A Note About Semiotics & Listening to Responses

To start today's class, please respond to the article: "Life in the Age of Authentic Artifice" by Meta Wagner, professor at Emerson University. After responding in writing for about 5-10 minutes, please take a look at the following notes:

Cultural Determinism: culture is a learned, as opposed to a natural, behavior. What we learn determines who we are. We are conditioned to act and behave in a certain way determined by what we experience through our environment.

Cultural Relativism: All cultural groups think, feel, and act differently. No one group is superior or inferior to another.

Cultural Ethnocentrism: The belief that one's own culture is superior to that of other cultures.

Cultural symbols: words, gestures, pictures, or objects that carry a particular meaning recognized by those who share a particular culture.

Cultural Heroes/Role Models: People who serve as a model for behavior for a group.

Rituals: collective activities that solidify, define, or unify a culture.

Cultural values: Beliefs central to a culture's way of thinking. Values guide people to act a certain way. Many values remain unconscious. Values that cannot be discussed are considered Taboos.

Cultural practices: Behavior in a culture; helps determine who is part of or not part of a certain culture. Practices are made up of symbols, role models, rituals, and values.

Semiotics: the "science" of signs and their meaning. Signs are organized as codes and rules (practices) that a cultural group agrees upon. They carry an encoded meaning.

Today, after our notes about culture and semiotics, we will share our written responses to the previous post regarding "Wittgenstein, Semiotics, & Proposition 8."

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