Culture is a dynamic system of adaptation. An organized whole that includes beliefs, values and ideas that inform people about the world we live in, and the behaviors that come from these beliefs/values.

Culture informs us which behaviors are appropriate in which situations

Anthropology is holistic and comparative

Holistic: Tries to integrate all knowledge of human beings at the highest and most inclusive level

Comparative: Considers similarities and differences between a wide range of societies before making generalizations

"SLIDS"

1. Culture is shared

2. Culture is learned (passed from one generation to the next)

3. Culture is based on symbols

4. Culture is integrated ("The Barrel Model")

5. Culture is dynamic and changeable

1. Infrastructure (bottom level): Basic necessities of life. A society's economy or means of survival

2. Social structure (middle layer): Determines how people interact. Gender roles, social classes, family structure, etc.

3. Superstructure (overarching layer): Every group in society is connected by a body of ideas or worldview: Religion, nationalism. Superstructure is a shared sense of identity.

1. Biological: Serves biological needs for food, shelter, social interaction

2. Instrumental needs: Law, education: Ensures a group of people remain together and live constructively together

3. Integrative: Gives a sense of identity: How people think of themselves as a whole

1. Transmission: Copying behavior by observation or instruction

2. Memory: Behaviors must be remembered so they can be passed on

3. Reiteration: The ability to reproduce behavior or information that has been learned in the past

4. Innovation: The ability to invent new behaviors

5. Selection: The ability to select which behaviors to keep and which to discard.

"Culture": Used to refer to culture as a universal human concept; all-encompassing idea of culture

"cultures": Specific and particular sets of cultural traits that exists amongst different groups of people. Sometimes referred to as "subcultures" or "local cultures"

1. Avoid being ethnocentric

2. Involve cultural relativism (explain people's behavior from their own perspective)

1. Select a topic

2. Obtain funding

3. Obtain permission from government and local people.

4. Receive ethics approval

5. Secure travel and accomodations, health preparation (vaccines, etc)

6. Language acquisition

7. Set up site location

8. Establish rapport with local people (gift giving, talking)

1. Armchair anthropology: Reading about other cultures but not ever encountering them

2. Veranda anthropology: Anthropologists hired by colonial governments to help learn about people in newly-colonized areas. Anthropologists lived near, but not with the people they were studying.

1. Stone Age

2. Bronze Age

3. Iron Age

1. Savages: Hunter/gatherers, no domesticated plants or animals

2. Barbarians: Some farming, domesticated animals, but no form of writing

3. Civilized: Technology, written language

Limits: Racist and ethnocentric

Contributions: Comparative perspective, faith in applied scientific method (although biased), established anthropology as a separate academic discipline.

Limits: Emphasized that every culture is unique, but overlooked studying similarities between cultures

Contributions: Emphasized fieldwork, stressed cultural relativism, demonstrated that cultural difference and biological difference have very little to do with one another

Limits: Does not explain how cultures vary so much in meeting their biological needs (Eg. most Westerners eat meat to fulfill protein needs, while most Buddhists tend to be vegetarians). Does not explain "perceived needs" that develop in cultures (Why is a cellphone considered a "need" in Western society?)

Contributions: Also emphasized fieldwork, demonstrated that culture does meet biological needs in different ways

1. Often required to communicate in the field

2. As an area of interest in itself

3. For what it reveals about the culture

1. Shared: Entire community participates in cleaning at the end of the lunar year

2. Learned:Culture/history re-enacted through art, music and dance during the New Year

3. Symbols: Red Turtle Cakes: Symbolize long life, dumplings shaped like purses symbolize prosperity

4. Integrated: New Year celebrates the rest period after the harvest (infrastructure: farming), integrates family/gender roles/social structure

5. Dynamic and changeable: Traditional food that formerly took days to prepare can now be mass-produced, but retains its symbolism and significance.

1. Often needed to communicate in the field

2. As an object of interest in its own right

3. For what language reveals about the culture itself

1. Openness: The same idea can be expressed in different ways or paraphrased and still be understood by others.

2. Displacement: Can refer to past or present subjects that are not in the immediate environment

3. Arbitrariness: The link between sound and meaning is arbitrary: Can mean one thing in one language and a different thing in a different language.

4. Duality of patterning: Phonemes are systematically patterned, but grammar is also systematically patterned to put phonemes together in a meaningful way.

5. Semanticity: Linguistic signals are associated with aspects of the world, but differ for each person.

6. Prevarication: Language can convey ideas that are not true

Study of language: Linguistics

Study of sounds of language: Phonology

1. Phonetics (sound)

2. Morphology (word structure)

3. Syntax (sentence structure)

4. Semantics (meaning)

5. Pragmatics (context of use)

1. May be a primary language for hearing-impaired.

2. May have a cultural role: In Australian Aboriginal culture, after someone passes away, the community speaks only in sign language for months afterwards to demonstrate mourning.

1. In areas too loud for verbal communication to be practical

2. To convey a message in ways that cannot be understood by others except those who already know the meaning: Battle, sports

Men: Use language as competition in public settings 

Women: Rising intonation, tag questions, use language to build bonds in private settings, more likely to use minimal responses (mmm-hhmm)

Elementary: Ability to make abstractions, inferences and perform mental tasks common to all humans

Functional cognitive systems: Culturally-linked cognitive processes that guide perception, reason and emotion.

1. Global style: View the world holistically

2. Articulated style: Break the world down into smaller parts. View themselves as being separate from the world they are viewing.