Symbolic Culture

Components

Symbols

• Sociologists: refer to nonmaterial culture as symbolic culture; component of nonmaterial culture is the symbols that people use.

• Symbols– Gestures, languages,

values, norms, sanctions, folkways, and mores.

Gestures• Involve the ways in which people use their bodies to

communicate with one another. • May include everything from hand movements to

facial expressions.• Different from culture to culture.

– Raising middle finger different meaning through out the world.

– Facilitates communication but can lead to embarrassment and misunderstanding if used inappropriately.

Figure 2.1 Gestures to Indicate Height, Southern Mexico

Language

• Primary way people communicate: system of symbols that can be strung together in an infinite number of ways.

• As with gestures, meaning varies from one culture to another.

• Language is the basis of culture!

Sanctions

• Sanctions: expressions of approval or disapproval given to people for upholding or violating norms. – Positive or negative– Positive: approving looks

and gestures to material rewards

– Negative: disapproval looks and gestures to fines, imprisonment, and extreme cases execution.

• Intensity or severity depends on how crucial or not so crucial the group views the norm

Cultural Universals

• Cultural Universal: a value, norm, or other cultural trait that is found in every group

• Sociologists have determined that although such activities (marriage, funerals, music, etc.) are present in all cultures, the specific customs differ from one group to another.

• No universal form of the family etc.

Cultural Variations• What cultural variations

(differences) exist in our American culture?

• Subcultures: a goup with its own unique values, norms and behaviors.

– Teenagers, ethnic groups, motorcycle enthusiasts

• Countercultures: A subculture who rejects values, norms, and practices of the larger society and replaces it with a new set of cultural patterns.

– Satanists, motorcycle gangs and the mafia.