58 Culture A native speaker trains instructors from the Oneida Nation of New York in the Berlitz method of language teaching. As of 2012, there were 527 speakers of the Oneida language. Many Native American tribes are taking similar steps to recover their seldom used languages, realizing that language is the essential foundation of any culture. every culture, including marriage, sports, cooking, medicine, and sexual restrictions. 3. People who assume their own culture is superior to other cultures engage in ethnocentricism. In contrast, cultural relativism is the practice of viewing other people’s behavior from the perspective of their own culture. Thinking Critically 1. Select three cultural universals from George Murdock’s list and analyze them from a functionalist perspective. Why are these practices found in every culture? What functions do they serve? 2. What are some problems with looking at social behavior from a sociobiological point of view? What are some benefits? How useful do you find this perspective? Key Terms Cultural relativism Cultural universal Culture Culture industry Ethnocentrism Society Sociobiology M O D U L E 10 Elements of Culture Role of Language Language is one of the major elements of culture. It is also an important component of cultural capital. Recall from Module 2 that Pierre Bourdieu used the term cultural capital to describe noneconomic assets, such as family background and past educational investments, which are reflected in a person’s knowledge of language and the arts. Members of a society generally share a common language, which facilitates day-to-day exchanges with others. When you ask a hardware store clerk for a flashlight, you don’t need to draw a picture of the instrument. You share the same cultural term for a small, portable, battery-operated light. However, if you were in England and needed this item, you would have to ask for an electric torch. Of course, even within the same society, a term can have a number of different meanings. In the United States, pot signifies both a container that is used for cooking and an intoxicating drug. In this section we will examine the cultural influence of language, which includes both the written and spoken word and nonverbal communication. Language: Written and Spoken Seven thousand languages are spoken in the world today—many more than the number of countries. For the speakers of each one, whether they number 2,000 or 200 million, language is fundamental to their shared culture. The English language, for example, makes extensive use of words dealing with war. We speak of “conquering” space, “fighting” the “battle” of the budget, “waging war” on drugs, making a “killing” on the stock market, and “bombing” an examination; something monumental or great is “the bomb.” An observer from an entirely different and warless culture could gauge the importance that war and the military have had in our lives simply by recognizing the prominence that militaristic terms have in our language. Similarly, the Sami people of northern Norway and Sweden have a rich diversity of terms for snow, ice, and reindeer (Haviland et al. 2008; Magga 2006). Language is, in fact, the foundation of every culture. Language is an abstract system of word meanings and symbols for all aspects of culture. It includes speech, written characters, numerals, symbols, and nonverbal gestures and expressions. Because language is the foundation of every culture, the ability
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