Cultural Basics
Behaviors heavily discouraged by a culture.
What are taboos?
The geographic origin of a culture or cultural trait.
What is a hearth?
A language used by the government for laws, reports, signs, public objects, money, and stamps.
What is an official language?
A religion that originated in India and is based on the teachings of the man formerly called Siddhartha Gautama.
What is Buddhism?
The belief that one's own culture is superior to another culture.
What is ethnocentrism?
The unwritten rules and acceptable behaviors established by a culture.
What are cultural norms?
A meme or viral video spreading rapidly and widely through close contact and the internet is an example of this type of diffusion.
What is contagious diffusion?
Variations in accent, grammar, usage, and spelling that develop out of geographic distance or isolation.
What are dialects?
An ethnic religion primarily diffused close to its hearth in India.
What is Hinduism?
The acceptance or understanding of a culture different from one's own.
What is cultural relativism?
Refers to the built environment—the visible imprint of human activity and culture on the physical landscape.
What is the cultural landscape?
The spread of a cultural trait through the migration of people, such as Christianity being brought to the Philippines through Spanish colonization.
What is relocation diffusion?
A common language used by speakers of two different languages for communication, usually for business, trade, or popular culture.
What is a lingua franca?
A religious building in a culture is referred to as this.
What is a cultural trait?
Native American children being forced into boarding schools—where one culture abandons its original culture to adopt another—is an example of this.
What is assimilation?
Things a group of people construct, such as art, houses, clothing, sports, dance, and foods.
What are artifacts (or material culture)?
A veggie burger being served in India instead of a hamburger shows a cultural trait altered due to a cultural barrier or taboo.
What is stimulus diffusion?
A geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs; lines that divide dialects.
What is an isogloss?
A religion that attempts to appeal to all people, actively recruits new members through missionaries, and is not confined to one location (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Buddhism).
What is a universalizing religion?
When one culture adopts some traits from another culture, while still continuing to practice its native culture.
What is acculturation?
Small, homogenous groups of people, often living in rural areas that are isolated and resistant to change.
What is local culture (or folk/traditional culture)?
The spread of cultural traits from the least interconnected, wealthy, or powerful people or organizations outwards.
What is reverse hierarchical diffusion?
A pidgin language that develops into a new combined language with native speakers, frequently developed through colonization or slavery.
What is creolization?
Characteristics that unify a country and provide stability, such as a common language, ethnicity, or religion.
What are centripetal forces?
When two cultures' traits blend together to form a completely new cultural trait through contact like immigration or intermarriage.
What is syncretism?