275 VIDEO NOTES

[Boaz Video 1]  [Boaz Video 2] [Going International] [Going Int. Part 2]
[Sexism in Language] [American Tongues] [American Tongues Part 2]
[Black on White Part A] [Black on White Part B]
[In Search of the First Language: Part 1 ] [In Search of the First Language: Part 2]
[Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth: A]

Boas Video First Half Questions:

1.    Where was Boas from?  Why did he come to America?  How did this influence his life’s work?

Boas was a Jewish immigrant from Germany.  He came to America to marry and raise a family in an environment away from the racial and religious persecution he experienced in Europe.  This background caused him to develop an approach to anthropology that sought to illuminate the equality of all races and cultures.

2.    What was the new way of looking at RACE that Boas introduced?

Boas was the first distinguished, white social scientists in the United States who minimized the importance of RACE as a determinant of human behavior.

3.    Why was Boas’s use of science different than that of “most scholars?”

Boas brought a critical perspective to anthropology.  Most of his contemporaries used science to justify and explain inequality.  Boas challenged the assumptions of cultural superiority and progress that lay at the foundation of social evolutionism.

4.    What is the Kwakiutle potlatch and what value is it to us today that Boas and Hunt recorded its practices?

The potlatch is the economic system of the Kwakiutle.  It is the public contracting and paying of debts.  It is largely based on credit.  The going standard is the blanket.  For larger transactions, pieces of copper are used instead.  Boas and George Hunt were the only people to record the laws and the rules of potlatching before anti potlactching laws were enacted. The Kwakiutle had no written language so without their written accounts that exist today the potlatch tradition would have been lost.

5.    What did Boas need in order to join the Kwakiutle people to correct the mistakes he made in a book he
        wrote attempting to document the Kwakiutle culture?

The problem was that Boas had no Kwakiutle name.  Thus he had no place in Kwakiutle society.  Hunt instructed Boas to give a feast so he could attend and so Kwakiutle could be invited.  At the feast, Boas was given a name (Hidzakwalais).  This name gave his access to the Kwakiutle people.

6.    What did Boas want the future of the museum to be?

The main object of the ethnological collection should be the dissemination of the fact that civilization is not something that is absolute but relative and that our ideas and conceptions are true only as far as our civilization is concerned.  The main purpose of the museum is to preserve the valuable materials that have been collected to demonstrate this message.
Boas Video Second Half Questions

1.    What did Boas think museum anthropology sacrificed?
Museum anthropology sacrificed deeper understanding of other cultures to popular appeal.  He made his diorama figures as realistic as possible.  He wanted people to see how the Kwakiutle used to live.
2.    What did Boas think museums should show?  Why did he take anthropology from the museum to
        the university?
Boas thought there was a need to show how far each civilization is a part of their historical and geographical surroundings.  He thought that cultural objects could never show the complex mental processes that make up culture.  In order to get away from the untrained, amateurish element of museum anthropology, he took the social science to the university.
3.    What did Boas think about hereditary superiority, the popular theory of his time?
Boas thought that social, historical, and geographical factors were far more important in the development of human intellect and human achievement than hereditary factors alone.
4.    What techniques did Dell Hymes use when transcribing the Wasco language with Harm Smith?
Interviews, recording of texts, lexical taxonomies, and ethnoscientific classifications.
5.    According to Claude Levi-Strauss, Boaz was the first to realize what about the traditional framework that             was being used to study Indo European languages.
Boas was the first to believe that the structures used to study Indo European languages could not be used to understand the languages of Native American peoples.  Instead, he thought that a separate structure needed to be developed for each language appropriate to its characteristics.
6. Why did Boas want to study RACE in a new way?
1)    Boas believed that science could help solve important social and political problems.
2)    Boas was a Jew who suffered anti-Semitic persecution.  He believed that anthropology and linguistics
       was a way of discrediting racial and religious prejudice.
Going International: Part 1.
“Bridging the Cultural Gap”
Focus Questions:

1.    What are some major differences between the American worldview and the worldview held by the people of
        many other cultures in the rest of the world?
Americans (and Westerners) often think of themselves as independent of nature, while the people in many other countries around the world think of themselves as part of nature.
2.    What does Rohlen say about how we perceive reality?  Is reality absolute?  What are some major
       differences in the way world cultures perceive appropriate expressions of affection, greeting, and dress?
Rohlen says that all of our opinions and outlook regarding the world is shaped by our culture.  Much of what we do is learned behavior.  Only when we step outside our own culture do we see for the first time how much our own culture influences us
3.    What does Rohlen say about stereotypes?
Human thought in general relies on generalizations.  One kind of generalization is a stereotype.  The world stereotype comes from printing.  It’s a mold designed to print the same thing over and over.  A stereotype is too narrow because it constrains our abilities to work with other people.
4.    What do the Saudi and Indian businessmen say are the tendencies of Americans when they try to conduct
       business  in foreign countries?
Americans often think of those in the host country as foreigners.  They forget they are foreigners themselves.  They are pushy and want things done right away.  They are boastful.  They don’t take the time to mix the feelings of the heart with the feelings of the head.  They are too pushy. They want the job to be done instantly, like in America.

5.    What do the British, Spanish and Japanese American businessmen say are the tendencies of Americans
        when they try to conduct business in foreign countries?
Americans are boastful about America and overstate their accomplishments.  Americans are too impatient and don’t mix the feelings of the heart with the feelings of the head.  Americans have a tendency to think that what ever they can do in America they can do in the rest of the world.
6.    What are some cross-cultural differences between the way people regard time?
In Hong Kong, appointments are spread out over time, it is not uncommon for people to be twenty minutes late for an important in the crowded environment of Hong Kong.  In Venezuela, there is not feeling that a meeting should take place at the specified time.  In Saudi Arabia meetings unfold over time.  People’s concepts of time affect how they regard the past, and patience and perseverance.
7.    What are some cross-cultural differences between the way people use space?
Japanese like to keep a fair amount of distance between individuals.  Americans like about 17 inches.  Arab are like Americans.   Perceptions of space affect the way offices are laid out.
8.    How is the Saudi discourse style different from American discourse style?
Saudis like to loop.  Americans are linear.
9.    How is language affected by cultural meaning?
In Japanese, maybe means no.  In the Philippines, “yes” doesn’t mean yes.
10.    What do Americans assume about the relationship between meaning and words? 
Americans assume that meaning can be fit into words, when in fact in the rest of the world 60-70% of meaning is conveyed through other means.
11.    How does Rohlen advise viewers to learn about the host culture and practices in the workplace?
Observe how those who are leaders in the culture you are in speak and
act.  Ask them for direction.
Going International: Part 2. “Bridging the Cultural Gap”
Focus Questions:

1.    Just because a country seems modern on the surface, are the underlying cultural thoughts, beliefs, and  
       patterns in that society the same way?  Why?
Each culture has a social and status system that people understand that reflect a historical development.  This “history” is grafted on top of modern changes.  Thus, a culture may look “modern,” but underneath the surface are the patterns and thinking that are a result of its history.
2.    What is the best way to go about “getting what you need” in a foreign context?  What kind of strategy
        is necessary?
The best way is to develop an extrication strategy, a plan that keeps the cultural traits of the target group in mind when asking questions and conducting business.
3.    What do the cross-cultural specialists in the film suggest about the realities that exist in a
       cross-cultural situation?
There are two realities that exist.  The your reality, and the reality of the people in the target culture in which you are working.  You must conduct yourself with both realities in mind.
4.    What is the healthiest and most productive assumption for an American business person to begin with
        when learning to work with people in another culture?
The healthiest way is to begin with the assumption that those in the target culture with whom you are working are different than you are.  Pick up on body language and other non-verbal as well as verbal cues to understand how your partners feel.
5.    What do the cross cultural specialists in the film suggest about anybody in a foreign country that an
       American might work with who speaks English?
They have already met the American half way.  Americans must do more to try to understand those in the target culture.