Culture Case

Today Culture has changed immensely from what it used to be. Culture is the knowledge, language, values, customs, and material objects that are handed down from generation to generation. Culture is essential for our survivals and communication with other people. Four of the major components of culture are symbols, language, values, and norms.

Symbols are anything that represents something else. We need symbols in culture because without them there would be no shared meaning among people. Some examples of symbols are a heart for love, a touch of the shoulder for sympathy, and a Nazi swastika for hate. Symbols can also represents class. For example a large car could be a symbol for wealth, power, and status.

Another component of culture is language. Language is symbols that express ideas helps people to think and communicate with each other. Using language to share our experiences, feelings, and knowledge with others is one of our most important human abilities. Some animals use signals with meanings that are limited to the immediate situation and not the past or future situations. Chimpanzees use sign language and use physical objects to communicate but they are not able to talk.

Values are ideas about what is right or wrong, good or bad, and desirable or undesirable in culture. Values provide us with criteria which help us to evaluate people, objects, and events. Values often come in pairs such as good and bad and hardworking and lazy.

The last component of culture is norms. Norms are rules of behavior or standards of conduct. Prescriptive norms determine what behavior is appropriate or acceptable. For example people making money have to file a tax return and pay their taxes. Oppositely, proscriptive norms determine what behavior is inappropriate or unacceptable. Examples are different laws about speed limit and good manners.

Anthropologist Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf think that language not only express our thoughts and perceptions but influences our perceptions or reality. If language shapes our reality, then some aspects are viewed as important but others are neglected because people only know the world in the vocabulary of their own language.

Language and gender often related. The English language usually uses the masculine form to humans. An example is chairman and mankind that are used for both man and women. Pronouns such as he and she are used to talk about the person we expect to be in a certain occupation. For example secretaries and nurses are referred to as she and doctors and presidents are referred to as he.

Language can show our feelings about race and ethnicity by transmitting ideas of the importance of one category of people over another. Certain words may have more than one meaning and can create negative images toward certain groups of people. Words that contain the words black in them can often have negative associations toward

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