2. Write down your
answers (5 mins)
• What is the meaning of
‘culture’? Write down a
definition
• How can you recognise (see)
someone’s culture?
• There are 5 elements to culture-
think of examples of them:
– Language
– Symbols
– Values
– Norms
– Materials
• Why should we study culture?
3. Today
• Culture – definitions
• Elements of culture –
define:
– Language
– Symbols
– Values
– Norms
– Materials
• Sub-culture
• The Frankfurt School
and mass consumption
of culture
• Ethnocentricity vs
Cultural relativism
• Saphir-Whorf
Hypothesis
5. British Weather
‘Bill Bryson, for example, concludes that the
English weather is not at all fascinating, and
presumably that our obsession with it is
therefore inexplicable:
“To an outsider, the most striking thing about
the English weather is that there is not very
much of it. All those phenomena that
elsewhere give nature an edge of
excitement, unpredictability and danger—
tornadoes, monsoons, raging blizzards, run-
for-your-life hailstorms—are almost wholly
unknown in the British Isles.”’
--qtd. in Fox, Watching the English
6. British Weather
‘My research has convinced me that . . . Bryson . . . [is] missing
the point, which is that our conversations about the weather
are not really about the weather at all: English weather-speak
is a form of code, evolved to help us overcome our natural
reserve and actually talk to each other. Everyone knows, for
example, that “Nice day, isn’t it?”, “Ooh, isn’t it cold?”, “Still
raining, eh?” and other variations on the theme are not
requests for meteorological data: they are ritual greetings,
conversation-starters or default “fillers”. In other words,
English weather-speak is a form of “grooming talk”—the
human equivalent of what is known as “social grooming”
among our primate cousins, where they spend hours groom
each other’s fur, even when they are perfectly clean, as a
means of social bonding.’
--Kate Fox
7. Hall, 2007:2
‘To say that two people belong to the same
culture is to say that they interpret the world
in roughly the same way and can express
themselves, their thoughts and feelings about
the world, in ways will be understood by each
other. Thus, culture depends on its
participants interpretting meaningfully what is
happening around them, and ‘making sense’
of the world in broadly similar ways.’
8. What is culture?
• ‘The values, beliefs, behaviours, practices and material
objects that constitute a people’s way of life’
(Macionis & Plummer 2007:128)
• ‘Believing with Max Weber, that man is an animal
suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun,
I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it
to be therefore not an experimental science in search
of law but an interpretative one in search of
meaning...’ (Geertz 1995:5)
• Write down these definitions and compare to yours.
9. Figure 5.5 The circuit of culture
The Circuit of Culture (du Gay et al; Hall et al)
10. Culture
• Intangible (non-material)
world of ideas
• Tangible (material) things
• Cultural Practices: the
practical logics by which
we both act and think in a
myriad of little encounters
of daily life (Bourdieu
1990) In Other Words:
Towards a Reflective
Sociology; Language and
Symbolic Power 1991
11. 5 Main Components of Culture
Research into culture is extremely varied, but all
seem to agree on these components:
• Symbols
• Language
• Beliefs
• Norms
• Material
12. Symbols http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90e81SuoIvI&feature=fvsr
• ‘anything that carries a particular
meaning recognised by people who
share a culture’ (Macionis & Plummer
2007:130) What meaning does this fur
coat have? Does it mean the same to
a vegetarian and to someone from a
high socio-economic group?
• Semiotics - de Saussure – meanings
are constructed through social
practices, rather than being inherent.
Why is a dog a dog? It’s also a chien.
It’s not a cat.
13. The Major Components of Culture:
Symbols: Jeans
• 18th and 19th century: California
gold miners and workers wore
jeans because the material was
very strong and did not wear out
easily.
• 1930s Westerns—cowboys
made jeans popular
15. The Major Components of Culture:
Symbols: Jeans
• 1950s: symbol of the
teenage rebel.
• Some schools in USA
banned students from
wearing denim.
16. The Major Components of Culture:
Symbols: Jeans
1960s & 70s: Hippies and the Cold War
• Working class association of jeans
made them popular among
affluent students who wanted
to look different.
• In many non-western countries,
jeans became symbol of
‘western decadence’ and very
hard to get.
17. The Major Components of Culture:
Symbols: Jeans
1980s: ‘designer jeans’ become high-priced ‘status-
symbols.’
18. The Major Components of Culture:
Symbols: Jeans
1990s: move away from traditional jeans style that
parents were wearing.
• Aged, authentic vintage jeans
in second-hand stores and
thrift shops (not conventional
jeans stores)
19. Major Components of Culture:
Language
• ‘a system of symbols that
allows members of a
society to communicate
with one another’
(Macionis & Plummer
2007:131)
• Form is written and
spoken words
• Main form of cultural
reproduction
• Oral cultural tradition
20. Figure 5.2 Where the words won’t be heard
Thousands of languages may die out during the twenty-first century, and more
than 420 are already characterised as ‘nearly extinct’ by Ethnologue, a catalogue
of the world’s tongues.
Source: adapted from Newsweek, 19 June 2000
21. The Major Components of Culture:
Language
• Proverbs are one example of
how culture is conveyed
through words. What do
these proverbs mean?
– ‘Kill two birds with one stone.’
– ‘Cleanliness is next to
Godliness.’
– ‘The early bird gets the worm.’
• What do these tell us about
culture in the UK? Can you
think of any proverbs from
your culture?
22. Language
• Sapir- Whorf Hypothesis
‘people perceive the world
through the cultural lens of
language’ (1949):
• Linguistic determinism
(language shapes the way
we think) + linguistic
relativity (distinctions
found in one language are
not found in another)
• Language has power –
Austin ‘How to do things
with Words’
23. Values & Beliefs
• Values: ‘the standards people have about
what is good and bad’ (Macionis & Plummer
2007:134)
• Prescriptive – broad statements about what
ought to be ethical
• Beliefs: ‘specific statements that people hold
to be true’ (Macionis & Plummer 2007:134)
24. 4 European Values
• Product of Enlightenment:
rationality, science and
progress
• Judaeo-Christian history
of dominance; secularism
• Treaty of Westphalia:
– Land ownership / states
• Hierarchy:
– Estates
– Monarchy
25. How do other cultures differ in values?
Asian Values:
•Hard work
•Saving
•Strong families
•Education is important
Do you agree?
27. Inglehart (2000) Dimensions of World
Values
• Traditional vs Secular-
rational
• Traditional societies
rooted in past through
religion or autocratic
leaders
• Secular-rational: less
religious, more in
individualistic
• Survival vs Self-
expression
• So-called post-modern
society
• Survival: low level of well-
being; intolerance of
outgroups; emphasis on
materialistic gain;
favourable attitudes to
authoritarian gov’ts
• Self-expression: reverse
28. The Major Components of Culture:
Norms
• ‘The rules and expectations by which a
society guides the behaviour of its
members’ (Macionis & Plummer, 2008:
136)
• ‘Rules of behaviour that reflect or
embody a culture’s values, either
prescribing a given type of behaviour, or
forbidding it’ (Giddens, 2008: 1127).
• These tell us what we should and
should do (prescriptive) or should not
do (proscriptive); they differ from place
to place
30. Norms: Sumner 1959 (1906)
• Mores: ‘ a society’s standards of proper moral
conduct’
• Distinguish between right and wrong
• Essential to maintaining way of life
• People develop emotional attachment to mores
and will defend them publicly
• Folkways: society’s customs for routine, casual
interaction
• Distinguish between right and rude
31. Components of Culture: Material
Artefacts
• Tangible creations
• High culture – cultural
artefacts which distinguish a
society’s elite
• Popular culture – cultural
patterns which are widespread
among population
• Cultural patterns are not
accessible to all (Hall & Neitz
1993) – what do they mean?
• Cultural variety = hierachy
32. Cultural Capital – Pierre Bourdieu
Distinction (1984)
•Each family teaches cultural
capital
•More experience; more capital
•Cultural reproduction means
reproduction of the culture of
the dominant classes
• Habitus - classifications,
perceptions, ways of talking
•The education system is biased
towards working-class
skils/knowledge
35. Ethnocentricity & Cultural Relativity
• Ethnocentricity – judging another culture by
your own culture’s values
• Cultural relativism – judging a culture by its
own standards
• Cultural relativism is difficult and it is
problematic: how can it be problematic?
36. Approaches to culture
• Functional:
– relatively stable system
built on core values
– traits function to
maintain stability of
overall system
– Key theorists: Talcott
Parsons; George
Murdock – Cultural
Universals
• Conflict/Critical:
– inequality
– Mass culture (Adorno &
Horkheimer)
– Hegemony – the means
by which a
ruling/dominant group
wins over a subordinate
group through ideas
(Gramsci)
37. Modern Culture: The tyranny of mass
Consumption.
• The Frankfurt School (Horkheimer/
Adorno) of ‘Critical Sociology’
suggests that in mass society,
cultural production is standardized
and rendered undemanding to be
acceptable to a mass audience.
• Culture is reduced to profit seeking
much like any other industry.
• The leisure industry – inculcates
appropriate values and attitudes in
society.
• Leisure is no longer a break from
work, but a preparation for it. The Frankfurt School.
38. Today
• What is culture
• Elements of culture:
– Language
– Symbols
– Values
– Norms
– Materials
• Sub-culture
• Mass consumption
• Cultural hybridization
• The Frankfurt School
• Ethnocentricity
• Cultural relativism
• Saphir-Whorf
Hypothesis
39. Independent study
• Key reading: Macionis, J. J. and Plummer, K.,
Sociology. A Global Introduction, Fourth Edition,
(Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.), 2008. Ch. 7.
• Secondary reading: Giddens, A., Sociology, Sixth
Edition, (Cambridge: Polity Press), 2009. pp.258-
278.
• Moodle:
– Homework Forum
– Revision Quiz
