Summary: Cultural Anthropology Midterm

Read the summary and the most important questions on Cultural Anthropology Midterm

• 1 Cultural Anthropology Midterm

  This is a preview. There are 48 more flashcards available for chapter 1
  Show more cards here

• Describe the duality of patterning concerning the features of language

  Is the ability to produce infinite number of meanings by combining finite numbs of sounds in a specific order

• Describe openness as it pertains to features of language

  The possibility of blending, analogizing with and transforming previous linguistic messages to generate an inexhaustible amount of expressions

• Describe vernacular language

  A subgroup language in presence of vehicular language that divides cultures in a given area. Ex: China town

• Describe the Comparative Perspective

  Compares data about the cultural beliefs and practices in societies/cultures everywhere and throughout time to comprehend cultural universals and cultural diversity

• Describe Physical Anthropology

  Studies human biological evolution and variation in time and space; hominid evolution, genetics, primotology.

• Describe Archaeological Anthropology

  Reconstructs, describes and interprets human behavior and cultural patterns through the study of ruins, artifacts, ecofacts, fossils and features.

• Describe Linguistic Anthropology

  The modern scientific study of the systems of human communication and languages in time and space, their origins, history, structure, contemporary variation and the relationship between language and culture and society.

• Describe Structural Functionalism

  States that to understand one part one must understand how it fits into the whole. A.R.Radcliffe was the originator after studying the Andaman Islanders described roles as sets of sanctioned expectation for behavior. Malinowski was also a structural functionalist who after studying Trobriand Islanders wrote the first ethnographic monograph.

• Describe French Structuralists

  Describes language as the prime model to analyze culture while maintaining the forms and structure of cultural expressions. Claude Levi Strauss states that language is a social fact and it is beyond the conscious and intentional control of its users. Louis Dumont attempted to analyze the structural operating principles of cultural systems.

• Describe Historical Particularism

  Franz Boas and Louis Dumont attempted to analyze the structural operating principles of those cultural systems. Originated cultural relativism.