Unit 4-Culture and
Language
J. Brumbelow
Alvin High School
Unit 4
Culture
What is culture?
 Culture is the complex mix of values, beliefs, behaviors, and
material objects that form a peoples’ way of life.
 Cultural landscape-the modification of the natural landscape
by human activities.
 Cultural Ecology is the field that studies the relationship
between the natural environment and culture.
Adaptive culture
 How a person adapts to a new culture. We all use adaptive
strategies.
 People moving from the North to the South
Ex. People in the south using the word Ma’am
Material Culture
 A wide range of concrete
human creations,
sometimes called artifacts
that reflect values, beliefs
and behaviors.
Non-material culture (cultural
geography)
 Consists of abstract concepts of:
 Values-culturally defined standards that guide the way people
assess desirability, goodness, beauty and serve as guidelines for
moral living.
 Beliefs-statements people hold to be true, and they are almost
based on values.
 Behaviors or actions that people take based on beliefs, values and
norms (rules and expectations by which a society guides the
behavior of members.)
Customs and habits are different
A habit is a repetitive act that a particular individual performs.
Example: jeans on Friday, getting dressed.
A custom is a repetitive act of a group performed to the extent
that it becomes a characteristic of the group.
Example: 4th of July fireworks
Culture Region
 An area marked by culture
that distinguishes itself from
other regions
Culture Trait
 A single attribute of a
culture
Culture Complex
Nationalism is a culture
complex.
 A related set of culture traits
descriptive of one aspect of
a society’s behavior.
Example: Proud to be
American.
Cattle herding among African
tribes.
Culture System
 A group of interconnected
cultural complexes.
 China is a culture system-life
in different parts of China
can be different , dialects
of Chinese are different.
Cultural Hearth
 Areas where civilization first
began.
 Mesopotamia
 Indus Valley
 Nile Valley
Cultural diffusion
 Diffusion-the movement of goods, people or ideas.
 Cultural diffusion has spread culture traits to most parts of the
world.
Independent inventions
 Developments that can be traced to a specific civilization.
 Greek democracy.
Carl Sauer and Torsten
Hagerstrand
Both Geographers wrote about Cultural Diffusion.
Expansion Diffusion
 An innovation or idea develops in a source area and remains
strong there while spreading outward.
Types of expansion diffusion
 Contagious Diffusion: nearly all
adjacent individuals are affected
(like dropping a rock in water).
 Time –distance decay-trait
weakens as distance increases.
Hierarchical Diffusion
 Ideas and artifacts spread first between larger places or
prominent people and only later to smaller less prominent
people.
Diffusion
 Your own
Example of these?
Stimulus Diffusion
 A genuine invention sparked by an idea that diffused in from
another culture.
 The invention of a unique Cherokee writing system by
Sequoyah around 1821 after seeing English is an example.
Relocation Diffusion
 Relocation Diffusion: the actual movement of individuals who
have already adopted an idea or innovation and carry it to a
new, perhaps distant locale, where they proceed to disseminate
it.
 Migrant diffusion: when an innovation originates somewhere and
enjoys strong but brief adoption there
 Italian immigrants to New York City taught Irish-Americans how to
make pizza (pizza, of course, originated in Italy).
Acculturation
 A less dominant culture
adopts the traits of more
influential ones.
 Americans adopting Indian
Culture
Assimilation
 The dominant culture
completely absorbs the less
dominant one.

Portrait of Native Americans from the
Cherokee, Cheyenne, Choctaw,
Comanche, Iroquois, and Muscogee
tribes in American attire. Photos dates
from 1868 to 1924.
Transculturation
 There is an exchange
between two cultures, with
both cultures functioning as
sources and adopters.
 When the Spanish
overthrew the Aztec
kingdom, Spanish culture
prevailed in religion, Aztec
crops taken back to Spaincorn and chocolate.
 Regional holiday
differences.
Syncretism
 The fusion of old and new cultures.
Culture A
Culture C
Culture B
 Kwanzaa It is an African American and pan African culture
Culture
Culture can be categorized
according to spatial distribution
into two basic types:
Folk Culture
Popular Culture
Folk Culture
 Folk Culture is traditionally
practiced by small,
homogenous groups living
in isolated rural areas.
Folk Culture
 Small
 Incorporates homogeneous population
 Typically rural
 Cohesive in cultural traits
 Work to preserve those traits in order to claim uniqueness
Folk Culture
 Folklore-stories passed on from generation to generation.
 Folk culture is in a relatively small area.
Popular Culture
 Popular Culture is found in large heterogeneous societies that
are bonded by a common culture despite the many
differences among the people who share it.
Popular Culture
Practiced in wider area, popular culture usually spreads through
contagious diffusion.
Popular Culture
 Large
 Incorporates heterogeneous populations
 Typically urban
 Experiences quickly changing cultural traits
 Practiced by people across identities and across the world
 Also encompasses material and nonmaterial culture
Culture
 Let’s look at several segments of culture:
Music
Food
Sports
Architecture
Hip Hop Map
Music
 Culture can be analyzed through music.
Music
 Listening habits of a particular group of people is to analyze
the radio stations they listen to.
 What radio station do you listen to?
 What’s your ringtone?
Music
Country
Bluegrass
Blues
Tejano
Cajun
Polka
Motown
Dance
dance2
Food
 Food is a terrific way to understand culture because certain
areas have dishes that are distinct to their cuisine
Think USA
Chowder
NE-is a white chowder
NY- is tomato based
BBQ—some sauces are mustard, ketchup, tomato or vinegar
based.
Dry BBQ-sauce cooked in
Wet BBQ-sauce added after meat is cooked.
Meat-port or beef?
Food attractions and Taboo
 Taboo to eat things that are thought to embody negativity
 May establish food taboos to protect the environment
 Religion and social values also play a role in food taboos
 The nutritional value is one of the determining factors in
whether someone eats something or not
 Some things are eaten because they enhance some
characteristic the culture deems important
Food Taboos
 USA-swan, dog, cat, elephant, rats, mice
 Hindu’s-Cow
 Judaism-shellfish, elephant, pork
 Somali Clans-fish
 Quebec-horse meat
 Muslim’s-pork
 England, Ireland-snails
 Rastafarians-no salt
Food around the world
 Denmark-sandwiches
called smorrbrod, eaten
open face with a knife and
fork.
Iceland
 Rotted Shark-Once the
shark is “ripe” enough it is
eaten.
 Yummy?
Andes of South America
 Guinea pigs called cuy are
a delicacy. Served for
special occasions such as
anniversaries and birthdays.
Food
 Blowfish or Fugu is a
delicacy in Japan. Costing
as much as $200/plate.
 You can die, if prepared
incorrectly.
 UK--Fish and chips
Pica
Clay
Paint chips
Cornstarch
Coffee grounds
Cigarette ashes
Glue
Hair
Feces
Paper
sand
Geophagy
 The habit of eating clay,
mud or dirt.
 Many say there are health
benefits and that dirt from
different areas tastes
different.
El Santuario de Chimayo
 People travel to this site in
New Mexico.
 They believe the ground is
sacred and travel here to
eat dirt.
Sports
Sports are associated with culture.
The spread of baseball and basketball around the world from the
USA is a form of hierarchical diffusion.
Sports
Soccer is the
#1 sport in the
world.
Sports
 Football
 Soccer
 Baseball
 Basketball
 Lacrosse
 Cricket
 Tennis
 Golf
 What sports fan are you?
Architecture
 The architecture of residential, commercial and spiritual
structures vary greatly throughout the world.
Housing
 Housing styles vary according to climate and available
building materials.
 Brick/wood
 Flat/peaked roof
 Basement?
 One story/multi-story
 Single/multi family
Mongolian Yurts
Onion Domes
Popular Culture
Popular Culutre
 Popular culture flourishes in
countries here people have
sufficient income to acquire
the tangible elements of
popular culture.
 Pop culture is ever
changing
Food
 American fast food has
invaded the world.
Jeans
 1960’s jeans were
associated with low status
laborers and farmers.
 Levi’s are a status symbol in
may parts of the world.
TV and popular culture
 TV is the most popular leisure activity in MDC’s throughout the
world.
 TV is the most important mechanism by which popular culture
such as sports is rapidly diffused throughout the earth.
TV Ownership/internet
TV
 Diffusion from the USA to Europe and other MDC’s then to
LDC’s.
 In the USA, TV stations are owned by private corporations, who
are licensed by the government.
 In most of the rest of the world the government owns the TV
Stations.
British Broadcasting Corporation
 Have you ever watched the
BBC?
 It’s very different than
American TV.
Government Control of TV
Many governments see TV as a way to foster cultural integration.
Show what leaders are doing and accomplishments of political
system.
People watch what the government wanted them to see.
Satellite TV has enabled people to see stations other than
government controlled.
The internet
 Diffusion of internet follows a pattern of television diffusion.
 The internet connects the world, making cultural diffusion
happen at a rapid pace.
 Without the internet, what would you do?
Globalization of popular culture
Threat to folk culture
 Subserviance of women in
folk customs threatened.
 Women acting and
becoming “westernized”.
Threat to folk culture
 Increasing incomes fuel the
demand for possessions of
popular culture.
Uniform Lanscapes?
Environmental Impact
 1. Uniform landscapes-buildings look alike, arranged on
uniform streets.
 2. Increased demand for natural resources-Fads increase
demand for items like animal skins, eating habits (chicken
wings).
 3. Pollution-high volumes of wastes, solids, liquids and gasses.
 Ex. Plastic bottles.
Chapter 5
Language
Language
 Language is a system of communication through speech.
 Oldest cultural trait on earth.
 Language not only allows for communication, but continuity of
culture
 In most cases language is spoken and written.
Language
Official language-language used by government for laws, reports,
and public documents.
A country can have more than 1 official language.
Standard language-a particular variety of a language that has
been given either legal or quasi-legal status.
Languages of the world
Languages of the world
 Top 10 Most Commonly Spoken Languages
 1. Chinese-14.9%(Mandarin, Wu)
 2. Spanish-5.05%
 3. English-4.84%
 4. Hindi
 5. Arabic
 6. Portuguese
 7. Bengali
 8. Russian
 9. Japanese
 10. Standard German
Linguistic Geography
 The study of speech areas and their local variations by
mapping word choices, pronunciations or grammatical
constructions.
 All languages are grouped into language families that have a
shared by distant origin.
English Speaking Countries
English
 Spoken by more than ½ a billion people.
 The British were responsible for the diffusion of English.
 Migration of British to other parts of the world diffused English.
Dialects
 You may not be able to
understand the regional
dialects.
 Dialects
Differences between American
and British English
American English
British English
 Line
 Queue
 Motor home
 Caravan
 Mail
 Post
 Fries
 Chips
 Parking lot
 Car park
 Sweater
 Jumper
 Highway
 Motorway
 Apartment
 Flat
 Cookie
 Biscuit
Language group
A collection of languages
within a branch that share a
common origin in the
relatively recent past.
Displaying a relatively few
differences in grammar and
vocabulary.
Romance Languages
 Evolved from Latin.
 Spain, Portugal, France and Italy- are the countries of the
original Romance Languages. Romanian is the 5th Romance
Language
 Latin and Hebrew have literary traditions.
 Dialects exist within the Romance Languages-Castilian.
Romance Languages
Other language families
 Sino-Tibetan-Mandarin Chinese
 Afro-Asiatic-Arabic
 Austronesian-SE Asia
 Dravidian-India
 Altaic
 Asia
 Niger-Congo-Africa
 Japanese
Chinese ideograms
 Represent concepts rather
than sounds
 240 characters build are
built into complex words.
Preserving Local Languages
 Thousands of extinct languages-once in use but no longer
spoken or read in daily activities anywhere.
 Examples include:
 Gothic-E/N Europe
 Welsch-Wales
 Quechua-Peru
 Hebrew
Multi Lingual States
 Belgium is a language
divided country.
Multi Lingual States
 Belgium-Flemish( dialect of
German)in North
French in South
 The division between the
two languages is difficult to
determine.
Switzerland
 4 languages in the country.
 German, French, Italian and
Romansh
Canada
 English for the majority of
the country.
 Quebec is the French
speaking province.
Isolated languages
 A language unrelated to any other and therefore not
attached to any language family.
 Basque-Pyrenees Mts. of Spain/France.
 Icelandic-less need for new words and change to language.
Global Domination of English
 Need for common language for communication.
 Lingua Franca-language of international communication is
English.
 Mix elements of two languages into a common language.
Global diffusion of English
 Pidgin-mixing of lingua franca and their native language.
 90% of all students in the European Union learn English.
Expansion diffusion of English
 Ebonics-a combination of Ebony and phonics. Example: She
be at home
 Ebonics is controversial.
 Appalachian dialectsQuick, call an am-bew-lance.
 Many are considered a sign of poor education by outsiders.
Diffusion into other languages
 Franglais-a combination of French and English.
 Le Jogging
 Spanglish-Spanish and English.
 The word carpeta is "folder" in standard Spanish. In some Spanglishes it
means "carpet" (room rug).
 Denglish-German and English
Ich musste den Computer neu booten / rebooten, weil die
Software gecrasht ist.
I had to reboot the computer because the software crashed.
Toponymy
 The study of place names.
 Cultural identity and history can be revealed by noticing
names of geographic and political features.
 New York
 Rio Grande-”Big River” in Spanish
 Rock Mountains
Language Barriers
 Language can be a barrier for many international travelers.
 Language barriers for immigrants.
 Language dialects as a part of regional culture.
 Literacy-the ability to read and write.