FINAL PREP ANTH

Can we say that our language is an evolution of call systems used by the primates, and why?

Primates communicate through call systems and different sounds to indicated

different situations (food, threat)

Human language however is a second system of communication, its more complex

using symbols.

Human language on symbols that makes it such a flexible and creative system of

communication and far more powerful than any primate call system could ever be

How can explain the infinite capacity of human beings to create new words, new languages?

Language system of arbitrary symbols people use to encode their experience of the

world and of others

Humans also use non-verbal communication, using gestures, postures, facial

expressions, non-verbal vocalizations or space = over 60% of our communication.

What is the difference between Language, and languages?

Language: universal abstract property of the whole species, adapted to the way of life:

categories existing in some language and not in others

Language is symbolical, the meaning is shared by a group = speech

communities

Languages: specific for groups of people

Language does not equal speech

Explain what a speech is communities, and give an example.

What is speech: the use of spoken words, vocal and “cultural assumptions” (slang)

Speech communities is a group of people who speak the same language and share the

same words and grammar rules (slang)

Distinctions between subgroups regarding their use of language (social

class, ethnic differences)

Name the 6 design features of human language according to Charles Hockett.

1. Openness

Human language is not restricted to a context and ability to create

new messages, words and formulation

2. Displacement

Communicated about elements not in our immediate situation:

object not present or different time

3. Arbitrariness

Understanding the links between a specific meaning

4. Duality of patterning

Human language patterned on two levels: sound and meaning

We arrange different sounds meaningless (phonemes) in a specific

pattern. Meaning units (morphmes) that cannot be divided

5. Semanticity

Association of linguistic signals with specific social, cultural or

physical aspects of the reality we arbitrary describe.

Words have stable relations with objects

6. Prevarication

Possibility to correctly use language to give a meaningless message,

or to lie “colourless green ideas sleep furiously

What is the “linguistic relativity principle”?

AKA the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: Two anthropological linguists observed that the

grammars of different language often described the same situation in different ways,

it causes us to view grammar as the linguistic pattern that shapes culture and

thought. Language determines our cognition, thought processes and culture/ how

we see the world.

Limits: difficult to test, and when it has been tested the results were

mixed/ambiguous, complex for researchers to spirit the effects of other

aspect of culture from the effects of language in the human thought process,

makes bilingualism and translation impossible

What is linguistic inequality? Name an example.

Linguistic inequality: studies relations of power between languages, their causes and

effects

Example: devaluation of creole regarding the main language spoken.

Jamaican English Creole VS English. The devaluation of creoles results from

power relations between the groups of speakers

oCreole: a language descended from a pidgin that subsequently has its

own native speakers, when pidgin speakers pass the language onto a

new generation, cultural transmission

Why that can be a challenge in post-colonial societies?

When one language becomes the standard in a multilinguistic society this creates a

form of linguistic inequality = linguistic ethnocentrism

if formal education is in the colonial language, inequalities of opportunities to

participate in the colonized or post-colonial society.

Explain what is linguistic ethnocentrism, and elaborate on the Canadian example from the

Textbook [ can be more than 4-5 lines ].

When a dominant language variety is used as the standard against all other varieties

to measure the value/superiority and inferiority = linguistic ethnocentrism

Making judgments about other peoples speech in a context of dominance

oExample: Residential school system, in 1880 the governmental

assimilation policies led to force first nations, metis and inuit children

to attend residential schools with the goal to civilize the children,

separating them from their family and giving them a non-indian

education. speaking another language was completely forbidden and

punished, students were separated from families. They lost the ability
to speak and transmit it.

Why is it a good idea to develop programs and policies of linguistic revitalization

Linguistic revitalization = language learning programs and services and preservation.

They benefit because it improves self-esteem, lowers suicide rate,

strengthens connection with the culture.

What are the different threat languages face and can make it disappear?

Colonialism and contact language: European colonialism had dramatic effects on

populations that they ruled across the world. Language change influences other

cultures

Nationalism and linguistic assimilation: nationalistic policies of cultural assimilations

of minorities have led to the suppurations and loss of local dialects.

Globalization: economic and cultural globalization processes homogenize major

global languages. 96% of the world speaks 4% of the worlds languages.

What are the different factors that can influence the way a language is revitalizing, or not?

The success of linguistic revitalization is relative: concerns of the loss of the access of

the spiritual and traditional knowledge, concerns about the loss of the full language

How human beings create worldviews?

Through symbols which allows an infinite creativity. Culture is symbolic which gave

birth to play, art, myth, ritual , religion and world views.

World views encompassing pictures of reality created by the members of societies.

They are a way for human beings to use cultural creativity to make sense of the

wider world on a more comprehensive scale. They can do this by creating symbols to

organize their experiences and knowledge, their understanding of the world.

Explain what is a summarizing symbol, and give an example.

Two different kinds of symbols:

Summarizing symbols

oStands for something bigger than they summarize

oExample: religion, 1 symbol = 1 system. The cross for Christian faith.

Elaborating symbols

oAnalytical symbols, allow people to label different ideas and feelings

into comprehensible language and action

oExample: Dinka people: cattle to them is a key elaborating symbol

Why the first definition of religion describing it as a worldview assuming that a “supernatural”

exists was problematic?

Supernatural: invisible world with which human beings can interact and influence

“natural” and visible world.

Problem because it postulates “supernatural” is not part of the “natural”.

Whereas most societies see it as part of nature

Religion ideas and practices that postulate reality beyond that which is

immediately available to the senses

Problem because it postulates “supernatural” is not part of the “natural”.

Whereas most societies see it as part of nature

Religion ideas and practices that postulate reality beyond that which is

immediately available to the senses

According to Anthony Wallace, what are the “minimal categories of religious behavior”?

1. Prayer

2. Physiological exercise

3. Exhortation

4. Mana

5. Taboo

6. Feasts

7. Sacrifice

Understanding of the structure of the universe based on the structure of the society we live

in, personalization of the forces in the universe humanizing them.

What are the two categories of specialists for the religious domain?
Shamans and Priests

Define witchcraft.

Witchcraft: performance of magic by human beings, through innate supernatural

powers, whether or not intentional or aware.

How do Azande people use witchcraft?

Mangu: witchcraft is a substance in the body of witches, it grows with the body, in

men or women, can only be passed down by mother through child.

seen as evil magic used to inflict harm on an individual and is the cause of all unusual

or terrible events that take place. When a witch uses their witchcraft on someone,

they take the soul of the victim resulting in a wasting disease

how to find the witch: give poison to chicken and name a suspect, if the chicken dies,

the suspect Is guilty. Suspects were usually people who have a quarrel, antisocial and

unpleasant.

Why anthropologists says that studying only the capitalist market is an ethnocentric perspective

of economy?

The rise of capitalist market influenced the way we see the economy: capitalizing and

maximizing the profit, buying cheap and selling high = western perspective based on

the assumption of scarcity.

The focus on individual making choices to maximize his profit.

Denunciation as an ethnocentric perspective

Define the 3 phases of economic activities in anthropology.

Production: the transformation of raw materials in nature to useful products to

human beings (ex: food, smartphones)

Distribution: processes that get these products to people

Consumption: the way we use these products (eating, fashion)

Why anthropologists disagree about the universality of the explanation of Neoclassic economics

about the moded of exchange?

Capitalism: an economic system dominated by supply-demand-price mechanism

called the “market” the emergence of neoclassical economics = focus on individual

calculations to maximize their own profit

Anthropologists disagree: stating that cultural diversity shows other ways to exchange

and that the capitalist market is the recent cultural invention.

Name the three mode of exchanges described by Marshall Sahlins.

1. Reciprocity

Generalized

i. No expectations of immediate return, no value of the return. Assume that

exchange will balance.

Balanced

i. Expect a return of equal value in a specified time

Negative

i. One tries to exchange for nothing

2. Redistribution: requires central social organization which receives contribution from all

members and redistributes to each member of the groups, collectively or individually

i. Example: taxes taking care of roads, education, and unemployment

support

3. Market exchange: most recent, invented by capitalist society. Uniqueness of capitalism is

linked between money, trade and market which existed independently before through

history.

Explain two modes of exchange that we find in Canadian society.

Market exchange for dominant economy

What concept if used by mark to explain how humans produce goods?

???

What are the interdependent component of a mode of production?

Mode of production composed

“tools, skills, organization and knowledge” = means of production for marx =

what we use to create and produce goods

Relation of production social relations between human beings using a means

of production = different groups in charge of different taks

Name the 3 modes of production described by Eric Wolf, and explain one.

1. Kin-ordered

a. Social labor is organized regarding kinship relations.

i. Example: foragers, farmers, herders with egalitarian political organization

2. Tributary mode

a. Cultivator, herdsman, producer access to means of production against a tribute

3. Capitalist mode

a. 3 main features

i. Means of production private property owned by capitalist class

ii. Workers must sell their labor power in order to survive

iii. Surplus of wealth are for capitalists to retain or reinvest

Name the 3 explanations of the patterns of consumption.

Consumption used of the materials goods necessary for human survival (food, drink,

clothes, shelter)

3 approaches:

Internal explanation

oMalinowski and the basic human needs: purpose of social practices =

fulfill human basic needs (food, safety, reproduction, growth),

psychological as biological

External explanation

oCultural ecology: diversity of human consumption patterns depends

on external factors: ecology

oExplanation based on the interactions between livings species with

their physical environment

Cultural explanation

ohow consumption is patterned?

Explain why according to Sahlins foragers are the “original affluent society” and that do not

know poverty.
Affluence is having more than enough of whatever is necessary to satisfy consumption

needs

To produce much (western societies)

To little desire, foragers

Sahlins: foragers do not know poverty, needs depend on the culture and the niche we

live in: cultural choices, not natural needs.

What are the kind of relation politic anthropology focus on?

Politic relations are relations of power: transformative capacity, the ability to

transformative given situation

Power affecting several individuals, groups = social power

Explain the first approach of anthropology to study social power.

20th influenced by Western philosophy and focused on coercion (the practice of

persuading someone to do something by using force or threats)

Western philosophy has associated social power with “civilized state”

Absence of state meant anarchy

Political activity: competition between individuals with free agency and political

control through the state

Witchcraft can be described as a power of regulation of the social order. Yet, it doesn’t work

with coercion . Explain how it works.

Azande: witchcraft, magic and oracles = power of regulation of the social order

it doesn’t work with coercion because witchcraft does not equal war of all against all

the regulation of the order is not a result of coercion but persuasion

Eric Wolfs organization power: social institutions and practices persuade individuals

to behave, by giving them a rational explanation and natural solutions

What is the concept used by Marx to explain how rulers consolidate their power? Define it and

describe its consequence on dominated groups.

Marx rulers use ideology to consolidate their power

Ideology: worldview justifying the social arrangements under which people

live

Dominated group accepting the ruling class ideology have false

consciousness, this is an issue because it conceives individuals as passive

beings, not resisting and understanding the hierarchy.

What are the concepts developed by Gramsci the study social power?

Domination: is ruling with coercive force: expensive and unstable

Persuading people to accept them = more efficient for rulers

oProviding material benefits to the subjects + using schools and other

institutions to disseminate ideology justifying their domination

Hegemony: to persuade the dominated to accept the ideology of the dominant

group by mutual accommodations, but preserving the ruler’s privileged position

What are the two means to achieve persuasion according to Gramsci?

Domination = coercive VS Hegemony = persuasive

Vulnerable to challenges:

oStruggles between rulers

oSubordinate groups can challenge “official” ideologies and practices

devaluating or excluding them

Give at least 3 examples of counter-hegemonic movements.

Black history month, feminism, idle no more

According to Foucault, on what biopower focus, and why is it new compared to the way

European states governed before the 17 th

Foucault called this power: biopower or biopolitics

Power focused on the bodies: bodies of the subjects and social body the state

Explain how governmentality works, and what are the risks for populations.

Governmentality is the art of governing appropriately to promote the welfare of

populations within a state, uses info from the stats to govern (case of contemporary

states)

Risks: restrict activities to those that benefit the state, control our movement beyond
state borders

How anthropologists explained kinship system at first?

Different forms of sexuality, conception, birth and nurturance interpreted and

shaped into cultural practices = relatedness

First anthropologists believed relatedness resulted from the transmission of a shared

substance like blood or genes, spiritual like love, soul = universal projection of their

own system

They thought kinship results from sharing a common substance through the

sexual intercourse of parents and leading to the conception of children

What are the three universal experiences studied in anthropology in order to understand how

societies create kin ties, and what are the categories used to study these experiences?

Kinship system: social relationships that are prototypically derived from the universal

experiences of mating, birth and nurturance

Cultural forms of relatedness through: mating, birth, nurturance

In western societies, mating does not mean marriage and a biological child

can have no relations of descent with its parents

What are the two categories used in all societies to create kin ties?

Sex: observable characteristic that distinguish females from males

Gender: cultural constructions of behaviours that are considered appropriate for each

sex

What is the main difference between bilateral and unilateral descent?

Bilateral: people believe to be equally close to mom and dad

Centred on the individual, claim ties to a broad network of kin

Unilineal: matrilineal or patrilineal, establishes a kinship with clearly define

boundaries, advantageous in societies where property is held in common by an

extended family

Describe the two forms of unilineal groups.

Patrilineal: individuals belong to a patrilineage = links result from a father – child

relation
Matrilineal: individuals belong to a patrilineage = links result from a mother-child

and brother sister relation

Why a matrilineage is a good example to demonstrate that kin ties are not exclusively based on

the reproduction of biology?

Descent traced through women, mens children re not part of the lineage, the most

important man in the life of boy is not the biological father but the maternal uncle

Name three categories from the terminology used to describe kin ties.

Generation: identify the ties with the generation of ego, same or not (cousin)

Gender: several languages specify the gender (ex, cousin in French and spanish but not

in English)

Affinity: connection through marriage mostly

Beyond the large variety of kinship system over time and space, what is the universal rule

dictating in every society our choices of mating?