DEFINING CULTURE

► Social Scientist from various disciplines all recognize

the power of culture to shape people’s thought and
actions.

► According to Edward Taylor, “Culture… is that

complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs,
arts, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities
and habits acquired by man as a member of the
society”.
 Subdivide it into two forms: Material
and Nonmaterial
► Material culture refers to the physical products of a culture,
such as artifacts, dwellings, and artistic expressions.
Archeologists use these to understand how extinct cultures
used to live. For example, most of what we know of the
ancient Egyptian civilization which existed from3100 BCE to
332 BCE is thanks to the buildings, statues, paintings, objects,
and mummified bodies that they left behind.
► Nonmaterial culture refers to the
ideas that are shared by a cultural
group. Examples of this includes
religion, myths, legends and
language. Evidence of these are
much more difficult to obtain
because they usually have no direct
physical form and are easily lost.
Review: Indicate whether each of the following are examples of material
or nonmaterial culture. Write N for material and NM for nonmaterial.
______________1. Mobile phone
______________2. Song
______________3. Buddhism
______________4. Taj Mahal
______________5. Creation myths
______________6. Statue
______________7. Farming tools
______________8. Belief in evil spirits
______________9. Weapons
______________10. Eiffel Tower
_____________11. symbols
_____________12. Calligraphy
_____________13. paintings
_____________14. Ibong Adarna
_____________15. Pyramid
 ► Culture and Society Defined
► Culture consists of the beliefs, behaviors,
objects, and other characteristics
common to the members of a particular
group or society. Through culture, people
and groups define themselves, conform to
society's shared values, and contribute to
society.
► Thus, culture includes many societal aspects:
language, customs, values, norms, mores, rules,
tools, technologies, products, organizations,
and institutions. This latter term institution refers
to clusters of rules and cultural meanings
associated with specific social activities.
Common institutions are the family, education,
religion, work, and health care.
► Popularly speaking, being cultured means being
well‐educated, knowledgeable of the arts, stylish,
and well‐mannered. High culture—generally
pursued by the upper class—refers to classical
music, theater, fine arts, and other sophisticated
pursuits. Members of the upper class can pursue
high art because they have cultural capital, which
means the professional credentials, education,
knowledge, and verbal and social skills necessary to
attain the “property, power, and prestige” to “get
ahead” socially.
► Low culture, or popular
culture—generally pursued by the
working and middle classes—refers to
sports, movies, television sitcoms and
soaps, and rock music. Remember that
sociologists define culture differently
than they do cultured, high culture, low
culture, and popular culture.
► Symbols and Language in Human Culture
► To the human mind, symbols are cultural
representations of reality. Every culture has its
own set of symbols associated with different
experiences and perceptions. Thus, as a
representation, a symbol's meaning is neither
instinctive nor automatic. The culture's members
must interpret and over time reinterpret the
symbol.
► Symbols occur in different forms: verbal or
nonverbal, written or unwritten. They can be
anything that conveys a meaning, such as words
on the page, drawings, pictures, and gestures.
Clothing, homes, cars, and other consumer items
are symbols that imply a certain level of social
status.
► Sociologists define society as the people who
interact in such a way as to share a common
culture. The cultural bond may be ethnic or
racial, based on gender, or due to shared
beliefs, values, and activities. The term society
can also have a geographic meaning and
refer to people who share a common culture in
a particular location.
► For example, people living in arctic climates
developed different cultures from those living
in desert cultures. In time, a large variety of
human cultures arose around the world.
► Culture and society are intricately related. A culture
consists of the “objects” of a society, whereas a
society consists of the people who share a common
culture. When the terms culture and society first
acquired their current meanings, most people in
the world worked and lived in small groups in the
same locale.
► In today's world of 6 billion people, these terms
have lost some of their usefulness because
increasing numbers of people interact and share
resources globally. Still, people tend to use culture
and society in a more traditional sense: for
example, being a part of a “racial culture” within
the larger “U.S. society.”
► Language is an important source of continuity
and identity in a culture. Some groups, such as
the French‐speaking residents of Quebec in
Canada, refuse to speak English, which is
Canada's primary language, for fear of losing
their cultural identity although both English
and French are Canada's official languages.
In the United States, immigrants provide much
resistance to making English the official
national language.
► Perhaps the most powerful of all human symbols is
language—a system of verbal and sometimes written
representations that are culturally specific and convey
meaning about the world. In the 1930s, Edward Sapir
and Benjamin Lee Whorf proposed that languages
influence perceptions. While this Sapir‐Whorf
hypothesis—also called the linguistic relativity
hypothesis—is controversial, it legitimately suggests
that a person will more likely perceive differences
when he or she possesses words or concepts to
describe the differences.
 The characteristics of Culture
► Anthropologist recognize that culture
have five characteristics. First, they are
learned. Aspects of culture are not
determined by biology. Instead, they
acquired through interaction with others in
a group. Second, culture is shared by a
group with similar understandings, feelings,
and actions. What a person thinks or does
makes most sense within his/her cultural
group.
Third, it is based on symbols. A symbol is
anything that carries meaning and is
recognized by people who share a
culture. For example, the red, yellow,
and green lights on traffic lights are all
symbols that are understood by
cultures wherein you find motor
vehicles.
► The fourth characteristics is that cultures
are integrated. That is, different aspects of
a culture are connected, and in order to
understand the whole, you need to look at
all of its parts. It is the reason that when
anthropologists study a culture, they
examine its religion, festivals, language,
and art, to name a few. All of these are
connected through culture.
► Finally, cultures are dynamic. Most
human groups are connected, and
ideas and symbols from one group
can be adopted by members of
another group. Consequently, all
cultures are susceptible to change.
They do not remain fixed, but evolve
to respond to new influences.
Society, culture, and power are all
social forces that impact us. As
individuals, do you think we can resist
these or are they just too strong? Cite
examples to explain your answer.