Six Theories of culture and how they relate to Language (Duranti Ch.2)

Premise: Language as cultural PracticeWhat is “Culture”?Critiques: reductive of complexity

- colonial agenda and supremacy - dichotomies “them” versus “us”

Minorities within mainstream Anthropologies need to be aware of their role

Access to elite academic culture

New explore root metaphors and conceptsAvoid danger of defining Duranti Ch.2 12/4/13

Agenda Week 2:  Who is who in the class -- student intros  No Bedtime stories -  Engage props:  books for children -  Questions/aspects you want to have addressed-  Handout on Mainstream children -  Close reading Trackton and Roadville

-  Making the most out of Preschool  BREAK  2/4/13 Duranti Ch.2 2

Agenda Week 2 (cont)

Six theories of culture   (PPP with handout)  Looking ahead to week 3     new: writ a blog entry     respond to peer response papers   A page of your own    

2/4/13 Duranti Ch.2 3

Six Theories of Culture

1. as Distinct from Nature (Goodenough)

2. as Knowledge (Levy Strauss)

3. as Communication (Geertz)

Duranti Ch.2 42/4/13

6 Theories of Culture (cont)

3 as a system of Mediation (Marx)

4 as a system of Practices (Bordieu)

5 as a system of Participation (Lave)

Duranti Ch.2 52/4/13

1.Culture as distinct from Nature

Evidence of culture as learnedThe “nature/culture” dichotomyEvidence of “crossroad” in Language

capacity exists, particulars come from experience.

Philosophical assumptions: Kant- Boas

Duranti Ch.2 62/4/13

Kant’s defines Anthropology

“What a human being does because of his free spirit, as opposed to the natural laws which govern Human physiology”

Duranti p. 25

Duranti Ch.2 72/4/13

Hegel

Culture as the process of estrangement or Entfremdung “getting out”

Stepping out of one’s own limited ways of seeing things

“Buildung” as in “build” and “picture” I.e. the image of God (Gadamer)

Struggle to control instinct

Duranti Ch.2 82/4/13

Socialization

Shapes the child’s mind and behavior towards ways of thinking, speaking and acting accepted by a community beyond her family.

Duranti Ch.2 92/4/13

Language as part of culture

Rich systems of language specific classification-Kant mathematics!

Linguistic labels give cues about the types of social distinctions relevant for a give group (ex. no term for privacy, or “die” for people, animals and even machines!) -questions addressed by “Linguistic relativism”

Structuralists carry out componential analysis: classes of objects, thoughts, actions, relationships, events, ideas, --

Lexical distinctions (Goodenough, Spradley) Duranti Ch.2 102/4/13

2. Culture as knowledge

Premise: If culture is learned then much of is is Knowledge about the worldRe-cognize: objects, places, people ideasShare common patters of thought, ways of

understanding the worldWays of making inferences and predictions

In sum, cognitive view of the world

Duranti Ch.2 112/4/13

Goodenough, 1957 quote p. 27

“Culture ….must consist of the end product of learning: knowledge in it’s most general sense.

..Not just things but their ORGANIZATION …The forms people have in mind, their models for perceiving, relating and otherwise interpreting them”

Linguistic homology know a culture=knowing a language. Mental. How can we “explain” that bias?

Goal of ethnography: describe cultural grammars.

Duranti Ch.2 122/4/13

Types of knowledge

PropositionalKnow-that

Referential function of language is key

Natural kinds- ethosemantics How do people turn into objects? (p. 29)

Procedural Know how

Shift toward innativist view (Chomsky)

Duranti Ch.2 132/4/13

Culture as socially distributed knowledgeHow people think is real situations (Lave)

math in weight watchers, math in grocery shopping

Two assumptionsOne, Individual is not endpoint of acquisitionTwo, not everyone has access to same

information or uses of techniquesExample Hutchings and navigation as team

Duranti Ch.2 142/4/13

Study of quarter-masters

Quote by HutchinsUnit of analysis for

talking about cognitionInclude human and

environmental resources

“Complex task involves web of co-ordination between media and processes inside and outside the individual task performance

Duranti Ch.2 152/4/13

In sum, Knowledge distributed amongstTools and Participants Learning from formal instructions is rare…

More like cooking: need to be in the task, watch an expert

Hence apprenticeship is the most common way to transmit knowledge

Duranti Ch.2 162/4/13

Stereotyping through Language

As a system of classificationAs a practice, a way to “taking and giving”

to the world (p32) Implication: using the “same” expression

does not connote the “same” meaningRather “capacity for mutual prediction”

Wallace 1962Gumpez (1982) shows how language can

be a barrier to social integration Duranti Ch.2 172/4/13

3. Culture as communication

3.1 Levy Strauss and the Semiotic approachExtends Jacobson to The Cooking

example: The raw and the cooked Binary distinctions

Duranti Ch.2 182/4/13

2.3 Clifford Geertz and the interpretative approachCultural differences are not seen as

variations for universal abstract thoughtInterest in method of inquiry “never-ending

interpretative process characteristic of human experience

Following Weber man as “animal suspended in the webs of significance he himself spun”

Duranti Ch.2 192/4/13

Ethnography as Thick description

Thick description of a human behavior is one that explains not just the behavior, but its context as well, such that the behavior becomes meaningful to an outsider.

Difference between a “blink” and a “wink” the meaning of a wink depends on the context. As the context so does the meaning of the wink

Thick description describes the context of the practices and discourse in the society

Participation produces and reproduces worldviews, including local notions of Person (or Self)

Duranti Ch.2 202/4/13

2.3.3 Indexicality and meta-pragmatics Communicative force of culture entails not just

representing aspects of reality but connecting individuals, groups and individuals to each other.

Communication as a way to point towards, bringing into the context beliefs, feelings, identities, events bringing them into the present= the indexical meaning of signs

Language through indexicalitiy provides a theory of action or a meta-pragmatics

Duranti Ch.2 212/4/13

2.3.4 Metaphors as folk theories of the worldDefine metaphor: “The use of a word or phrase

to refer to something that it isn't, implying a similarity between the word or phrase used and the thing described” Wikitionary

metaphors allow us to understand one domain of experience in terms of another

• Time flies like an arrow • She broke the silence• The head of state (states as beings with a head)

Duranti Ch.2 222/4/13

4. Culture as a system of Mediation

Marx

Duranti Ch.2 232/4/13

5. Culture as a system of Practices

Based on Heidegger “way of being in the world”

Heath- bedtime routines

Duranti Ch.2 242/4/13

6. Culture as a System of participation (p.46)Related to culture as system of practicesAssumes: “any action in the world

including verbal communication, is inherentlySocialCollectiveParticipatory

Duranti Ch.2 252/4/13

Perspective on Language:

How is language used in the real world? Speak as way yo participate in a world always

larger than us as individualsWords carry myriad if possible connections to

humans, beliefs, events, acts and feelingsReaffirms socio-historical connectionIndexicality of language part of any act of

speaking as participant in a community of speakers

(Quote p. 46 “if the world…) Duranti Ch.2 262/4/13

On Predicting and interpreting (p 47)

1. Social actors need to make predictions

2. Vicissitudes are part of human social life

3. How often something happens is important

4. Types of speech are never “the same” 1. Particular-general or viceversa. Be critical!

5. Social actors have “models”

6. Metaphors are good to think with

7. All theories are mortal! Duranti Ch.2 272/4/13

Conclusion (49)

Read thinking of the “Bedtime stories article”

Duranti Ch.2 282/4/13