Symbols, Values & Norms: Crash Course Sociology #10

What exactly is culture? This week we’re going to try to answer that, and explain the difference between material and non-material culture. We’ll look at three things that make up culture: symbols, values and beliefs, and norms. We’ll explore Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (and some of its problems) and how language influences culture. Finally, we’ll talk about the three types of norms – folkways, mores, and taboos – which govern our daily life.

***

Thanks to the following Patrons for their generous monthly contributions that help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever:

Mark, Les Aker, Bob Kunz, Mark Austin, William McGraw, Jeffrey Thompson, Ruth Perez, Jason A Saslow, Eric Prestemon, Malcolm Callis, Steve Marshall, Advait Shinde, Rachel Bright, Ian Dundore, Tim Curwick, Ken Penttinen, Dominic Dos Santos, Caleb Weeks, Frantic Gonzalez, Kathrin Janßen, Nathan Taylor, Yana Leonor, Andrei Krishkevich, Brian Thomas Gossett, Chris Peters, Kathy & Tim Philip, Mayumi Maeda, Eric Kitchen, SR Foxley, Tom Trval, Andrea Bareis, Moritz Schmidt, Jessica Wode, Daniel Baulig, Jirat
--

Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?

[jhonatanhernandez]

"so don't do that, ever." great advise, I was just going to eat a person, but you changed my mind.

[amoscare]

Very nice video as always. However, as a linguistic anthropologist, I feel I should give some clarification on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that I feel the video lacked (most likely due to time constraints and not due to the producers neglecting or mischaracterising Sapir's work). I apologize in advance for the long comment. First, Sapir was not only a linguist but he was also an anthropologist. Although later generations of anthropologist have criticized some of his conclusions on Hopi languages Sapir's works are still very influential in the field of linguistic anthropology. Second, the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is not something that Sapir, nor his teacher Whorf, ever came up with. It was rather a synthesis of their work by later scholars. I've seen in the comments that some people have mentioned the "strong' vs. 'weak' version of this hypothesis and that either Sapir or Whorf advocated one or the other. This is not completely true as neither Sapir nor Whorf ever advocated for the "hypothesis" in the first place. However, it is true that in their writings you can see arguments that can be said as having a "strong" believe that language greatly influences thought, or a "weak" believe in the same. It is true that most linguistic anthropologists (myself included) and some linguist do favor a "weak Sapir-Whorf." For most linguistic anthropologists language, thought, and culture influence one another but which one has the strongest influence is still debated. Most linguistic anthropologists argue that language will predispose someone to think a certain way rather than determine someone's thought. For example, John Lucy (1992, 1996, 1997); Lucy and Gaskins (2003)) looked at whether languages that classify most nouns as mass nouns (e.g. sugar is a mass noun in English. You need a unit of measurement to count sugar. You can't say three sugars but, you can say three teaspoons of sugar) are more likely to classify objects by material composition. The research showed that language such as Yucatec, in which all nouns are of this latter type, and plural marking is never obligatory, though speakers may opt to signal the plural if they wish to do so, much as with similar kinds of uncountable mass nouns in English. (Ahearn, Laura M. (2016-10-06). Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology (Primers in Anthropology) (Kindle Locations 2672-2673). Wiley. Kindle Edition) speakers are more likely to group objects based on material composition (e.g. in a group of plastic and wooden combs and brushes they will group all plastic combs and brushes together and all wooden combs and brushes together). This is different for English speakers where most nouns are count nouns and you can have a plural marker (e.g. car/s). English speakers will tend to group objects by shape (so in the combs and brushes example we would group combs together and brushes together since they are the same shape regardless of material composition). When it comes to the idea of language predisposing you to certain ways of thinking rather than determining how you think the example above is a good demonstration of that. If you are asked to categorized objects by material and you are an English speaker you are able to do so. However, if you are just asked to group objects then you are more predisposed to do so by shaped and Lucy would argue that there is a strong correlation with that thought pattern and wheter your language has mostly mass nouns or count nouns. Again sorry for the long post :)

[ychickennugetsidk]

I am a Namibian student doing CSI(Contemporary Social Issues) which is an online course, we dont get lectures or explanations and never have time to read the notes(which are nothing but long articles written by old guys).So this video and along with many other videos Have been super helpful.Thank you CrashCourse MAHN I LOVE THIS

[prashantls]

I'm learning more in one episode than an entire semester in my college.

[DataCabe]

But if you're facing the back of the elevator, you won't have to see those weird looks. Sanction neutralized.

[PetersonSilva]

The interesting thing about watching this particular host is that she always undersmiles what she says. It's so pleasant to pay attention to :)

[grimtheghastly]

As a person who studies and creates languages as a hobby, this video was extremely helpful for me especially considering that I'm relatively new to the topic at hand. Thank you.

[knife_wizard]

I click every single one of these videos expecting it to sound like tumblr, and then it always turns out to be interesting, thoughtful, and rational. This is an awesome series.

[ann-kdcz]

hey, just a heads up: at 3:25 in the captions, it says "the masculine is male" instead of "the moon is masculine" and i just thought i'd point that out so it can get fixed! thanks!

[sulaimankhuja]

I wish if you posted this 4 hours ago. I just gave my final. however, you guys are my heroes. I don't know what would I do without you guys

[zeromailss]

I love this kind of honest learning and discussion

school usually put norm before knowledge, the teacher will get awkward and the student will be too scared to be honest, also some parent will be way over protective if there's something a little offensive on the subject being taught

I want knowledge yet that is the last thing they give you at school

[croissant]

This is very intuitive and well presented. Thank you.

[aztecwarrior]

I am a behavioral sciences major which means I focused on I had to focus on one, and loved sociology as it answered more for me than the other two. But I love how this video pieced all three together. I am currently interesed in different masters programs.

Special programs such as: Anthropology, applied and evaluation research, collective behavior and social movements, conflict resolution, Cultural, emotions, social thought, social linguistics, mass comm, qualitative metholodlogy, social control, social inequality, theory, stratification mobility

[kimone]

Yay! 10 episodes! Also, I did my Sociology Paper 2 and this series helped a lot. :)

[jsuzuki]

🙏 I FINALLY KNOW HOW TO PRONOUNCE MORES 🙏
Bless you, you’re all breath taking

[PunmasterSTP]

Symbols, values & norms? More like "Superb lecture, that entertains and informs!" 👍

[GMRTranscriptionServicesInc]

Brilliant synopsis of some common yet confused Sociological terms, lucidly explained that would make sense even to a layman. A wonderful crash course series!

[TheAtheist]

I'm really interested in macrosociology, while I don't like microsociology. But this episode got me interested in micro now, too, so good job!

[osamahafeez]

my final is in 3 hours and i almost got everything from this video.

[jedrzejprzykaza]

Thank you very much!

Yes, we created everything what is considered "normal" and "not normal".