Lesson 8
Summary
Part 1
Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture’s patterns of behavior are the best. It is
the way people feel about members of their own cultural group as compared to those from
other cultures. We should not be ashamed of it, but we should constantly keep it in mind
when we study other cultures.
Part 2
Ethnocentrism can be seen even in language. For example, the term Eskimo is said to
have been given to groups that live in the arctic and sub-arctic regions when their neighbors
saw their particular way of eating meat, while some of these Alaskan natives call themselves
Inuit, which means “real people.” Both these terms are ethnocentric.
Part 3
Another example of ethnocentrism in language can be found in the origin of the word
barbarian. Ancient Greeks used the word to refer to tribes living around the edges of their
society. It was the Greek word for the sound a dog makes, because the Greeks didn’t
understand their languages.
Part 4
Every culture has developed food preferences, but much of this ethnocentrism is in our
minds and not in our tongues. Certain food preferences seem natural to us, but it’s because
we have grown up with them.
Food preferences seem to be determined according to
whether the animals in question are treated as special.
Another Summary (Comprehension C)
Ethnocentrism is the view that one’s own culture is better than all others. Although it is a
natural result of growing up in any society, we have to keep it in mind when we try to judge
another way of life. We can find ethnocentrism in various aspects of culture. One such
aspect is language. For example, a term which means “real people,” like Inuit, is often used
to refer to one’s own ethnic group. Another example is food preferences, which are seen in
our attitude toward certain foods such as dog meat or beef, and are determined by the way
the animals in question are treated in a particular culture.