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What’s Culture?

What’s Culture?. Prof: A. Elhaloui. What’s culture , after all?. Some aspects of culture are universal; others are specific to certain communities. Let me give some examples. What do you have for breakfast?.

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What’s Culture?

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  1. What’s Culture? Prof: A. Elhaloui

  2. What’s culture, after all? Some aspects of culture are universal; others are specific to certain communities. Let me give some examples

  3. What do you have for breakfast? Cereal breakfast developed in USA in the nineteenth century as adult health foods, cereals became a multi-billion dollar American way of breakfast, especially for children, in the twentieth century Cereal breakfast is part of the American culture.

  4. All the people of the world prepare food and eat it at different appointed times. • But the kind of the food they eat, the way they arrange it on the table, the time when they eat it, the kind of spices they prefer, etc. differ from culture to culture. Food is universal but the way it is prepared and presented and the time it is delivered is culture-specific.

  5. Advertising is used for a variety of purposes: • to attempt to persuade consumers to buy goods, • change the image of a commodity or service, • induce brand loyalty, • encourage retailers to stock particular products or • sell political ideas. Advertising is universal but the way it is communicated is culture-specific.

  6. Try to identify each one of the following kinds of clothes with their corresponding culture.

  7. Clothing is used for a variety of purposes: • to protect one’s body from inconvenient temporatute, • make the body look more attractive, • Celebrate certain feasts, • Mark one’s national identity • Mark one’s gender Clothing is universal but the way it is designed, decorated, etc. is culture-specific.

  8. What are ”the Building Blocks” of Culture? The fundamental building block of culture is the culture trait. Building blocks

  9. One Culture consists of various culture traits(building blocks). Etc. Legal sanctions tools Beha- vior Econ- omic Ex- changes Archite- cture Family relations art

  10. Traits can also take the form of abstract concepts and beliefs: • What’s the value of family? • Belief in God or gods • The power of ancesters • Belief in spirits, demons and other kinds of spiritual beings • Belief in certain rights for man or animals

  11. Characteristics of Culture • It consists of traits.

  12. Two All of these diverse and complex manifestations share one feature in common; they are symbols.

  13. What’s a symbol? A symbol is simply an expressionthat stands for or represents something else, usually a real world condition.

  14. Signs are symbols. Why?

  15. Because: • It stands for something else:”don’t smoke” • Real world condition: air, pollution, health

  16. Language is a system of symbols. Why? Hk c kndfiiøxsnx jnbcc ænbcc Hjdsd jnxkjsn Cc knc xaj nx

  17. Because ... • Language stands for something:meanings • Real world condition:sharing feelings, informing, authority, persuading, entertaining, ...

  18. Clothes may be symbolical. Why?

  19. Because: They may tell about Your job Your nation Your class

  20. When a Dani man wishes to take a bride, he must offer the woman's family a "bride Price, " which must include five pigs. Why?Because for them, a pig is the symbol of good fortune. Even animals may be symbolical!

  21. When a Dani man wishes to take a bride, he must offer the woman's family a "bride Price, " which must include five pigs. Why?Because for them, a pig is the symbol of good fortune. Even animals may be symbolical!

  22. Characteristics of Culture • It consists of traits. • It’s symbolical.

  23. Three The meanings of symbols can be interpreted only in the light of the meaning other symbols within the same culture.

  24. Example from the Dani Culture

  25. Example from the Dani Culture Dani have two words for large-scale armed conflict: wim and um'aim.

  26. Example from the Dani Culture • WIM is conducted between territorial and social units termed alliances. • They are always suspended when one of the combatants is killed.

  27. Why? The Dani explain warfare in relation to their belief in ghosts: When someone is killed, the ghosts of the aggrievedalliancewill demand that the living avenge the death and will harass them until an enemy is killed.

  28. Then ... Ceremonies are held to appease the ghosts of the two groups involved. The cycle is perpetuated indefinitely, because each new death calls for an additional act of vengeance.

  29. So ... The meaning of WIM can be interpreted only in the light of the meaning other symbols within the Dani culture: belief in ghosts, what ghosts demand, etc.

  30. Characteristics of Culture • It consists of traits. • It’s symbolical. • Symbols can be interpreted only in the light of other symbols in the same. culture

  31. Four Culture traits are transmitted across generations and maintain continuity through learning, technically termed enculturation.

  32. Distinguish ... • Enculturation is the process whereby individuals learn their group's culture, through experience, observation, and instruction. • Acculturation: the acquisition of the values and the norms of an outside culture.

  33. Example 1 How do girls learn at an early age that: • It is their responsibility to take care of the house. • It is their responibilty to take care of their babies • They should look and sound feminine?

  34. Example 2 How do we acquire an identity: • Moroccan (how strongly do you defend the Moroccan football team?) • Marrakshi (do you get offended when Casawis make fun of the Marrakshi?) • Etc.

  35. Example 2 How did you learn to be polite in your speech? • How do you greet people? • What do you saywhen you greet people? • How do you look when you greet people?

  36. Characteristics of Culture • It consists of traits. • It’s symbolical. • Symbols can be interpreted only in the light of other symbols in the same. culture • Enculturation: Learning.

  37. Five • Society defines and constrains our behavior in many unperceived ways. • A great part of our behavior is unconsciously determined by our culture.

  38. “Square up” When two Moroccan males are in a situations where they have to fight against each other, one of them may square up to his adversary, indicating that he is intending to attack him. However, he usually does so only because he expects the bystanders to get involved by appeasing him. The expectations we have about how people will react to our behavior is an example of the unconscious factors that determine our behavior. “Squaring up” to indicate that one intends to attack the adversary is not received in the same way in other (non-Moroccan) cultures.

  39. Characteristics of Culture • It consists of traits. • It’s symbolical. • Symbols can be interpreted only in the light of other symbols in the same. culture • Enculturation: Learning. • The culturalgrounding of our behavior.

  40. What we want to do in this course? • To see to what extent these characteristics apply to contemporay culture. • We will do this by studying some ”trends” in contemporary culture: artisitic expression,science,intellectual life,morality,and information.

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