SOC 1101 Lecture 9: Midterm 2 Review
11 Jul 2016
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Document Summary
It is shared between people from generation to generation and builds a guide for the future: we don"t express emotions the same way as people in other cultures, very important for human survival and everyone has it. Symbols: anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by other people: words, numbers, pictures, colours, gestures, facial expressions, etc. As human beings we sense the world and transform elements in the world into symbols - decode symbols and gure out their meaning. Our lives and cultures are saturated with symbols: a whistle, a siren, a cruci x, a clenched st, a st raised in the air. Micro level: manipulating symbols correctly allows us to communicate with other people (we share the same symbols) Macro level: symbols make living in cultures far more predictable and stable. People are so dependent on their cultures symbols that they take them for granted, we are reminded of this when we become outsiders.
