Notes+for+Exam+Two

May 25 Class Lecture Language - Language is the primary means of communication, transmitted through enculturation (childhood). - Language is based on arbitrary learned associations between words and the things they represent. Class discussed all of the words for **__dog__** found throughout the world. - Only humans have the linguistic capacity to discuss the past and future in addition to the present. - Anthropologists study language in its social and cultural context.

Language is made up of sounds called **__Phones__**. Phones are sounds available to human beings. When children learn to speak, they eventually filter out sounds that do not get a response from parents. Parents reward the child with praise when they say something correct.

Displacement - Connecting words with items that are not there. Something that happened in the past. [|Displacement] is an abstract thought. (Follow the link to other vocabulary terms in alphabeltical order).

Anthropologists are more concerned with sound in context. Who gets to say what, when and how.

Call systems consist of a limited number of sounds that are produced in response to specific stimuli, e.g. discovery of food or danger. Coyotes, loons and frogs all have specific call systems. There is a major difference in this form of communication vs that of humans. - Calls cannot be combined to produce new calls. - Calls are reflexive in that they are responses to specific stimuli. Although primates use call systems their vocal tract is not suitable for speech.

- Human capacity for language developed over hundreds of years. Call systems evolved into language. - Language is a uniquely effective vehicle for learning that enables humans to adapt more rapidly to new stimuli.


 * Nonverbal Communication**

Kinesics - Study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures, and facial expressions. Odors may also play an important role in nonverbal communication.

Structure of language: [|**Morphology**] - Study of the forms in which sounds are grouped in speech. The link shows several examples of Morphemes. A languages lexicon is a dictionary containing all of the smallest units of speech that have a meaning.
 * Phonology** - The study of sounds used in speech.
 * Syntax** refers to the rules that order words and phrases into sentences.

Speech sounds - Phon**__etics__** is the study of human speech sounds. [|Etic] - From science meaning what the outsider can observe. Phon**__emics__** Studies only the significant sound contrasts of a given language. [|Emic] - describes the point of view of the insider.

Etic - Cultural notion that is understood by an outsider. Emic - Culture that is understood from an insiders perspective. Perceptions can vary from the viewpoints of insiders and outsiders.
 * Test terms*

Linguistic Relativism: Like cultural relativism - No one language is more communicative than any other. No language is superior.

Anthropologists are not "language police" looking for standards. They simply look at what people say and the context.

5/26/10 class lecture

Technology - Material culture and knowledge. Something does not qualify as technology unless it's use is understood and can be employed. Otherwise it is just a thing with little meaning.

Ethnic enclave - Group who are isolated from other groups. Different from a subculture. They are isolated within a plural society. Not mixing with others. French groups in a small town.

Dead Language vs living language. Latin Hebrew

Hebrew is an example of Language Revitilization.

Linguistic Purity - Maintaining a pure state of a language.

[|Historical Particularism] - Franz Boas: Each culture has its own history and uniqueness. Anthro. should focus on the 4 field approach. Culture, language, History, Biological

Code switching - Floating between languages i.e. spanglish.

Diffusion - When we take what we like and leave the rest.

Sapir - Wharf: Different languages imply different ways of thinking. Focal Vocabulary - Lexical elaboration that corresponds to an activity or item that is culturally central. Musicians have their own focal vocab as do fishermen, lawyers, doctors, etc.

It is argued that while language, thought are interrelated, change is more likely to move from culture to language , rather than the reverse.

Semantics - Refers to a language's meaning system.

Ethnoscience or ethnosemantics is the study of linguistic categorization of difference such as in classification systems, taxonomies, and specialized terminologies (such as atronomy and medicine)

Languages do not equal territory. Ex. Diaspora - spread-out population.


 * 5/27/10 Class Lecture Race/Racism Prejudice/discrimination**

[|**Discrimination**]is actions taken on such beliefs. Click the link to view a humorous video on a serious topic. Well Done!
 * Prejudice** is a belief or thought that someone is inferior based on percieved cultural traits.

To essentialize - To consider something natural or static. Don't mandate something for an entire ethnic group. Genotype = Genetics Phenotype = What you look like.

Hypodescent - Minority status describes a social process where a child born to two races takes on the stigma of the minority in society. Society imposes this rule on someone.

Kinship - A feeling you share in belonging to a group. Common in a band society.

Language and culture Honorofics. Language used to give status. Chapter 6 Notes

Ethnic group - Culturally distinct group within a society or region.

[|Ethnicity] - Identification with an ethnic group.

Status - Any position that determines where someone fits in society. One can uccupy many different statuses e.g. white, French, Catholic, Student.

Ascribed status - Based on little or no choice; Race, gender, can even be divine-right rule in a cheifdom or state society.

Achieved status - Comes through choices. Social status based on accomplishments, personality, leadership.

Hispanic - An ethnic category based mainly on language. Includes, whites, blacks, racially diverse people.

Latino - a broader category covering more people, countries, etc.

Diaspora - Offspring of an area who have spread to many lands. Chicano - Mexican Americans.

Race - Ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis

Phenotype - An organism'e evident or manifest biological traits.

Racial Classification - Assigning organisms to categories based on common ancestory.

An Anthropologist job is to explain the physical contrasts in people, groups, ethnic groups. Biological differences are real, important, and apparent to us all. Much more productive to seek explanations for this rather than pigeonhole people into categories called races.

Descent - Social identity based on ancestory.

Hypodescent - Childern assigned to same group as the minority parent.

Stratified - Class structured with differences in wealth, prestige, and power.

Nationalities - Ethnic groups that have once had or want their own country. i.e. Isreal.

Nation - Society sharing a language, religion, history, territory, ancestory or kinship.

Assimilation - Absorption of minorities within a dominant culture.

Chapter 7

Adaptive strategy - Describes a groups system of economic production. Means of making a living.

Chapter focuses on 5 adaptive strategies: foraging, horticulture, agriculture, and pastorialism, and industrialism.

Foraging - 10,000 years ago people everywhere were foragers or hunter-gatherers. People rely on available resources for subsistence rather than controlling reproduction of plants and animals. People do not change the environment.

10-12K years ago, people domesticated sheep & goats, wheat, barley.

Correlation - When one variable changes, so does another.

Cultivation Horticulture - Found in non-industrialized societies. Agriculture - Nore intensive, rely on domesticated animals, irrigation or terracing.

Think of a continuum of land use. HorticultureAgriculture Land and labor use increases as you approach the agriculture side.

Agricultural plots are less diversified. Put all the eggs in one, huge, predictable basket. Enjoy a more stable harvest over the long-term.

Pastorialists - Herders of sheep and goats.

Pastorialism: Pastoral nomadism - Entire group, women, men, children move with the animals throughout the year. Transhumance - Part of the group moves with the herds but most people stay in the home village. More sedentary.

Economy - System of production, distribution, and consumption of resources. Economics - Study of such resources.

Mode of production - Productive resources, land, labor, technology, capital.

Labor - Social links affect labor as a means of production. In a non-industrial society, labor is based on kinship.

Alienation in industrial economies. Factory workers produce for an employer's profit, rather that for their own immediate use. Little pride or personal satisfaction with their products.

Non-industrialized society - Work is kin-based. Economy is embedded in the society. They see the end result of their own labor.

Chapter 8 - Political Systems

Power - Ability to exercise one's will over others.

Authority - Socially approved use of power.

Tribe - Food producing society with rudimentary political structure.

Modern hunter-gatherers are not like stone age people who lived similarly. They are linked in a modern world of nation-states and trade with modern food cultivators.

Big-Man - Generous tribal leader with multivillage support.

Sodalities - Non-kin groups within Tribes. People of the same age group for example.

Class Notes June 1st

Exam - Race, language, economic systems, political systems. Lobster Gangs

Political organization: 4 types of societies (Ideal types) They never appear in their pure theoretical form.

20-200 people Mobile. Migrate to food sources Not sedentary No agriculture - They do not alter the face of the Earth Low levels of material culture. Generalized reciprocity
 * Band:** Foraging society i.e. hunter-gatheres

Generalized - Parent/child relationship. Parents give the child what they need in exchange for care when they are old. Will carry on learned caregiving to their own kids. Legacy. Balanced - One for One Compliments Being paid in kind..no debts. Noone owes anything Negative - Try to get something for nothing. Stealing. One-sided.
 * Reciprocity:**

Bands have little economic specialization

Yanomami in brazil are a good example. Pastorialists - Herd animals Horticulturalists - Available crops are harvested. Use rudimentary tools such as digging sticks. Slash and burn. subsitence. Use fallow planting system.
 * Tribes**: 200-2000 people

Horticulturalists use land much less intensly than agriculturalists.

Tribes are more sedintary, live in permanent villages. Status is achieved.e.g. Big man. Common in polynesia.

2000 200,000 people
 * Chiefdoms (Polynesia)** / **States (Inca, Aztec, Egypt, Romans)**

Very sedentary.live in large cities. Intensive agriculture is needed to feed people. Coincide with population growth. Intensive fertilizer. Need domesticated animals for fertilizer. Also need irrigation methods. Centralized government. enforcement arm of the law. Monumental architecture. Ascribed status.

States have regions and districts. Society has economic specialization. Trades people. Because cities are so big, there needs to be a means of storing extra food in case of hardship. Silos, corn cribs, Castles with dry rooms.

States provide protection - Standing army

Stratification - Society has a hierarchy.

Sumptuary rules - Seperate language for upper and lower class.