Acculturation

Exchange of features that results when groups come into continuous, firsthand contact.

Affinal kin

One’s relatives by marriage.

Agriculture

The practice of raising domesticated crops.

Avunculocal residence

Pattern of residence in which a married couple settles with or near the husband’s mother’s brother.

Band

A fairly small, usually nomadic local group that is politically autonomous.

Caste

A ranked group in which membership is determined at birth and marriage is restricted to members of one’s own group.

Chiefdom

A political unit, headed by a chief, integrating more than one community but not necessarily the whole society.

Civilization

Urban society, from the Latin for "city."

Clan or sib

A set of kin whose members believe they are descended from a common ancestor but cannot specifiy exactly how.

Class societies

A society containing social groups that have unequal access to economic resources, power, and prestige.

Codeswitching

Using more than one language in the course of conversing.

Cognates

Words or morphs that belong to different languages but have similar sounds and meanings.

Cognitive and Symbolic Approaches

Focus on human thought and the way it manifests itself in culture through the study of language, art, ritual, religion, etc.

Consanguineal kin

One’s biological relatives; relatives by birth.

Cultural generalities

Include features that are common to several, but not all, human groups.

Cultural particularities

Features that are unique to certain cultural traditions.

Cultural relativism

Cultural values are arbitrary, and therefore the values of one culture should not be used as standards to evaluate the behavior or persons from outside that culture.

Cultural universals

Features that are found in every culture; those that distinguish Homo sapiens from other species.

Culture

A set of learned behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, values, and ideals that are characteristic of a particular society of population.

Descriptive/structural linguistics

The study of how languages are constructed.

Diffusion

The spread of cultural traits through borrowing from one culture to another.

Domestication

Modification or adaptation of plants and animals for use by humans.

Egalitarian societies

A society in which all persons of a given age-sex category have equal access to economic resources, power, and prestige.

Enculturation

The process by which a child learns his or her culture.

Endogamy

Marriage to a person within one’s own group (kin, caste, community).

Ethnocentrism

The use of values, ideals, and mores from one’s own culture to judge the behavior of someone from another culture.

Exogamy

Marriage to a person from outside one’s own group (kin or community).

Extensive or shifting cultivation

A type of horticulture in which the land is worked for short periods of time and then left to regenerate.

Folklore

Includes all myths, legends, folktales, ballads, riddles, proverbs, and superstitions of a cultural group.

Food collection

Food-getting is dependent on naturally-occurring resources—wild plants and animals.

Food production

Food-getting is dependent on the cultivation and domestication of plants and animals.

Foragers

People who subsist on the collection of naturally occurring plants and animals. Also referred to as hunter-gatherers.

Functionalism

Culture is a living organism grouped and organized into a system, where the function of the various parts is to keep the essential processes going and enable the system to reproduce.

Gender differences

Differences between males and females that reflect cultural expectations and experiences.

Historical linguistics

The study of how languages change over time.

Historical Particularism

Historical approach to the study of culture change and development to explain what, where, why, and how things occurred.

Horticulture

Plant cultivation carried out with relatively simple tools and methods.

Hunter-gatherers

See foragers.

Ideal culture

Normative descriptions of a culture given by its natives.

Incest taboo

Prohibition of sexual intercourse or marriage between mother and son, father and daughter, and brother and sister. Cultural universal.

Independent invention

The creative innovation of new solutions to old and new problems.

Intensive agriculture

Characterized by the permanent cultivation of fields made possible by use of the plow, fertilizers, and irrigation.

Kindred

A bilateral set of close relatives.

Lexicon

Words and morphs, and their meanings, of a language; approximated by a dictionary.

Lineage

Set of kin whose members trace descent from a common ancestor through known links.

Mana

Supernatural, impersonal force that is believed to confer success and/or strength.

Marriage

Socially-approved sexual and economic union, usually of a male and a female, that is assumed to be more or less permanent.

Matrilocal residence

Pattern of residence in which a married couple lives with or near the wife’s parents.

Mediums

Part-time religious practitioner who is asked to heal and divine while in a trance.

Monogamy

Marriage between one man and one woman at a time.

Monotheistic

Believing that there is only one supreme being or god and that all other supernatural beings are subordinate to this being.

Morphology

The study of how sound sequences convey meaning.

Neolithic

The time at which people domesticated plants and animals. Earliest is 8,000 B.C. in the Near East.

Neolocal residence

Pattern of residence in which a married couple lives separately, usually at some distance, from the kin of both spouses.

Nineteenth Century Evolutionism

Culture generally develops or evolves in a uniform and progressive manner.

Norms

Standards or rules about what is acceptable behavior.

Nuclear family

A family consisting of a married couple and their young children.

Pastoralism

Food-getting is based directly or indirectly on the maintenance of domesticated animals.

Patrilocal residence

Pattern of residence in which a married couple lives with or near the husband’s parents.

Phoneme

Sound or set of sounds that makes a difference in meaning to the speakers of a language.

Phonology

Study of the sounds in a language and how they are used.

Polyandry

Marriage of one woman to more than one man at a time.

Polygamy

Plural marriage; marriage to more than one spouse at one time.

Polygyny

Marriage of one man to more than one woman at a time.

Polytheistic

Recognizing many gods, none of whom is believed to be superordinate or supreme.

Postmodernism

Focuses on the observer instead of the observed in anthropology; states there is no true objectivity and the scientific method in anthropology is not possible.

Potlatch

A feast among Native American groups during which great quantities of food and goods are given to the guests in order to gain prestige for the host.

Priests

Generally a full-time religious specialist with high status who is thought to be able to communicate to superior or high gods.

Rank societies

A society that does not have any unequal access to economic resources or power, but with social groups that have unequal access to status positions and prestige.

Real culture

Actual behavior as observed by an anthropologist.

Reciprocity

Giving and taking without the use of money.

Redistribution

Accumulation of goods or labor by a particular person or in a particular place and their subsequent distribution.

Religion

Any set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices pertaining to supernatural power, whether that power rests in forces, gods, spirits, ghosts, or demons.

Sedentarism

Settled life.

Sex differences

Typical differences between males and females that are most likely due to biological differences.

Sexually dimorphic

A marked difference in size and appearance between males and females of a species.

Shaman

A part-time religious intermediary whose primary function is to cure people through sacred songs, pantomime, and other means.

Siblings

A person’s brothers and sisters.

Society

A group of people who occupy a particular territory and speak a common language not generally understood by neighboring peoples.

Sorcery

The use of certain materials to invoke supernatural powers to harm people.

State

Form of political organization that includes class stratification, three or more levels of hierarchy, and leaders with the power to govern by force.

Subculture

Commonly shared customs of a group within a society.

Subsistence technology

The methods humans use to procure food.

Syntax

The ways in which words are arranged to form phrases and sentences.

Taboo

A prohibition that, if violated, is believed to bring supernatural punishment.

Traits

Attitudes, values, ideals, and rules for behavior.

Tribe

A territorial population in which were are kin or nonkin groups with representatives in a number of local groups.

Unilocal residence

Pattern of residence that specifies just one set of relatives that the married couple lives with or near.

Witchcraft

The practice of attempting to harm people by supernatural means, but through emotions and thought alone, not through the use of tangible objects.