

innovation in subsistence that led to agriculture

began 10,000 years ago

"neo" means New Stone Age

pastoralism

people raise herds of domesticated livestock

staple crops

foods form backbone of subsistence system

Subsistence System

Practices used by members of society to acquire goods

skills, practice & tech used to get more food

World System

Econ system through how goods circulate around the globe

Anthropology

study of humanity

4 types: linguistic, cultural, biological and archeology

Practical subfield is applied

Applied Antrho

solve specific practical problems in collaboration with \n governmental, non-profit, and community organization

Antrho thinking

age of discovery (1400-1700)

age of enlightenment (Beginning in 1700)

development of science, participant observation and cultural relativism (1800)