APHG Unit 3

Acculturation – Occurs when the minority culture changes but is still able to retain unique cultural markers of language, food, and customs. Acculturation is also a two-way process as both cultures change as the majority adopts traits from the minority culture.

Assimilation – The process by which immigrants or a minority culture fully absorbs into the mainstream society through increasing interaction over time, gradual merging of foreigners and natives, and loss of cultural traits. This can be forced or voluntary.

Centrifugal Forces – Forces within a state that cause division among populations that live there.

Centripetal Forces – Forces within a state that cause unity among populations that live there.

Creolization – A language that develops when a pidgin language evolves into a fully-fledged, native language spoken by a community, typically formed by mixing elements of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the colonized people.

Cultural Landscape – The visible record of values, tastes, fears, technologies, etc., that create the identity of a place in the human-built landscape (buildings, structures).

Cultural Relativism – The idea that moral codes vary from culture to culture and that a person's beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on the context of that person's culture, rather than judged by the criteria of another cultural group.

Cultural Norms – Shared beliefs or values and the human behaviors that support these values within a given society, such as the standards of conduct that are met with social approval or disapproval. Cultural norms are the unspoken rules of society transmitted through conformity, internalization, and socialization.

Dialects – Language variants based in pronunciation, spelling, and grammar, that are spoken by entire groups of people and are geographically distinct from other groups.

Ethnicity – People of a common ancestry or homeland and cultural tradition based in religion, beliefs, customs, and memories of migration or colonization.

Ethnic Neighborhoods – A voluntary community where people of similar origin reside by choice, showing a desire to maintain group cohesiveness.

Ethnocentrism – The practice of viewing other cultural groups in relation or compared to one ethnic group's moral values; the practice of viewing one's own cultural moral codes as verifiably correct and using them to judge cultural practices and beliefs of other groups based upon one's own.

Ethnic Religion – A religion that is closely tied to a particular ethnic group and does not actively seek converts.

Folk Culture – Small, cohesive, stable, isolated, nearly self-sufficient groups that are homogeneous in custom and race; strong family or clan structure, order maintained through sanctions based on religion or family, little division of labor except between the sexes, frequent interpersonal relationships, and material goods mainly of handmade goods.

Gender – Refers to the social norms and behaviors that are expected of males and females or can be how one perceives themselves and how they identify within those gender roles.

Globalization – The expansion of economic, political, and cultural processes to the point that they become global in scale and impact.

Hearth – The location from which an innovation originates.

Imperialism – The practice of domination of one group of people over another through various forms like settlement, sovereignty, or indirect mechanism of control.

Language – A system of communication through the use of speech, collection of sounds and symbols, and understood by a group of people to have the same meaning.

Language Family – A collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history.

Lingua Franca – A language mutually understood and commonly used in communication by people who have different native languages; often used to facilitate trade.

Multiculturalism – The coexistence of diverse cultures, where culture includes racial, religious, or cultural groups and is manifested in customary behaviors.

Pidgin Language – A simplified form of a lingua franca used for communication between two groups of people that speak different languages. Usually a blending of the two (e.g., Spanglish).

Popular Culture – The set of ideas, practices, beliefs, and objects that are prevalent and widely accepted within mainstream society at a given time. It includes trends in music, fashion, entertainment, and social media, reflecting the tastes and preferences of the general population.

Sequent Occupancy – The idea that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape. For example, colonial architecture is prominent in certain sectors of cities in Southeast Asia and reflects European influences.

Syncretic/Syncretism – The union or blending of different systems of thought or belief.

Toponyms – The name given to a place that often reflects the culture of people living in a location. For example, San Jose reflects both the Spanish language and Catholic religious traditions of Spanish colonizers in the southwestern portions of the U.S.

Universalizing Religion – A religion that attempts to appeal to all people and, because of this, often has a wide geographic distribution.