Sociology of Culture - The Elements of Culture

The Elements of Culture

1. Symbols: Anything that carries particular meaning recognized by people who share the same culture.

2. Language: A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another.

3. Values: Culturally defined standards of desirability, goodness, beauty and many other things that serves as broad guidelines for social living.

4. Beliefs: Specific statements that people hold to be true.

5. Norms: Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behaviour of its members. The two types of norms are mores and folkways. Mores are norms that are widely observed and have a great moral significance. Folkways are norms for routine, casual interaction.

Read more about this topic:  Sociology Of Culture

Famous quotes containing the words elements and/or culture:

    Barbarisation may be defined as a cultural process whereby an attained condition of high value is gradually overrun and superseded by elements of lower quality.
    Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)

    If you’re anxious for to shine in the high esthetic line as a man
    of culture rare,
    You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant
    them everywhere.
    You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your
    complicated state of mind,
    The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a
    transcendental kind.
    Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)