Meaning of culture v456

Meaning of culture v456

Meaning of culture

Introduction

Introduction
What does culture mean? Does it mean the same thing to everyone? Are there different meanings of the word, and if so, what are they? In this next section, we look at some meanings and definitions of culture.

This second section contains 5 steps. Work them through step by step.

Step

Activity

 

 

Introduction

Find out what you already know.

Step 1

Speaking

Write a definition about 'cafe culture' and compare other cultures with a classmate.

Step 2

Reading

Give some examples about culture. Read an article and answer questions in your own words.

Step 3

Words

An exercise about words and their synonyms. An exercise about filling in the correct form of words.

Step 4

Task

Write a text for a poster for an 'English speaking cultural' evening.

 

Evaluation

Reflecting on what you have learned.

 

Difficult words? Search these on Cambridge Dictionaries

Step 1 - Speaking

Have you heard of ‘café culture’? What does it mean?
Write a definition.

Now compare your definition with this one from the Oxford dictionary.

Definition of cafe culture in English:
cafe culture

NOUN
A lifestyle characterized by regular socializing in pavement cafes, typically that associated with European countries such as France or Italy.


What other cultures are there? Make a list.
Compare with your partner – who has the most?

Step 2 - Reading

You’re going to read an article entitled, ‘The Meaning of Culture’.
Before you read, make a note of what you think ‘culture’ means and what it doesn’t mean.
It might help to think of some examples of culture.

Read the article quickly. Were your ideas mentioned?

The Meaning of Culture
By Joshua Rothman
The New Yorker December 26, 2014

1 There’s something innately funny about Merriam-Webster’s announcement, earlier this month that “culture” is their 2014 Word of the Year. “Culture” is the “Scary Movie” of words of the year, which, ordinarily, are supposed to reflect culture (“vape,” “selfie”) without actually being “culture.” Merriam-Webster’s editors are at pains to clarify that they weren’t trying to be meta (which, incidentally, would’ve made a great word of the year back in 2000). The word “culture,” they explain, was simply the word that saw the biggest spike in look-ups on their Web site. Confusion about culture was just part of the culture this year. People were desperate to know what “culture” meant.

2 It goes without saying that “culture” is a confusing word, this year or any year. Merriam-Webster offers six definitions for it (including the biological one, as in “bacterial culture”). The problem is that “culture” is more than the sum of its definitions. If anything, its value as a word depends on the tension between them. The critic Raymond Williams, in his souped-up dictionary, “Keywords,” writes that “culture” has three divergent meanings: there’s culture as a process of individual enrichment, as when we say that someone is “cultured” (in 1605, Francis Bacon wrote about “the culture of minds”); culture as a group’s “particular way of life,” as when we talk about French culture, company culture, or multiculturalism; and culture as an activity, pursued by means of the museums, concerts, books, and movies that might be encouraged by a Ministry of Culture (or covered on a blog like this one). These three senses of culture are actually quite different, and, Williams writes, they compete with one another. Each time we use the word “culture,” we incline toward one or another of its aspects: toward the “culture” that’s imbibed through osmosis or the “culture” that’s learned at museums, toward the “culture” that makes you a better a person or the “culture” that just inducts you into a group.

3 There’s a historical sense, too, in which “culture” is a polemical word. In the nineteenth century, Williams explains, “culture” was often opposed to “civilization.” Civilization, the thinking went, was a homogenizing system of efficient, rational rules, designed to encourage discipline and “progress.” Culture was the opposite: an unpredictable expression of human potential for its own sake. (It’s for t his reason that a term like “the culture industry” has an oxymoronic ring.) Today, we don’t often use the word “civilization”— we prefer to talk, more democratically, in terms of culture—but we’re still conflicted. We can’t help but notice how “civilized” life seems both to facilitate culture and to deaden it. Museums make it easy to see art, but they also weigh it down. Rock and roll sounds better in a club than in a concert hall.

4 These are solid, perennial reasons to look up “culture” in the dictionary. But why did more people than usual look it up this year? The editors at Merriam-Webster decline to speculate. They note, merely, that “the term conveys a kind of academic attention to systematic behavior.” Here’s my theory: more people looked up “culture” this year because it’s become an unsettling word. “Culture” used to be a good thing. Now it’s not. That isn’t to say that American culture has gotten worse. (It has gotten worse in some ways, and better in others.) It’s to say that the word “culture” has taken on a negative cast. The most positive aspect of “culture”—the idea of personal, humane enrichment—now seems especially remote. In its place, the idea of culture as unconscious groupthink is ascendant.

5 In the post-war decades, “culture” was associated with the quest for personal growth: even if you rejected “establishment” culture, you could turn to “the counterculture.” In the eighties, nineties, and later, it was a source of pride: the multiculturalist ethos had us identifying with our cultures. But today, “culture” has a furtive, shady, ridiculous aspect. Often, when we attach the word “culture” to something, it’s to suggest that it has a pervasive, pernicious influence (as in “celebrity culture”). At other times, “culture” is used in an aspirational way that’s obviously counterfactual: institutions that drone on about their “culture of transparency” or “culture of accountability” often have neither. On all sides, “culture” is used in a trivializing way: there’s no real culture in “coffee culture.”

6 This year, there was the rise of the powerful term “rape culture.” The spread of the idea of “rape culture” hasn’t just changed how we think about rape; it’s changed how we think about culture. Among other things, “rape culture” uses the word “culture” in a way that doesn’t involve, on any level, the idea of personal enrichment. Instead, the term’s weight is placed, fully and specifically, on Williams’s other two aspects of culture: on the subterranean, group-defining norms (misogyny, privilege) that encourage violence against women, and on the cultural institutions (movies, fraternities) that propagate those norms. The term works, in part, because of its dissonance. You can’t see the word “culture” next to the word “rape” without revising your ideas about what “culture” means.

7 “Culture” may be pulling itself apart from the inside, but it represents, in its way, a wish. The wish is that a group of people might discover, together, a good way of life; that their good way of life might express itself in their habits, institutions, and activities; and that those, in turn, might help individuals flourish in their own ways. The best culture would be one in which the three meanings of “culture” weren’t at odds with one another. That’s not the culture we have at the moment; our culture is fractured, and so our sense of the word “culture” is, too. But it’s possible to imagine a world in which our collective attitudes and institutions further everyone’s individual growth. Maybe, in such a world, the meaning of “culture” would be more obvious; we wouldn’t have to look it up.

Source: www.newyorker.com

Step 3 - Words

In the following exercise match the words from the text (step 2 reading) to their synonym.

Complete the sentences. Choose the correct form of the words.

Step 4 - Speaking

Read these questions. Think about how you will answer them.
Share your answers with your partner.
Do you have the same ideas, or different?

  1. Do you know anyone who you would describe as ‘cultured’ in the ‘personal enrichment‘ sense?
    Who is it and when did you realise that they were cultured?
  2. Do you view culture as something that has been homogenized in recent years?
    Give examples.
  3. Some people say that culture should be taught in schools.
    What’s your opinion?

Step 5 - Task

Writing a poster
Your English teacher is organising an ‘English speaking cultural’ evening.
He has asked you to produce some of the content for an online poster which will encourage people to come along.
It will be attended by younger students who may have little idea of other English speaking cultures.
The idea is to include aspects of lots of different English speaking cultures.

  • Decide on an English speaking culture(s).
  • Find out about some food, music, dress. Language.
  • Write your information in a way that people will want to come along!

Start with an introduction and write a short text about what you would do
(food, drinks, music, presentation....?)
Describe why people should come to your event. (150-200 words)

Example of an introduction:
Do you think that the only English speaking culture is the UK?
Are Big Ben and the Houses of Parliaments the only buildings? And everyone eats fish and chips, right?
Well wrong! Come along to our English speaking cultural evening on Friday and see more.

 

Evaluation

Fill in this schedule and answer the questions below.

(Copy to Word or write down in your notebook)

Activity

 

Needs
Improvement

Satisfactory,
good

Excellent

 

Step 1 - Speaking

I can write a definition about 'cafe culture' and compare other cultures with a classmate.

 

 

 

Step 2 - Reading

I can give some examples about culture. I can read and understand the article and answer questions in my own words.

 

 

 

Step 3 - Words

I can fill in the correct form of words.

      

Step 4 - Task

I can do the writing task.

 

 

  

 

What have you learnt in this period?
Answer the following questions:

  • What was the easiest part of this lesson?
  • What was the most difficult part?
  • What did you already know?
  • What was new to you in this lesson?
  • What do you have to ask your teacher?

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    Auteur
    VO-content
    Laatst gewijzigd
    2025-05-11 22:52:07
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    Toelichting
    Deze les valt onder de arrangeerbare leerlijn van de Stercollectie voor Engels voor vwo, leerjaar 4, 5 en 6. Dit is thema 'Culture'. Het onderwerp van deze les is: Meaning of culture. In deze les wordt er aandacht besteedt aan de betekenissen en definities van cultuur. Daarbij worden er voorbeelden van culturen gegeven.
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    arrangeerbaar, betekenissen, cultuur, definities, engels, meaning of culture, stercollectie, v456

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