Culture is define as sets of learned behaviors and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society (Lavenda and Schultz 2013: 4). Often learned behaviors and ideas are pass down from one generation to another, such as language in which different societies or groups even within a country has their own distinct dialect. In the US, it is accepted that most people speak English, but every region has their own accent. The slang that is used is different from the North from that of the South. Even cities have their own distinct accent such as the Boston accent. In the lower south of Louisiana, natives will often speak Cajun, which is a mix of English and French. What do all these accents have in common? The languages and the way they speak is often passed down from generation to generation or through learned behavior through interactions.
A society which can be used interchangeably with culture is used to refer to a group of people while culture is a set of learned behaviors and ideas that humans acquire. In order to achieve a society at a minimum level, a group of humans must live together, “whose interactions with each other are pattered in regular ways” (Lavenda and Schultz 2013: 76). An example would be the interactions in tribalism where there is some limited instance of social rank and prestige. In a tribe you may have a chief who is that of a highly rank incumbent based on kinship. Below them you have the hunter and gatherers, etc. with each one ascribed with a certain role. It can be said for the Kalash who live in Pakistan. Identifying themselves as the descendent of Alexander the Great and share both an Islamic and polytheistic religion particularly the Proto-Indo-Iranian religion. While humans do have a culture and a ...
... middle of paper ...
...ture, nevertheless animals do share some form of culture. Their culture is in the hunting method that they developed to find food and passed that method down from generation to generation. We may see ourselves as the only ones with culture, but the slow progression of “sponging” which had slowly developed over a course of several decades has allowed dolphins to hunt and share this method with surrounding pods.
Works Cited
Lee, Jane J. 2012. Dolphin Social Networks Show First Hints of Culture. Live Science, 2012, accessed February 14, 2014, http://www.livescience.com/21989-dolphin-sponge-tools-culture.html.
Animal Culture. Animal Planet, 2014, accessed February 14, 2014, http://www.animalplanet.com/animal-facts/animal-culture-info.htm.
Lavenda, Robert H. and Emily A. Schultz. 2013. Core Concepts in Cultural Anthropology. 5th ed. (New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill).
Robbins, R. H. (2014). Cultural anthropology: a problem-based approach (Second Canadian ed.). Itasca: F.E. Peacock.
Richard B. Lee (2003). The Dobe Ju/‘hoansi (3rd Edition). Case studies in cultural anthropology, USA, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
In our ecosystem, there is very unique specie that uses hymning sounds to communicate with their own and they are Whales. Whales communicate with their own with various hymning sounds to talk to each other. They can travel in huge packs and still can communicate with different whales from a long distance. In the article, The Lost Cultures of Whales, written by Shane Gero he does back up and explain how whales share a special connection with each other by using their whale calls to talk to other from far distances by researching how they live as one. “The whales live in communities of neighboring families in a multicultural oceanic society” (Gero) by this, it can be inferred that whales share the same qualities as human being by us living in
...llent imitators. Imitation ability was tested at the dolphin institute; two bottlenose dolphins each had their own trainer and could see the other dolphin, but not the other dolphin’s trainer. Trainers then gave commands to the dolphins. In this experiment, it was found that dolphins, despite not being able to see the trainer, could successfully imitate another dolphin’s behavior after that dolphin was given a command from its trainer (TDI 2012). Additionally, dolphins could imitate human movements after associating analogous parts of their body with human parts. For example, the dolphin raised its tail when its trainer raised her leg (TDI 2012). The ability for dolphins to successfully imitate another dolphin’s behavior suggests that dolphins have learning abilities, giving further insight and a better understanding of social structures of the dolphin community.
Schultz, Emily A. & Lavenda, Robert H. 2005, Cultural Anthropology, 6th edn, Oxford University Press, New York, Chapter 3: Fieldwork.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, culture is defined as tradition or a way of life. It is also a defining principle in how we live our life and the type of people we become. The Salish Indians of the Montana and Celie, the main character of the book The Color Purple, are two examples of cultures that made them who they are. Celie is a poor, black, woman growing up in Memphis, Tennessee in the mid-twentieth century. The men have constantly put her down, through beatings and rape, for being a woman with no talent at all. Her husband’s lover comes to town and gives Celie a chance to see a culture where a woman can stand up for herself and teaches her that love is possible. The Salish on the other hand have a culture that has gone on through the ages and still is a part of each person today despite the obstacles they have had to face. Culture does shape us because from birth it is what tells us our ideals, laws, and morals that we live by each day.
Park, M.A. (2008). Introducing anthropology: An integrated approach, with PowerWeb, 4th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978–0-07-340525-4
Kedia, Satish, and Willigen J. Van (2005). Applied Anthropology: Domains of Application. Westport, Conn: Praeger. pp. 16, 150.
Schultz, E.A. & Lavenda, R.H. Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition, Sixth Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005.
Culture can be simply considered as "the way we do things around here", said Cartwright (2004, pp.85). A further understanding given by Deresky (2006, pp.83) is that a culture is composed by 'shared values, understandings, assumptions, and goals that are learned from earlier generations, imposed by present members of a society and passed on to succeeding generations'. It can be seen that culture is formed by lifestyle and knowledge acquisition of people from a certain region, and then it stands for a general preference, opinion, and value of them. So that's why people from the same place may have much in common.
Anthropologists define the term culture in a variety of ways, but there are certain shared features of the definition that virtually all anthropologists agree on. Culture is a shared, socially transmitted knowledge and behavior. The key features of this definition of culture are as follows. 1) Culture is shared among the members of that particular society or group. Thus, people share a common cultural identity, meaning that they recognize themselves and their culture's traditions as distinct from other people and other traditions. 2) Culture is socially transmitted from others while growing up in a certain environment, group, or society. The transmission of cultural knowledge to the next generation by means of social learning is referred to as enculturation or socialization. 3) Culture profoundly affects the knowledge, actions, and feelings of the people in that particular society or group. This concept is often referred to as cultural knowledge that leads to behavior that is meaningful to others and adaptive to the natural and social environment of that particular culture.
Culture is shared. Culture is shared by a firmly large group of human beings living in organized societies and works as a linking force. Generally, common religion and language are the critical elements that largely help people share values, customs, norms and experiences.
In culture there may be more of a choice as to whether one takes certain actions. In society there are guidelines for all behavior, and consequences when one does not follow the accepted patterns. These patterns, which are laid out, learned, and willingly obeyed by the participating members of a society, provide smoothness of interaction and common translations of certain situations. When issues arise, they can also provide accepted formats for resolution. Society is no more static than culture, and may evolve drastically in response to new environments and ideals of what is
Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects and behavior. It includes the ideas, value, customs and artifacts of a group of people (Schaefer, 2002). Culture is a pattern of human activities and the symbols that give these activities significance. It is what people eat, how they dress, beliefs they hold and activities they engage in. It is the totality of the way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenges of living in their environment, which gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious norms and modes of organization thus distinguishing people from their neighbors.
Culture is an important concept in anthropology. Culture is defined as, "sets of learned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society. Human beings use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which they live." (LS:512). Culture has been used in anthropology to understand human difference, but within this understanding there have been benefits and drawbacks to the ideas of culture. Finally, the study of language and humans as symbol using creatures helps us have perspectives on different parts of the world. All anthropologists share a certain reliance on culture to have a starting point in understanding human experience as a whole.