2.4 Discuss how social anthropologists attempt to define ‘culture’ and ‘society’
What is culture and what is society? Even though these two definitions are closely related to each other, culture and society is not the same thing. While cultures are complexes of learned behavior patterns and perceptions, societies are groups of people who directly or indirectly interact with each other. People in societies also generally perceive that their society is distinct from others in terms of shared traditions and expectations. In the same time these two definitions are inevitable connected because culture is created and transmitted to others in a society. Cultures are not the products of lone individuals. They are the continuously evolving products of people interacting with each other. Cultural patterns such as language and politics make no sense except in terms of the interaction of people. If you were the only human on earth, there would be no need for language or government. To summarize, a culture is a configuration of learned behaviors and results of behavior whose component elements are shared and transmitted by the members of a particular society.
2.5 Critically analyse the application of the terms ‘culture’ and ‘society’ to every day life.
If I should analyse the terms ‘culture’ and ‘society’ to every day life, first of all I should state the fact I am foreigner living in different country and because of that inevitable I have a different perception about the things around me in comparison with the locals. Customs and social patterns which seems perfectly normal for the others at times can feel actually pretty strange and not at place for me. British society differs widely from the society I was living in back home; it consists of different rules and patterns of public behavior. That’s why it’s only natural for me to experience numerous cultural differences daily. For example in British
Bibliography: Damen, L. (1987). Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension on the Language Classroom. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Linton, R. (1945). The Cultural Background of Personality. New York. http://anthro.palomar.edu/culture/culture_1.htm http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/social.htm http://www.carla.umn.edu/culture/definitions.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_polygamy