Soci111 – Human Societies
Module 2 – Human Societies as Sociocultural Systems
François Nielsen
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill
January 24, 2017
1 / 63
Outline
Main Themes
The Sociocultural System
Population
Genetic Constants – Human Nature
Genetic Variables
Demographic variables
Culture I – Symbol Systems
Language
The Discovery and Reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Body Language
Writing Systems
Culture II – Information
Ideology & Technology
Material Products of Culture
Social Organization
Social Institutions
World System
2 / 63
Main Themes
É
É
human societies are systems (entities made up of interrelated
parts)
a social system has 5 principal components:
É
É
É
É
É
É
population
culture
material products of culture
social organization
social institutions
population & culture components discussed in greater detail
3 / 63
Sociocultural System
System – an entity made up of interrelated parts
Thus notion of system includes notions of
É
component parts
É
their interrelationships
Q – Give examples of systems
The 5 basic components of a sociocultural system are:
1. Population
2. Culture
3. Material products of culture
4. Social organization
5. Institutions
4 / 63
Population
Population is society viewed as a collection of physical
individuals (“bodies”).
The three components of population are:
1. Genetic constants (human nature)
2. Genetic variables (“race” & sex differences)
3. Demographic variables
5 / 63
Population
Genetic Constants
Genetic constants comprise the common genetic heritage of
mankind (“human nature”).
The role of genes in human behavior is difficult to assess
because:
É
É
One cannot observe humans outside of culture. (But what
about Mowgli? Do [real] feral children give us a useful picture
of “pure” human nature unadulterated by culture?)
Complexity of the genetic system, because:
É
É
É
one trait may depends on many genes (eg: height, IQ)
one gene may affect several traits (pleiotropy; eg: a gene for
myopia is also associated with higher IQ)
many traits affected by environment as well as by genes (eg:
height, IQ, skin color)
6 / 63
Population
Genetic Constants
But: some behaviors are determined by a single gene:
É
tongue-rolling ability
É
which thumb is uppermost in hand-crossing
Examples of species-specific human traits:
É
dependence on society for survival (especially children)
É
immense capacity for learning
É
capacity to create & use symbols
tendency to put own needs and needs of close family ahead of
those of others, or “mammalian ambivalence” (Edward O.
Wilson), implying that:
É
É
É
human societies are not as “tight” as insect societies
utopias based on assumption of perfect altruism are likely to
fail
7 / 63
Population
Genetic Variables
A traditional (abandoned) notion of race:
É
Human races as distinct types of humans with fixed
characteristics; as illustrated by “The Four Races of Men”, p.
187 in G. Bruno. 1877. Le tour de la France par deux enfants
[The Tour of France by Two Children], a reader that was widely
used in French elementary schools. According to Wikipedia
the book had sold 7 million copies by 1914.
8 / 63
9 / 63
Population
Genetic Variables
From Le tour de la France par deux enfants (p. 187) (my
translation):
The four races of men. — The white race, the most perfect of
human races, inhabits mostly Europe, Western Asia, North Africa
and America. It is recognized by the oval-shaped head, the rather
small mouth, rather thin lips. Otherwise the complexion may
vary. — The yellow race inhabits mainly East Asia, China and
Japan: flat face, prominent cheekbones, flat nose, slanted eyelids,
almond-shaped eyes, not much hair and not much beard. — The
red race, that in the past inhabited the whole of America, has
reddish skin, deep set eyes, long aquiline nose, very receding
forehead. — The black race, that inhabits mainly Africa and
Southern Oceania, has very black skin, frizzy hair, flattened nose,
thick lips, very long arms.
10 / 63
Population
Genetic Variables
Modern notions of race:
É
Human races defined as subgroups of the human species with
substantial differences in the frequencies of some genes;
boundaries of racial groups are fuzzy
É
Race as biogeographical ancestry defined as the proportion of
ancestry (of an individual or a population) from aboriginal
(native) populations of Europe/South Asia, Africa, East Asia,
and the Americas.
11 / 63
Population
Genetic Variables
Biogeographical ancestry is estimated from ancestry-informative
markers (AIMs):
“An ancestry-informative marker (AIM) is a gene,
generally of humans, which has several polymorphisms that
exhibit substantially different frequencies between groups of
descendants derived from mutually inbred ancestral groups
(often referred to as races by some sources). For example,
the Duffy Null allele (FY*0) has a frequency of almost 100%
of Sub-Saharan Africans, but occurs very infrequently in
other races. A person having this gene is thus very likely to
have some Sub-Saharan African ancestors. By using a
number of AIMs one can estimate the ancestral (racial)
proportion of an individual, as well as confidence intervals
of the estimates.” Wikipedia
12 / 63
Population
Genetic Variables
Triangle plot showing ancestry of self-identified racial/ethnic
groups in the US estimated from ancestry-informative markers
(AIMs) (from Wikipedia “Race and multilocus allele clusters”).
Average admixture of five
North American ethnic
groups. Individuals that
self-identify with each
group can be found at
many locations on the
map, but on average
groups tend to cluster
differently.
13 / 63
Population
Genetic variables
Are there “racial” differences?
É
skin color (an adaptation to intensity of UV radiation?)
É
frequency of gene for sickle cell anemia (Why is sickle-cell
anemia more common in the African-American population?)
ability of adults to digest milk (adult production of lactase
allowing absorption of lactose):
É
É
É
É
É
É
É
differs across human populations, but not simply by
(aggregate) race
differs among Caucasian and among African subgroups
ability to absorb lactose is genetically-determined trait
frequency of gene(s) higher in populations with a tradition of
dairying
high frequencies evolved by natural selection within the past
10,000 years at most (why?)
an example of gene-culture coevolution
14 / 63
Genetic Variables
Percent lactose absorbers
in 60 populations
(Durham 1991)
(Linked HTML version)
15 / 63
Sex differences in mental test scores?
16 / 63
Population
Sex Differences
Conclusions from Jensen (1980, Table 13.1 p.622):
É
Mean sex differences in mental tests scores vary by type of test
(favor males, females, or neither)
É
Females tend to have lower variance in scores compared to
males.
17 / 63
Population
Sex Differences
In The g Factor (1998) psychologist Arthur Jensen concludes review
of male female differences in scores on 5 major batteries of IQ tests
as [g is more or less equivalent to “general intelligence”]:
É
“The sex difference in psychometric g is either totally
nonexistent or is of uncertain direction and of inconsequential
magnitude.” (p.540)
É
“The generally observed sex difference in variability of test
scores is attributable to factors other than g.” (p.541)
É
“The theoretical importance of finding a negligible sex
difference in g is that it suggests that the true sex differences
reside in the modular aspects of brain functioning rather than
in whatever general conditions of the brain’s
information-processing capacity cause positive correlations
among all of the modular functions [. . . ] which account for
the existence of g.” (pp.541–542)
18 / 63
Population – Sex Differences
Sexual attitudes
questionnaire from
Eysenck (1973, Table 1
pp.29–30)
19 / 63
Masculinity scores by sex
(Eysenck 1973, Figure 1 p. 31)
20 / 63
Population
Demographic Variables
Examples of demographic variables are:
É
birth & death rates
É
age & sex distribution
How do demographic variables affect societies?
21 / 63
Population
Demographic Variables
Does proportion youth vs. elderly affect salience of social
problems?
22 / 63
Population
Demographic history affecting sexual norms?
23 / 63
Population
Demographic Variables
Theory of predominant sexual norms emphasizes relative
abundance/scarcity of women a few years younger than a given
cohort of men.
É
When the cohort of younger women is large relative to older
men, men can impose their preference for a more promiscuous
style of sexual relations (as for the “baby boom” cohort during
the “sexual liberation” of the 1960s and 1970s)
É
When the cohort of younger women is relatively small, men
compete more intensively for scarce women and engage in
more conservative behaviors (as for the “baby bust” cohort)
Thus:
É
baby boom of 1946-1964 underlies “sexual revolution” of the
1960s and 1970s
É
baby bust that followed underlies return to conservative
attitudes in the 1980s and 1990s.
24 / 63
Symbol Systems
Language
Culture a society’s symbol systems and the information they
convey
A principal symbol system is (spoken) language:
É
Innate, biologically-determined human capacity to learn to
speak any language (language acquisition device, or LAD.
(Thesis of Naum Chomsky; see Pinker The Language Instinct.)
É
Which language we speak is purely culturally determined
É
In contrast with signals (e.g. yawning, waggle dance of
bees,...), symbols of language are genetically independent and
(for the most part) arbitrary. (Ferdinand de Saussure’s
principle of “l’arbitraire du signe” = arbitrariness of the sign.)
25 / 63
Symbol Systems
Language
Q – What is an onomatopoeia? Do onomatopoeias contradict de
Saussure’s principle?
É
É
Onomatopoeias only small part of lexicon
Even natural sounds are interpreted within sound system of
the language. Eg the call of the rooster around the world:
É
É
É
in the U.S.: “cockadoodledoo”
in France: “cocorico”
in Japan: “kokkekkokko”
26 / 63
Symbol Systems
Language
Evolution of language:
É in part random, e.g.:
É
É
É
É
evolution of “bureau”
origin of “gerrymander” from (Elbridge) Gerry + (sala)mander
(Gerry was governor of Massachusetts in charge of the 1812
redistricting)
political scandals ending in “gate” from Watergate in
Washington DC, location of scandal involving President Nixon
in part systematic:
É
É
in the course of language evolution the same sound tends to
change in the same way in all the words that contain it (with
exceptions that are themselves systematic)
an example is the episode in the evolution of English called the
Great Vowel Shift that took place between 1350 and 1700 (next
slide)
27 / 63
28 / 63
Symbol Systems
Language
Because sound changes in language evolution are systematic, we
can:
É recognize cognates, words descended from the same ancestral
root, in different languages that are then presumed
descendant from a common ancestor language (and thus
belong to a common language family)
É
É
É
E.g., “maharajah” (from Sanskrit): “maha-” is related to Latin
“magnus” (whence magnify, magnificent, 44 magnum, ...),
Greek “mega” (whence megabyte, megaton, ...)
“rajah” is related to Latin “rex, reg-” (whence regal, regicide,
royal, ...), German “Reich”
in some cases, we can even reconstruct (“reverse-engineer”)
the ancestral language in great detail, e.g. the
proto-Indo-European (PIE) language spoken about 4,000 BCE
that is ancestral to many languages of Europe and Asia
including English.
29 / 63
Symbol Systems
Language – Discovering Language Families
Source: Ruhlen, Merritt. 1994. The Origin of Language: Tracing the
Evolution of the Mother Tongue. New York: Wiley.
30 / 63
Symbol Systems
Language – Solution of Language Classification Problem
31 / 63
Symbol Systems
Language Evolution – The Indo-European Hypothesis
É
A major episode of intellectual history was the formulation of
the Indo-European Hypothesis in linguistics by Sir William
Jones in the late 1700s.
É
É
É
É
At the time many people had noticed the similarities in words
and grammar among languages spoken in Europe such as
Latin, German, and Greek (next two slides)
However the general view of the world and history at the time
was static, based on the Biblical tradition
Scholars were trying (unsuccessfully) to derive European
languages from Hebrew
The idea that languages may be similar because they descend
from a common ancestral language that no longer exists was an
intellectual breakthrough
32 / 63
Symbol Systems
The Indo-European Hypothesis – Word Resemblances
33 / 63
Symbol Systems
The Indo-European Hypothesis – Conjugations of “to bear” Compared
34 / 63
Symbol Systems
The Indo-European Hypothesis – Sir William Jones (1746–1794)
É
born Westminster, father
mathematician
É
child prodigy learns Greek,
Latin, Persian, Arabic,
Chinese
É
1764 graduates U. College,
Oxford
É
tutors Earl Spencer
(ancestor of Princess Diana)
É
reputed orientalist by age 22
É
1783 appointed Chief Justice
of India
35 / 63
Symbol Systems
Enigma of Indo-European Origins
É
In India Sir William Jones proceeds to learn Sanskrit, the
sacred language of India
É
He observes similarities between Sanskrit and Greek, Latin,
“Gothick” (Germanic), and Celtic languages in both individual
words & syntax
É
He postulates that similarities exist among these languages
spoken over vast areas of Europe & Asia because they are all
derived from a common (and extinct) ancestral language,
later called proto-Indo-European (or PIE)
É
This is called the Indo-European hypothesis. It was formulated
in a famous text of 1786 (next slide)
36 / 63
Symbol Systems
Sir William Jones’s Indo-European Hypothesis (1786)
“The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful
structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the
Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both
of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms
of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident;
so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three,
without believing them to have sprung from some common source,
which, perhaps, no longer exists.”
É
This hypothetical common source was later termed
proto-Indo-European (PIE)
37 / 63
Reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Languages of Europe & Western Asia Around 1492
38 / 63
Reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
The Indo-European Family of Languages
39 / 63
Reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Hypothetical Spread from PIE Homeland in Ponto-Caspian Steppe
40 / 63
Reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Spread of PIE owis
41 / 63
Reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Spread of PIE perd
42 / 63
Symbol Systems
Language
Reconstruction of PIE began with realization that cognates (related
words) in different languages exhibited systematic sound
correspondences, eg:
É Latin d corresponds to English t:
É
É
Latin & Greek p corresponds to English f:
É
É
É
Lat. duo ‘two’ , Eng. two; Lat. decem ‘ten’, Eng. ten
Lat. pes, ped-, Gr. pous, pod- ‘foot’, Eng. foot
Lat. pater ‘father’, Gr. pater ‘father’, Eng. father
etc. (there are thousands such correspondences)
Grimm’s Law (after Jacob Grimm, 1785-1863):
É
PIE (stop) consonants changed in a systematic ways in the
derived languages
É
hence systematic correspondences between PIE consonants
and consonants in the derived languages
43 / 63
Reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Reconstruction of PIE
É
Linguists realized that correspondences among IE languages
are regular, suggesting systematic sound changes from
ancestral to daughter languages
É
Correspondences allowing reconstruction of the ancestral
language, termed proto-Indo-European
É
Over the next 200 years historical linguists (mostly Danish,
German, and French) used the comparative method to
analyze correspondences among IE languages and reconstruct
original sounds of PIE
É
By 1870 main outline of reconstruction was in place. The
reconstruction of PIE was the triumph of 19th century
linguistics
44 / 63
Reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Reconstruction of PIE – Comparative Method (Handout from Craig Melchert)
Introduction to Language
Handout 6
The Comparative Method: “Grimm’s Law” and “Verner’s Law”
Sample Data:
Sanskrit
Greek
Latin
Gothic
Correspondences
pitāÂ
tráyas
s‰atám
patēÂr
treîs
(he)katón
kannábis
déka
zugón
phrāÂtēr
-thēsteíkhō
pater
trēs
centum
fadar
þreis
hund
p=p=p=f; t=t=t=d
t=t=t= s‰=k=k=h; t=t=t=d
k= h; b= p
d=d=d=t; s‰=k=k=h
g=g=g=k
h
b =ph=f=b; t=t=t= dh=th=d=d
gh=kh= g
dás‰a
yugám
bhrāÂtā
dhāstighnóti
decem
iugum
frater
-dere
‘father’
‘three’
‘hundred’
‘hemp’
taihun ‘ten’
juk
‘yoke’
brôþar ‘brother’
‘put, do’
steigan ‘go (up)’
Proto-Indo-European Stops:
*p
*b
*bh
*t
*d
*dh
*k
*g
*gh
“Grimm’s Law”:
PIE voiceless stops > Germanic voiceless fricatives: (p, t, k > f, , h).
PIE voiced stops > Germanic voiceless stops: (b, d, g, > p, t, k).
PIE “voiced aspirated” stops > Germanic voiced stops: (bh, dh, gh > b, d, g).
Exception: PIE voiceless stops remain voiceless stops after another consonant (e.g. sp, st, sk > sp,
st, sk).
“Verner’s Law”:
After an unaccented vowel, Germanic voiceless fricatives became voiced stops, then Germanic
fixed accent on the first syllable: *fa ár > *fadár > fádar. This includes *s already inherited
from PIE: *woséyo- ‘to put on’ > Gmc. *wasíya > *wazíya- > OldEnglish werian ‘to wear’.
45 / 63
Symbol Systems
Language
Using correspondences, historical linguists have been able to
reconstruct PIE (as it was spoken somewhere between 6,500 and
4,500 years ago) in great detail.
In 1868 German linguist August Schleicher wrote a fable in PIE
called The Sheep and the Horses (next slide). A modern version of
the fable can be found in this Archaeology article:1
http://www.archaeology.org/exclusives/articles/1302-proto-indoeuropean-schleichers-fable
1
This modern version of Schleicher’s fable is due to Craig Melchert, formerly
professor of linguistics at UNC, now at UCLA.
46 / 63
Reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Schleicher’s Reconstructed PIE Fable
47 / 63
Symbol Systems
Language as Model of Culture
Spoken language is useful as a model for other social phenomena
because:
É
It is a prime example of a system, e.g. simultaneous sound
changes in the Great Vowel Shift.
É
A spoken language is purely social as it is the product of a
community of speakers. Individuals have no control over it (if
they want to be understood).
É
The evolution of language as “descent with modification” may
provide us with a model for the evolution of other aspects of
culture, such as music and dance styles, art, and legal customs.
É
A reconstructed language gives us a window into the past of a
culture. We know that PIE speakers had animal-drawn carts,
horses, and practiced both farming and herding, because
cognates for these items exist in daughter languages spoken in
distant areas (e.g., Sanskrit and Germanic)
48 / 63
Symbol Systems
Body Language
Origins of body language are part genetic, part cultural; eg: the
smile of babies
49 / 63
Symbol Systems
Writing Systems
Evolution of written language was characterized by increased
arbitrariness and abstraction, as seen in the pattern of evolution of
writing systems from pictographs to alphabet.
50 / 63
Minoan scripts (Davies
1996 p. 1217)
Note evolution of the
syllable mu in Panel a.
51 / 63
Locations of early writing
systems (Diamond 1999
p. 219).
Writing (in general)
was invented
independently in ancient
Sumer (before 3,000 BC)
and in Southern Mexico
(before 600 BC) and
possibly also in Egypt
and China. (See Guns,
Germs & Steel Chapter 12
pp.215–238.)
52 / 63
Symbol Systems
Writing Systems
Alphabetic writing may have been invented independently only
once. The ancestral West Semitic alphabet was developed in an
area inhabited by speakers of Semitic languages ranging from
modern Syria to the Sinai around 1,700 BC. All other extant
alphabets are derived from it. Development of the alphabet
(American Heritage Dictionary 4e at entry “alphabet”)
53 / 63
Symbol Systems
Writing Systems
54 / 63
Symbol Systems
Writing Systems
Writing systems diffused according to one, or a combination, of
two processes
É blueprint copying – copy and/or modify an available detailed
“blueprint”, e.g.
É
É
Saint Cyril designed the Cyrillic alphabet in the 9th Century to
represent Slavic languages, by modifying the Greek alphabet
idea diffusion – borrow the basic idea of the innovation but
reinvent the details, e.g.
É
É
probable derivation of Indian scripts from the Aramaic
alphabet of the 7th Century BC, by adoption of the alphabetic
principle but independent design of letters, etc.
development of the Cherokee syllabary by Sequoyah in the
early 1800s, using some of the shapes of the Latin alphabet
55 / 63
Information
Cultural information – knowledge acquired through experience &
conveyed through symbols
All societies maintain cultural information about:
É
biophysical environment (eg: how to recognize poison ivy)
É
society itself (eg: myths of origin)
É
what is good, just, beautiful,... (eg: standards of male &
female attractiveness)
Q – How similar / different are notions of goodness, justice, beauty
and physical attractiveness across societies or periods of history?
56 / 63
Information
Ideology & Technology
The 2 components of culture are ideology & technology
ideology – information used to interpret experience & help
order societal life. Ideology includes
É beliefs about the world
É general moral values
É norms on how to act in various circumstances
technology – information about how to use the material
resources of the environment to satisfy human needs
and desires.
57 / 63
Information
Ideology & Technology
Note that:
É
ideology is composed of beliefs, not behaviors nor institutions
É
term ideology is used in neutral, not pejorative sense
É
definition of technology is broad: it includes cooking, military
organization, what herbs are good for headaches,..., not just
computers!
Q – Which of the following are ideologies; which are not?
É
É
É
É
É
É
É
the Communist Party
Christianity
the Catholic Church
Communism
Capitalism
the belief that the earth is round
the belief that the earth is flat
58 / 63
Information
Ideology & Technology
A main thesis of the course is that the level of technology of a
society determines many of its characteristics.
Technology
——->
(determines)
Social organization
Political structure
Population density
Ideologies (including religious beliefs)
Military might
etc.
Knowing the technology level of a society one can deduce many
other characteristics of that society, even ones apparently unrelated
to material conditions (eg beliefs).
59 / 63
Material Products of Culture
Material products things that human societies produce or obtain
through trade
See Human Societies 11e p.38
60 / 63
Social Organization
Social organization network of relationships among members of a
society
Components of social organizations are
É individuals
É social positions, roles, & statuses
É groups
É classes
É social stratification
See Human Societies 11e pp.38–42
61 / 63
Social Institutions
Social institutions durable answers to important & persistent
problems
See Human Societies 11e pp.42–43
62 / 63
World System
World System set of all human societies & their interrelationships
63 / 63