Unit 3: Culture By Raegan Davis, Angela Tran and Alissa Weston

Cultural Appropriation  Definition: Process by which other cultures adopt customs and knowledge and use them for their own benefit.  Ex. Europeans used guns to fight, and when they came to America, the Native Americans started to use them to hunt and fight the Europeans  Cultures can appropriate other cultures  Ex. Native Americans may be appropriated by other cultures like pop culture (Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, ect.).

Custom Adoption  Definition: Taking a cultural trait from one culture and making it part of a different culture.

Housing Types New England, Mid- Atlantic, and Southern

New England Style  Characterized by:  Wood-frame construction (A.K.A “saltbox”)  Dates from colonial times  Gradually more elaborate over time  Fireplace in the center of the home.

Mid-Atlantic Style  Characterized by:  Originated as one-room log cabin with a stone chimney and fireplace at one end.  Additional rooms, a porch, and second floor were added.

Southern Tidewater  Characterized by:  One story (sometimes with a small attic)  Large porch  Built on a raised platform or raised stone foundations

How are Languages Formed?  Language divergence– when a lack of spatial interaction among speakers of a language breaks the language into dialects and then new languages  Language convergence– when people with different languages have consistent spatial interaction and their languages collapse into one

Languages  Lingua franca– a language used among speakers of different languages for the purpose of trade and commerce  Example: English is the language of all air traffic  Pidgin Language– a language created when people combine parts of two languages into a simplified structure and vocabulary  Example: Hawaiian Pidgin English  Creole Language– a pidgin language that has developed a ore complex structure and vocabulary and has become the native language of a group of people  Example: a child born into an environment where Hawaiian Pidgin English is widely spoken and acquires HPE as his/her first language

Languages cont.  Standard Language– a language that is published, widely distributed, and purposefully taught  Dialects– variants of a standard language along regional or ethnic lines  Official Language– in multilingual countries, it is the language selected, often by the educated and politically powerful elite, to promote internal cohesion; usually the language of the courts and government

Renfrew Hypothesis  Proto-Indo-European began in the Fertile Crescent, and then:  From Anatolia diffused Europe’s languages  From the Western Arc of Fertile Crescent diffused North Africa and Arabia’s languages  From the Eastern Arc of Fertile Crescent diffused Southwest Asia and South Asia’s languages

Agriculture Language Diffusion Theory  With increased food supply and increased population, speakers from the hearth of Indo- European languages migrated into Europe

Dispersal Hypothesis  Indo-European languages first moved from the hearth eastward into present-day Iran and then around the Caspian and into Europe.

Neolocalism  Term coined by James Shortridge  Defined as “seeking out the regional culture and reinvigorating it in response to the uncertainty of the modern world”  This means looking into an area’s history and attempting to bring it back  Example:  Little Sweden, USA

Cultural Diffusion  The spatial spreading or dissemination of a culture element (such as technological innovation) or some other phenomenon (e.g., a diseases outbreak)  This means the spreading of an idea  There are two different types of diffusion: expansion diffusion and relocation diffusion  Expansion has three different subtypes: contagious, hierarchical and stimulus  Each follow a different “diffusion route”  This is the spatial trajectory through which cultural traits or other phenomenon spread  This means the way which an idea spreads

Contagious  Type of expansion diffusion  The distance-controlled spreading of an idea, innovation or some other item through a local population by contrast from person to person- analogous to the communication of a contagious illness  This means the idea starts at the hearth and spreads to the places nearby  Example:  Spread of Islam

Pictures of Contagious Diffusion

Hierarchical  Type of expansion diffusion  A pattern in which the main channel of diffusion is some segment of those who are susceptible to (or adopting) what is being diffused  This means the idea starts at its hearth and spreads to the next most relevant group  Example:  Sperry shoes

Stimulus  Type of expansion diffusion  A form of diffusion in which a cultural adaptation is created as a result of the introduction of a cultural trait from another place  This means an idea is brought into an area and creates a change- typically in that it is altered to fit the needs of the population  Example:  Maharaja Mac in India

Relocation  The actual movement of individuals who have already adopted the idea or innovation and who carry it to a new, perhaps distant, local where they proceed to disseminate it  This means a group of people who already have an idea move somewhere else and share it with the people there  Example:  Migration of European settlers brought Christianity to the Americas

Review Game Time! 