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Pop vs. Folk Culture

Pop vs. Folk Culture. What is Culture?. Sum of all the typical activities of a group of people Values Material items Political institutions Pop/Folk Culture refers to material items 2 aspects of material culture Survival techniques – food, shelter, clothing

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Pop vs. Folk Culture

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  1. Pop vs. Folk Culture

  2. What is Culture? • Sum of all the typical activities of a group of people • Values • Material items • Political institutions • Pop/Folk Culture refers to material items • 2 aspects of material culture • Survival techniques – food, shelter, clothing • Leisure activities – art, sports, music, movies, etc.

  3. Large groups of people Heterogeneous groups Changes quickly Dispersed – Global scale Ex. Wearing jeans, eating fast food, attending sporting events Small, isolated groups Homogeneous groups Slow to change Clustered – local scale Little interaction w/ others Ex. Wearing a sari, driving a horse and buggy Pop (changes from time to time)vs. Folk (changes from place to place)

  4. Folk Culture • Stable and close knit • Usually a rural community • Tradition controls • Resistance to change • Buildings erected without architect or blueprint using locally available building materials • Anonymous origins, diffuses slowly through migration. Develops over time. • Clustered distributions:isolation/lack of interaction breed uniqueness and ties to physical environment.

  5. Diffusion of Culture • Pop diffuses…? • Hierarchically through major centers i.e. NYC, LA, Chicago, London • Pretty soon, what’s there is here • Folk diffuses…? • Relocation i.e. movement of Amish people from PA. to KY.

  6. Why is F.C. Clustered? • Isolation • Keeps folk cultures from changing much • Physical Environment • Limits some choices of how people can survive • BUT REMEMBER POSSIBILISM!! • Some cultures in similar environments have different cultural traits • Some cultures in different environments have similar cultural traits (pop culture) • Some examples of these…

  7. a. Food customs (repetitive act of a group is a custom) throughout the U.S. b. Clothing different in similar environments c. Food attractions • Abipone Indians in Paraguay jaguars = strength • Fertility foods?? d. Taboos (especially food taboos) • People in the U.S. don’t eat insects (decent nutritional value) TED talk by Peter Menzel on the local diets of the world http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsYOhRdlpuw • Religious food taboos (often environmental reasons) • Hindus don’t eat beef • Muslims/Jews don’t eat pigs • Talking on the phone in the bathroom • Americans don’t sunbathe nude 2. Different housing styles: combo of social customs & environment

  8. Why Do Folk Cultures survive or NOT? http://www.boredpanda.org/vanishing-tribes-before-they-pass-away-jimmy-nelson/ Stunning portraits of the world’s vanishing tribes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPPxBpTP5hE Before They Pass Away – Jimmy Nelson TED Talk (13.31)

  9. Why is P. C. Widely Dispersed? • Diffusion of Housing • Housing b/co standard across cultures in MDCs • Cheaper to build • Built by professionals • Housing varies across time NOT space • Diffusion of Clothing • Dress = Status/Income • (Folk Culture: Dress = Cultural Group) • Clothing choices NOT environmentally driven • Diffusion of Food • MDCs consume LOTS of snack foods & alcohol (higher standards of living) • Huge $$$ on advertising to encourage consumption

  10. Popular Culture Clothing: Jeans and other clothing have become valuable status symbols in many regions including Asia and Russia despite longstanding folk traditions.

  11. Diffusion of TV, 1954–2005 Fig. 4-14: Television has diffused widely since the 1950s, but some areas still have low numbers of TVs per population.

  12. Role of Tech. in Diffusion Pop Culture • Diffusion of TV • Most popular leisure activity in the world • Most popular means of communicating pop culture around the world • Most MDC countries have at least 1 TV in every household • Diffusion of the Internet • Growing means of communicating pop culture • Beginning to diffuse from U.S. to other MDCs more rapidly and now to developing and LDCs

  13. Problems Associated w/ Globalization of P. C. • Threatens F. C. • Some Muslims view Western Culture • As a threat to traditional culture and law • Loss of Traditional Gender Roles • Miss Afghanistan • Problems of looking “Westernized” • Effect on religious taboos and habits • Less people observe food/clothing restrictions • Negative popular culture transfers (pg. 137) • Increase in prostitution in LDCs • Blood Diamonds (Conflict Diamonds) in Africa • MDCs dominate the media (CNN) • Over-represents Western ideas • Focus on negative aspects of LDCs • Control Foreign countries economically?

  14. Problems Cont. • Impact on the Environment • Uniform landscapes = most suburban areas VERY similar • Depletion of nat. resources • Golf courses use up a lot of land • Over-killing of animals for products (Africa) • Eating meat instead of grains – inefficient and expensive; Suitability for LDCs?? • Pollution • MDCs create MUCH more waste than LDCs (where folk culture is more prevalent) • (Keep in mind folk cultures also produce waste)

  15. Urban Sprawl = Progress? http://www.geographyalltheway.com/igcse_geography/imagesetc/urban_sprawl.gif

  16. Popular Culture Effects on Landscape: breeds homogenous, “placeless” (Relph, 1976), landscape • Complex network of roads and highways • Commercial Structures tend towards ‘boxes’ • Dwellings may be aesthetically suggestive of older folk traditions • Planned and Gated Communities more and more common Disconnect with landscape:indoor swimming pools, desert surfing, indoor ski resort in Dubai.

  17. Ski Dubai?

  18. McDonald’s, Tokyo, Japan Swimming Pool, West Edmonton Mall, Canada McDonald’s, Jerusalem

  19. Countries without a Mickey Ds

  20. Linguistics

  21. Linguistics • Language @ heart of culture • W/o lang., culture cannot be passed on • Literary tradition  cultural continuity • Ideograms v. alphabets • Mandarin = oldest surviving writing system • Printing press! • Between 4-8,000 different lang. (depends on definition) • (ethnologue.com lists 7,413) • 600+ in India most are • 1000+ in Africa preliterate

  22. Washoe lived at Central Wash. U. She learned 800+ signs in Amer. Sign Lang. AND taught her kids how to communicate!!Vocalization is the crucial part of the def. of lang!Xhosa language – South Africa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZlp-croVYwKhoisan – Namibia –http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz44WiTVJww

  23. I. Language Classification • Language Family = collection of related langs. with a “prehistoric” ancestor • Indo-European is largest 50%; • Sino-Tibetan (20%) is 2nd • Afro-Asiatic (Northern Africa/Middle East) • Austronesian (Southeast Asia) • Niger-Congo (Sub-Saharan Africa) • Dravidian (India)

  24. Diffusion of Indo-European languages The origin of words we use all the time http://www.businessinsider.com/european-maps-showing-origins-of-common-words-2013 11?utm_content=bufferb7d3a&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=Buffer

  25. Hungarian surrounded by Indo-European languages! Why?

  26. B. Language Branch • Collection of related langs. w/ a more recent ancestor • More recent language divergence • Indo-European has 8 branches: • 4 major: • Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian • 4 minor: • Hellenic, Albanian, Celtic, Armenian

  27. C. Language Group • Common modern ancestor w/ similar vocab. and grammar • Ex: West Germanic v. North Germanic • English is West Germanic D. Language i.e. English, Hindi, Arabic, etc.

  28. E. Dialects: Standard vs. vulgar • Standard language (standard “dialect”) • Sets quality of a lang., (part of cultural ID & national concern) • May be sustained by gov’t policies (ex: tests for teachers or officials) • Powerful people decide the standard language • Ex of standard lang.: • Chinese = “Mandarin” • British English = “British Received Pronunciation” • Sec of State. Kerry English NOT Pres. Bush English • American Sign Language

  29. Why is BRP and American English so different? • What cohorts left Britain for the USA? • Mostly lower/middle class immigrants (not speakers of BRP) • Webster  “national” American English dialect • B/c of time and isolation vocab. & pronunciation considerably different • Different words for new inventions • Examples??? • American vs. British English.. http://esl.about.com/library/vocabulary/blbritam.htm?once=true&terms=british-american

  30. English Dialects http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgpfSp2t6k Amy Walker 21 Accents (2:36) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NriDTxseog Amy Walker, How to do an American accent? (6:40) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VSdYaX114Q Jeff Foxworthy Words of the South http://www.businessinsider.com/southern-sayings-2013-10 13 Southern Sayings that the rest of America will not understand  Some other great video clips to introduce you to dialects and variations in language. The cockney pronunciation segment from My Fair Lady (the Rain in Spain) and the hilarious clip of Lucy and Ricky discussing how they (Ricky) will teach their child proper English pronunciation  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJr9SSJKkII (4:47) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g10jFL423ho (5:25)

  31. Vulgar Dialects • Variants of the standard lang. • Regional accents reveal origin • Dialects marked by diff. in vocab. = “isogloss” • Isogloss = line separating 2 diff. words 4 same concept Ex. “Coke” vs. “soda” vs. “pop” Ex. “Crabbing” http://www.reelseo.com/best-vimeo-videos-november-2013/Regional Variations • More common  dialects differ in pronunciation • IF 2 dialects become “mutually unintelligible”  two separate languages emerge  “language divergence”

  32. Language Divergence The basic process: time and isolation • Separation • Time & isolation  branch into dialects • Dialects remain isolated • Pronunciations change, new words created for new discoveries • More time & isolation  dialects become discrete languages  “mutually unintelligible” • Ex. Vulgar Latin  Romance Languages • How does this relate to time-distance decay?

  33. II. Languages of the World Our goal… Know what language/ language branch/ language family is spoken in almost every place on Earth!! • Mandarin = most common primary lang. Chinglish. Can it be translated to English? http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/03/world/asia/20100503_CHINGLISH.html?_r=0 2. English = 2ndjust passed … Spanish is 3rdthen Hindi and Arabic. *English lang. of 100s of millions • English official lang. 40+ countries • 2 billion+ in a country w/ English official language • Who is #2 in English speakers b/h U.S.? (India =“ 398 scheduled languages, 11 extinct”; 22 official languages) Many not mutually understood. Each state has an official language! 3. *Could English be spoken in some places JUST for business and not casually? Why and where? Six Official languages of U.N.? _________________

  34. Languages of Europe • Indo-Euro. lang. dominates • Language map & pol. boundaries usually overlap • SW Europe is ___Romance___ • NW Europe is __Germanic______ • E. Europe is ____Slavic___ • (Keep in mind Estonia, Hungary and Finland – Uralic language family)

  35. European Languages cont. • Romance languages dominate in 5 states • E. boundary of Germ. = Germanic  Balto-Slavic tongues • Believed Uralic lang. spread 7000-10,000 years ago • Basque language = mystery in history = “isolated lang.”

  36. Langs of Indiahttp://www.mapsofindia.com/culture/indian-languages.html • 4 lang. fams • Indo-Euro. most speakers • Dravidian 2nd • Who cares about other 2 families?? Austroasiatic and Indo-Pacific • 15 major lang.; all but four are Indo-European (Bengali and Hindi most common) • Dravidian langs clustered in SE (Tamil/Telugu) • Pol. divisions reflect regional langs • Hindi is the main Indo-Euro lang. (Indo-Iranian branch) w/ 300+ million speakers

  37. 1. Most preliterate Grouped into 4fams North Africa = Central Africa = Kalahari-Namib = South Africa = Largest fam.= Niger-Congo Oldest are the Khoisan languages (clicks) Languages of Africa

  38. Mandarin: One lang. or many? (Sino-Tibetan family) 1. World's oldest written lang. 2. Spoken by the greatest contiguous pop. cluster on Earth • Divided by dialects that are mutually unintelligible • Mandarin dominates with about 900 million speakers • Written lang. ALWAYS same  unifying force • Several efforts have been made to create a truly national language… today’s pinyin

  39. South America • Impact of Colonialism • Treaty of Tordesillas divided New World into 2 spheres: • Western “half” = Spain • Eastern “half” = Portugal

  40. Proto-Indo-European Language Hearth and Diffusion

  41. Proto-Indo-European (PIE) lang? • Indo-European lang = world's most common • Proto-Indo-European (common ancestor of Indo-European) • Use reverse lang. diverg. to guess all I-E langs came from ONE lang. • Similar words • Hypothesize about origin?

  42. Diffusion of P.I.E lang? • Conquest theory • Originated N of Black Sea (steppes of Ukraine/Russia) 2. Lang. diffused west thru conquest! • Superior tech. (wheel) • Domesticated horses

  43. Historical Spread of the Chariot(Years are BC)

  44. B. Agriculture Theory • Diffusion by SHARING ag. Techniques/spread of farming • Origin: Anatolia in Turkey (hilly words) • Supporting evidence: • Few words for plains but many for relief landforms • Few words for trees/animals that live on the plains • Leading hearth of ag. innovation nearby (Mesopotamia) • Some genetic evidence

  45. III. Globalization vs. Local Diversity • Our goal: To be able to answer 2007’s FRQ well!!: • Globalization of lang. • Lingua franca? • Any common language spoken by peoples w/ diff. native tongues. (business purposes) • Exs: Swahili, Indonesian, Russian, Hausa, Arabic • English (most important) • Technology, Navigation, Education, Pop Culture, Tourism, Finance • Negative correlation b/t lingua franca & min. lang.

  46. Swahili • Swahili has become the lingua franca of East Africa http://www.glcom.com/hassan/lessons/useful_swahili_words.html • Developed from African Bantu languages, Arabic, and Persian • Has a complex vocabulary and structure

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