Hunan Cross Cultural Education

I was asked to teach a course at the local university (Hunan Institute of Science & Technology) at the last minute this semester.  Seems one of the university’s teachers was ‘dismissed.’

Therefore, I’ve been busy, very busy, scrambling to put a class in order that was left in a shambles by the previous professor who didn’t seem to care much for showing up to class or covering the required material!

The class is called “Culture and Society of English Speaking Countries”.  It’s a mouthful to say, and the range of material that needs to be covered is huge.  I’m teaching the class in English, as all of my students are English Majors.  So far it’s been fun, despite all the work!

The class is actually taught over two semesters (I’ve already been asked to teach the second part in the spring) with this semester covering primarily the UK and Australia and next semester covering Canada and the USA.  I’m sure next semester will be much easier and will probably feel less like ‘work’ in the preparation of my lectures.

I’ll keep you updated!

Glossary of Cross-Cultural Communication Terminology | Part Four

• Rites of intensification — religious practices that increase group solidarity and commitment
• Rites of passage — religious practices that mark an individual’s passage from one life stage into another
• Role — the behavior, attitudes, and values associated with a particular status
• Role conflict — conflict between the demands of a single role or between roles
• Role set — an array of roles that accrue to a particular status
• Rules of descent — a set of ordered relations limiting recruitment into various kinship groups
• Secondary groups — utilitarian, formal, and impersonal groups
• Selector — a tool used to discriminate among several inputs
• Skill — the acquired ability to apply a given technique effectively and readil
• Social class — those people on a social scale who see themselves as equal and are seen as equal by others on the scale
• Social organization — the regularization of interpersonal relations
• Society — a social organization made up of a group of people who share a geogrpahical area and a culture
• Sororal polygyny — a marriage arangement by which a man marries a woman and er sisters
• Sororate marriage — an arrangement by which if a woman dies childless, her sister marries the widower
• State — a governmentall unit based territoriality, cultural organization, and formal government
• Status — a position or place in a social system with its attendant rights and duties
• Stratification — a hierarchy of statuses
• Subculture — a cluster of behavior patterns related to the general culture and yet distinguishable from it
• Survey — a research technique involving collecting data by systematic questioning of individuals
• Switch — a valve with a finite number of positions
• Technique — a set of categores and plans used to acheive a given end
• Technological systems — those parts of culture that enable man to produce objective changes in his physical and biological environment
• Technology — the sum total of all the social customs by which a people manipulate entities and substances of all kinds
• Terms of address — terms used to address persons
• Terms of reference — terms used to talk about persons
• Tools — devices for transmitting, transforming, or storing energy
• Totem — a nonhuman “progenitor” of a clan
• Trap — a tool that is a selector combined with a container
• Tribe — a group of people who share a language, culture, and territory and see themselves as an autonomous unit
• Unilateral descent — descent traced through only one parent
• Urban anthropology — the crosscultural study of urbanization
• Valve — a device that passes different kinds or quantities of input at different times
• Vehicle — a tool used to transmit stored objects, energy, or information through space
• Vertical status — the hierarchical ordering of statuses

Glossary of Cross-Cultural Communication Terminology | Part Three

• Language — verbal, systematic, and symbolic communication
• Laws — rules and regulations that are enforced by the state
• Levirate marriage — an arrangement by which if a man dies childless, his brother marries the widow
• Mana — supernatural nonpersonalized forces in animistic religions
• Marriage — a pattern of norms and customs that define and control the relationship between a man and a woman, designating them as legitimate sex partners
• Matrilineal descent — descent traced through the mother’s line
• Matrilocal residence — a living arrangement in which a couple live with the wife’s family
• Mechanism — arrangements of media designed to transmit or modify the application of power, force, or motion
• Media — tools used to transmit matter or energy through space while preserving their essential qualities
• Medical anthropology — the application of cultural criteria to the practice of medicine and response to medical, clinical, and educational practices
• Moiety — the division of a tribe into two groups, based on birth
• Monogamy — a marriage arrangement in which each individual has only one mate
• Mores — social norms of a moral nature
• Mutually exclusive — groups in which membership in one group precludes membership in the other group
• Neolocal residence — an arrangement by which a couple lives apart from both partners’ families and sets up a new household
• Noninclusive groups — groups in which joint membership is neither precluded nor requisite
• Nonverbal communication — the process by which a message is sent and received through any one or more of the sense channels, without the use of spoken language
• Norms — regular and accepted patterns of behavior
• Nuclear family — a husband and wife and their immature children
• Overlapping groups — groups in which membership in one group does not preclude membership in the other group or groups
• Parallel cousin — the child of one’s parent’s same-sex sibling
• Participant observation — systematic observation while participating in a society
• Patrilineal descent — descent traced through the father’s line
• Patrilocal residence — a living arrangement in which a couple live with the husband’s family
• Peasant economies — subsocieties of a larger stratified society that is either preindustrial or semiindustrial
• Phratry — a group of two or more clans held together either by kinship or mutual interest
• Polyandry — a marriage arrangement in which a female has more than one husband
• Polygamy — a marriage arrangement in which a person has multiple mates
• Polygyny — a marriage arrangement in which a male has more than one wife
• Primary group — a small, intimate, and informal group
• Primogeniture — a system of inheritance in which the family’s wealth and position is passed on to the first-born son
• Proximic communication — transmission of messages that utilizes space
• Quasi-experimental design — a methodology similar to that of using an experimental design but in which the researcher cannot control all the factors
• Rationalization — a psychological defense process by which an individual recasts a difficult situation into one that is acceptable
• Religion — the shared beliefs and belief practices of a people. These may or may not be supernatural in character

Glossary of Cross-Cultural Communication Terminology | Part Two

• Endogamy — a sociological rule requiring a person to select a mate from within a culturally defined group of which both are members
• Eskimo kinship system — a bilateral, linear kinship system
• Ethnocentrism — the practice of interpreting and evaluating behavior and objects by reference to the standards of one’s own culture rather than those of the culture to which they belong
• Ethnography — the descriptive study of human societies
• Ethnohistory — the cultural history of a people
• Ethnology — comparative ethnography
• Ethnoscience — a linguistic approach to the study of nonverbal culture
• Ethnotheology — a discipline concerned with the deculturalization and contextualization of theology
• Exogamy — a sociological rule requiring that potential mates come from different culturally defined groups
• Experimental design — a methodology used to control various factors in an experimental study
• Extended family — a living arrangement in which two or more related nuclear families share a household
• Family of orientation — the family one is born into
• Family of procreation — the family one forms by marriage
• Fictive ties — socio-legal kinship relationships
• Folkways — low-level norms such as customs and manners
• Foraging — food acquisition by gathering naturally growing foodstuffs
• Formal government — an independent system or social institution set up for the purpose of governing
• Fraternal polyandry — a marriage arrangement in which a woman marries a man and his brothers
• Functional equivalent — something in one culture that performs the same function as something else in another culture
• Government — a society’s mechanisms and structures for the maintenance of order and communal decision making
• Group — a unit of two or more people involved in communication and interrelationship and having “unit awareness”
• Hawaiian kinship system — a bilateral, generational kinship system
• Horizontal status — a status on the same level or having the same rank as another
• Horticulture — intensive types of agriculture involving killing certain plant growth and planing other plant growth with higher food value
• Hunting — the catching and killing of wildlife for food
• Hypothesis — a statement to be tested by a scientific methodology
• Idiolect — an individual usage of a language
• Incest taboo — the prohibition against mating with or marrying kinsman
• Inclusive groups — groups in which membership in one group means inclusion in another group
• Independent variable — a factor that is varied in an experimental study
• Informal government — a governmental system based on an already-existing system such as the kinship system
• Iroquois kinship system — a unilateral, linear kinship system
• Kinesic communication — the transmission of messages by body movements
• Kinship — a network of family relationships
• Kin term — a specific term in a specific language used to refer to a kin type
• Kin type — an abstract concept of a relationship that can be described in every culture

Glossary of Cross-Cultural Communication Terminology | Part One

• Acculturation — the process by which individuals acquire the knowledge and skills that enable them to more or less function in a second culture
• Achieved statue — a status obtained through choice and achievement
• Adjudication — the process involving delegating decisions to others
• Affinal ties — kinship relationships by marriage
• Animism — the religion of primitive people based on a belief in a spirit world
• Anthropology — the study of man as a biological, psychological, and sociological culture bearing being
• Archaeology — the study of the artifacts of prehistoric societies
• Artifact — any portion of the material environment deliberately used or modified for use by man
• Ascribed status — a status that society assigns to an individual, usually based on characteristics of birth such as race and sex
• Assimilation — the total adaptation to a new culture
• Avunculocal residence — a living arrangement by which a married couple live with the brother of the wife’s mother
• Behavioral sciences — those sciences that study human behavior, including anthropology, psychology, and sociology
• Bilateral descent — descent traced through both parents
• Clan — a consanguinely related group, patrilineal or matrilineal, believing in a common descent
• Clinical design — the application of anthropology to a social problem
• Cognitive anthropology — the study of the organizing principles underlying behavior
• Community — a corporate body sharing sociopolitical identity and a geographic area
• Compartmentalization — a psychological process by which a person boxes off conflicting things from each other
• Consanguine ties — kinship relationships based on biological relationships
• Container — a tool used to sore matter or energy for a length of time while preserving it from loss or contamination
• Converter — a tool that changes one kind or form of matter or energy into another
• Cross cousin — the child of one’s parent’s sibling of the opposite sex
• Cultural anthropology — the branch of anthropology concerned with the study of existing human cultures
• Cultural determinism — the approach to human behavior that sees culture as the determining factor of behavior
• Cultural relativism — the approach to an interpretation and evaluation of behavior and objects by reference to the normative and value standards of the culture to which the behavior or objects belong.
• Culture — the learned and shared attitudes, values, and ways of behaving of a people; also the artifacts of the people
• Culture complex — a cluster of related culture traits seen as a single unit
• Culture shock — the reaction experienced by an individual who comes to live in a new and different culture
• Culture trait — the smallest unit of culture; individual acts characteristically done by members of a culture
• Dependent variable — the observed factor in an experimental study
• Deviance — behavior that violates normative rules
• Dialect — a variation of a language
• Economics — the production, distribution, purchase, and consumption of goods and services
• Educational anthropology — the comparative study of socialization and enculturation processes
• Enculturation — the process by which individuals acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values that enable them to become more or less functioning members of their society.