AP HUMAN GEO 3.4-3.8

3.4: Types of Diffusion and Historical Causes 


Cultural hearths are the original sources of culture yet many cultures have spread beyond their hearths.


The spreading of information, ideas, behaviors, and other aspects of culture over wider areas is known as diffusion. 


Relocation Diffusion: spread of a cultural trait by people who migrate and carry their cultural traits with them


example: pizza(brought to usa by italian immigrants in 1800s)


Expansion Diffusion : spread of cultural traits through direct or indirect exchange (without migration)


Types of EXPANSION DIFFUSION


Contagious occurs when a cultural traits spreads continuously outward from its hearth through contact among people


ex. Blues music


Hierarchical: spread of culture outward from the most interconnected places(wealthy) or from centers of wealth and importance. ex.  cell phone technology


Unlike contagious diffusion, hierarchical diffusion may skip some places while moving on to others.

High to low


Reverse Hierarchical: processes in which a trait diffuses from a lower class to a higher class.


Ex. tattoos


Stimulus Diffusion:occurs when people in a culture adopt an underlying idea or process from another culture, but modify it because they reject one trait of it.

Barriers to diffusion


Discuss with a partner: What are some ideas that you can think of that might stop the spreading of ideas or cultural practices in either relocation or expansion diffusion?


Write down your ideas below, then we will go over as a class. 


Cultural: cultural practice differences, ex. Amish people, language, religion(ex. christmas is not celebrated everywhere), age  


Economic:  lack of funding(too expensive), tariffs prevent products/goods from arriving in different countries 


Political: political conflicts, ex. North Korea-intentionally isolationist, borders, firewall ex. China

eNvironmental: different environments, weather, growing conditions/transport, oceans, mountains, deserts 


Others?


  • Distance Decay Effect

  • ethnocentrism

  • geo-political conflicts 


3.5: Historical Causes of diffusion 


  • Colonialism - the establishment and maintenance of political and legal domination by a state over a separate and alien society

  • Imperialism - extension of the power of a nation through direct or indirect control of the economic and political life of other territories

  • Trade - the exchange of products from one culture to another



3.6&3.8: Contemporary causes and effects of Diffusion


Cultural Convergence: cultures interact with one another, they become more similar, shaping and adopting one another’s ideas, innovations and other cultural traits.


Cultural Divergence:

Conflicting beliefs or other barriers can cause two cultures to become less similar. This can also happen when a person or group moves away from their core culture and is exposed to a new culture.


Diaspora = 


is a scattered population whose origin lies in a separate geographic locale. Historically, the word diaspora was used to refer to the mass dispersion of a population from its indigenous territories, specifically the dispersion of Jews.


Acculturation 


cultural modification that results when one culture group or individual adopts some traits of a dominant or host society; 


Assimilation



 the process through which people lose originally differentiating traits, such as dress, speech particularities or mannerisms, when they come into contact with another society or culture. Often forced.


Syncretism 


fusion of old and new


Multiculturalism


The view that cultures, races, and ethnicities, particularly those of minority groups, deserve special acknowledgement of their differences within a dominant political culture


Cultural Appropriation



adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. 



Time Space Compression: Time-space compression refers to how advancements in technology, like transportation and communication, make distant places feel closer and more connected, reducing the time it takes to interact across space.



3.7a: Diffusion of Language 



Standard Language: well established and widely recognized as the most acceptable for government, business, education, and mass communication.


Government usually plays a big role in standardizing a language.


Official Language: one designated by law to be the language of government.




Homogenous – made up largely of ethnically similar people (Iceland, Japan, Slovenia) - Monolingual


Some countries encourage assimilation – (English colonizers in Ireland, Scotland, Wales)



Several large ethnic groups wanting to honor all countries equally (Zimbabwe – 16 official languages with English as the lingua franca; Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, India) - Multilingual


  • Language Families: Largest Group, Share a common hearth, not used any more as a language themselves, separated before written records existed.


  • Language Branches - Next group. Sare common origin, separated thousands of years ago, may show similarities in grammar/structure but are very distinct and speakers on different branches cannot understand one another.


  • Language Groups - Within a branch, share a common ancestor in the relatively recent past. Have vocabularies with a high degree of overlap. Speakers of different languages in the group will recognize words in each other’s languages.


  • Language Tree - shows the relationship among these language families and suggests how several languages are related to each other and how one language grows out of another


Romance languages: Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and Romansch


Dialect: Variations in accent, grammar, usage, and spelling create, regional variations of a language


Accent: Ex. You guys, Y’all 

reflect social class or geographic region


Isogloss: the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature is called an isogloss.



Reasons for language diffusion around the world


  • Colonialism and conquest 

  • Human interaction, taking to one another 

  • Print distribution, printing press

  • Migration 

  • Trade

  • Rise of Nation-states

  • Colonialism


Lingua Franca: common language used by people who do not share the same native language.


Ex. English in Nigeria



Pidgin: Simplified version of two languages, with fewer grammar rules or fewer words

  • Ex. Spanglish, Chinglish


Creole:  Two or more separate languages mix and develop a more formal structure and vocabulary to create a new combined language

Ex. Afrikaans spoken in South Africa that combines Dutch with several European and African languages.


Swahili in East Africa

  • 8th Century – trade between Arab-speaking merchants and Bantu-speaking residents resulted in the development of Swahili



Basque language- (not indo european)


language isolate -(no connection with any languages)