Kelvin L. Moore, Jr.

August 26, 2014

Symbols, Language, and Culture

1) Language frees humans from the limits of space and time by allowing them (us?) to
revisit the past, yet reflect on the present. There is no set in stone date or time period.
Language is passed around incessantly, whether it is passed through the mouths of people
or through the words that people have written. For example, it defies the limits of space
and time by allowing one to read a 1960 article on the Civil Rights Movement. The
person may or may not have been born during that time period, but he or she can read
credible existing articles that people who lived during that time period also read.
Language is passed around orally, as said before. That means that the story ones great
grandmother told his or her grandmother may have been passed all the way down to him
or her. He or she is rehashing a story that was told many years ago, and can now elaborate
on the story to better complement the present.
2) How we identify or think of a word or term is based on the number and easiness or
difficulty to define the term. All languages, though they share similarities, also share a
vast array of differences. Thus, how I may think of a term may not be the same way a
person from say Guadalajara thinks of a term. This is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.
3) Vocabulary tells us not only the surroundings of a group of people/culture, it also shows
what the certain culture places emphasis on and what it deems impertinent. One example
used was that American English only has a few words that describe snow while the
Eskimo language has over twenty. In America, for most of the year, snow is not of any
importance, while for Eskimos, people who are indigenous to the Arctic, encounter snow
year long and they value it much more. In short, vocabulary epitomizes a cultures view
of things.
4) Cultural Relativism is learning to view, in this case, customs and beliefs differently from
your own in an attempt to understand the culture of others. Sadly, most peoples hubris is
that they cannot fathom anything different being socially or morally correct.
5) Basically, the anecdote was rhetorically placed to reinforce the ideal of Cultural
Relativity. The Peace Corps volunteer decided herself that the village could use a new
well because the water was a cesspool of bacteria, not of clean drinking water. She found
that no one wanted to help so she met the demands of the people of the village. In the
end, she was left without much money to build the well and was quite disappointed.
Upon her return to the village, she was met with the well that she had hoped to build for
the village. The people of the village said that they built the well because of the demands
that she met. The well was important to her. They did not necessarily need or want it.
This is an example of Cultural Relativity because the people of the village and the Peace
Corps volunteer clearly had two contrasting views on what was of importance. The
volunteer may be used to clean drinking water, but the village people are not. However,
they were not complaining. From the volunteers point of view, a well would the best
thing to have happened to the village. From the villagers point of view, a well was

second to what they highly regarded soccer. In the end, the volunteer understood where
the villagers were coming from.
6) Norms are rules for defining what acceptable and unacceptable behavior is. Norms
essentially establish a culture.
7) In order to strengthen the bonds between clans, a young Basarwa girl in Africa might
become engaged to a man she does not know. A Hindii peasant in India can be found
lying dead of starvation beside perfectly healthy cattle. Roman emperors exiled relatives
to isolated islands for disgracing the family. A norm in America is that if you are of
some Christian denomination, you go to church on Sunday.
8) While mores are norms that should be followed by members of the society, a taboo is a
norm so strongly held that any violation yields punishment. So, when talking about
mores, the topic of taboos fits perfectly seeing as though taboos are norms as well.
9) Before describing the types of sanctions, it is best to define what a sanction actually is. It
is a reward or punishment used to encourage people to follow norms. A formal sanction is
a sanction applied only by figures of authority, such as a teacher or judge. An informal
sanction, as one could guess, is a sanction that can be applied my mostly everyone of a
group. I think that formal sanctions are more valuable for a society because once we
reach an age of maturity, an informal sanction, whether it is good or bad, is seen as
something inconsequential.
10) Values are broad ideas about what is good or desirable shared by people in a society.
Values are subjective because they differ from one person to another. Or in the grand
scheme of things, from one culture to another. For example, Muslims value pork, so they
dont eat it. Americans do not hold that same value. In America, some people value
religious heavily and believe that homosexuality is a sin. Others, the more fortunate,
value equality and the belief that you are born the way you are.