Lecture note - culture

Anthropologist agreed with describing it rather than defining it.

Material culture: Tangible, you can see and touch e.g. house, food, car, traditional dress… 

Nonmaterial culture: Way of doing  things, thinking e.g. language, body language, custom …

Elements of culture

-Knowledge

-Value

-Language

-Gesture/Nonverbal Communication

-Norms

-Belief 

Sanctions: penalties and rewards for conduct　concerning a social norm.

Sanctions may be either positive or negative, Formal/non-formal.

Feature of culture are

Learned : Person will learn and obtain it

Shared : Group of people doing the same

Transmitted : One generation to another

Changing : it is not permanent! 

Cultural universal: 

Subculture: a segment of society that shares a distinctive pattern of mores, folkways, and values that differs from the larger society.

A subculture is a culture existing within a larger, dominant culture.

E. g. Cosplay

Argot : specialized (languages) Idiomatic vocabularies which are 

shared among particular class or group of people 

A counterculture is types of subculture. It is created when a subculture conspicuously and deliberately opposes certain aspects of the larger culture.

Ethnocentrism: the assumption that one’s own culture represents the norm or is superior to all others.
Cultural relativism views people’s behaviors from the perspective of their own culture.

Xenocentrism: an extension of cultural relativism; it is the belief that the products, styles, or ideas of one’s society are inferior to those that originate elsewhere.

Verstehen: The German for understanding or insight.

Max Weber stressed the need for sociologists to take into account people’s emotions, thoughts, beliefs and attitudes.