Key Folklore (and related) Terms

What is folklore? For now, lets say folklore is made up of all of the unofficial, traditional, conventional ways we talk, sing, create, build daily life and special occasions within particular groups, cultures, and subcultures. Its the stuff that brings members of a group together and at the same time distinguishes one groups values, interests, beliefs, and history from anothers. As Brunvand says, the materials of folklore afford the unique opportunity of studying what exists and persists in culture largely without the support of established learning, religion, government, and other formal institutions (The Study of American Folklore, 23) Who are folk? Alan Dundes in What is Folklore? describes folk as any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor [such as] common occupation, language, or religion. . .what is important is that a group. . .have some traditions that it calls its own. In other words, we are all folkbut of course, we all belong to different folk groups. What is a genre? A genre, broadly speaking, is a category whose items share some fundamentally significant common qualities in terms of style, form, or content. Folklore genres include material culture (incl. folk art, vernacular architecture, textiles), music, narrative (incl. legends, urban legends, fairy tales, personal experience narratives), verbal art (incl. jokes, proverbs, word games), belief and religion (incl. ritual, mythology, superstition), and foodways (traditional cooking and customs, relationships betw. food and culture). What is culture? Culture is who we are (including all of our stuff). As Milton Bennett of the Intercultural Communication Institute says, culture is the learned and shared values, beliefs, and behaviors of a group of interacting people. In other words, we arent born into culture. We learn by watching, listening, and naturally communicating and working with people in the culture. Because culture in this usage is so naturalits in the air we breathe, almost most of us dont think of ourselves as belonging to a culturebut we all do. For example, think about how you consider time, space, and interpersonal

communication. Is it important to be on time? Where does public space end and private space begin? Should you make eye contact when speaking with someone? Most of us belong to more than one culturefor example, my home culture is a working class, very religious, politically conservative family that values straightforwardnesswhat you see is what you get. I can navigate this culture quite comfortably when I visit my parents. My work culture is solidly middle class, only somewhat religious, politically left of center, and places a high value on analysis, critique, and evaluation. While I am very much at home in this culture, I am sometimes self-conscious when the two worlds overlap. What does intercultural mean? Intercultural analysis involves looking at patterns in the ways different cultures think (their values, beliefs, etc.), the ways they act (physical behavior as well as speech), what they make (artificats like houses, tools, art, etc.), and what they leave behind in nature when they are gone (agriculture, trash, roads, etc.) (for more, see Jens Allwood, Intercultural Communication). What is a text? Looking at the products of a culture as texts suggests that anything can be read or understood beyond its surfaceso context is everything--who produced it, what for, what values are expressed in it, and so on. What is material culture? Material culture is a way of labeling the objects produced by a particular folk group that suggests those objects have cultural meaning. The study of material culture seek[s] to connect social and individual realms to the functions of objects in our lives past and present (Bronner, American Material Culture and Folklife, x). Material culture is an important way that folklore is shared and passed down within folk groups. What does vernacular mean? If you say someone is speaking in the vernacular, you mean they are talking like normal people do in everyday life where they come from. Folklorists use the term quite broadly to refer to the way people and things reveal where they are from concretely and abstractly. For example, what might the prevalence of animal lawn statuary say about a particular community, especially compared to different kind of lawn or yard dcor in another community? We

use the term vernacular to capture the idea that material culture is a textthat it says something. Folklorists study all kinds of vernacular culture, including local celebrations, roadside shrines, historical re-enactors, country line dancing, quilting circles, and community theatre, zombie games, and so on. What is ethnography? Ethnography is a method of researching culture that involves gathering information that will make it possible to reveal important aspects of a particular culture. Ethnography includes looking at material culture, first person accounts; secondary research is typically done to provide context for the primary research. What is a tradition? A tradition is a way of doing something or thinking about something that is shared within a folk group. According to Sims, traditions are behaviors we do right now that connect us to other people in a group (71).