Re: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-culture

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Title: Re: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-culture

Well, Here I am, replying to my own posts again, but be that as it may, I have gone through the resources that James recommended, at least to a cursory extent. I usually leave the research to everyone to do on their own, but, because culture is such an important concept for HumanML, I'm going to get down into the trenches a bit here.

This is from http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/courses/122/module1/culture.html

Although there is no standard definition of culture, most alternatives incorporate the Boasian postulates as in the case of Bates and Plog's offering, which we shall

accept as a working version:

       Culture: The system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and
       with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning (p7).

This is a complex definition and points to four important characteristics stressed by cultural relativists:

     1.symbolic composition, http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/courses/122/module1/culture.html
     2.systematic patterning, http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/courses/122/module1/patterning.html
     3.learned transmission, http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/courses/122/module1/learned.html

     4.societal grounding, http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/courses/122/module1/social.html

I'm including it along with the following because together they are fairly thorough, and I think we may want to consider the combined totality, with the links connected to the numbered items above, as a good standard for the more widely used meaning for culture.

The following is from http://www.siu.edu/~ekachai/culture.html

CULTURE: SOME DEFINITIONS

According to Samovar and Porter (1994), culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies,
religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of
generations through individual and group striving.

Gudykunst and Kim (1992) see culture as the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.

Other definitions:

       Culture is communication, communication is culture. (Edward T. Hall)
       Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more
       briefly, behavior through social learning.
       A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and
       that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.
       Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group's skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the
       symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions.
       Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of
       human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values;
       culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning influences upon further action.
       Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted
       from generation to generation.

I think that this combination covers the main characteristics of the term culture as widely used today.

I am hoping to hear more from those on our lists about whether they think, as I do, that we need an atomistic huml:-prefixed description of the element culture that narrowly defines it such that our secondary schemata for various cultural entities/modules can be easily compiled according to an enumeration of characteristics without the necessity for creating a new specific definition for each culture, yet still maintaining the useability of the wider, unprefixed term, culture in other contexts.

And, of course, I am waiting to hear more from Len and Sylvia about how this fits into the semiotic framework.

Ciao,

Rex

At 1:03 PM -0700 8/11/02, Rex Brooks wrote:

> This is the address of the Schema which
> you can download:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanmarkup/files/Technical/XML.Schema/XML.Schema/
>
> This is also a link to this url on the
> OASIS Humanmarkup TC website under the documents section.
>
> We are striving to ensure that our
> vocabularies harmonize with the most widely accepted schools of
> thought for various topic areas.. The Yahoo site remains from our
> pre-OASIS period, called Phase 0 in the OASIS TC website. We have a
> fairly extensive webliography there
> (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanmarkup) in the General Info
> directory in the files section from that period, which included 6
> months of discussion and research before we applied to and was
> accepted by OASIS.
>
> Thanks for the AAT url, I have looked at
> it and it appears very useful.
>
> I think the time has come for me to
> devote some time to reorganizing our material. Actually, I have had it
> scheduled for August since April, so it is more a matter of getting
> down to it. I have just a wee bit more work to do on my generic
> VRML/X3D Basic Human Models to make them ready to include in our
> discussions as we proceed onward to finalizing our Base Schema and
> seeing what develops from the semiotic experiment Len and Sylvia are
> working on. If you missed my announcement a couple of weeks ago, I
> have worked out a kind of skeleton for the facial musculature to go
> along with the ISO standard for Humanoid Animation as part of the
> VRML97 standard for inclusion in the next version which has already
> advanced to a single mesh from a collection of body part segments.
> This will allow us to agree upon kinesic bodily gestures and facial
> expressions to accompany our work. You can see an animated gif and
> download an .avi of the same sequence showing how the facial animation
> works: http://www.starbourne.com/X3D.html
>
> Then I will have no excuse not to proceed
> with the reorganization which I have targetted to have done by late
> August early September.
>
> Ciao,
> Rex
>
> At 1:05 PM -0500 8/11/02, James.Landrum
> wrote:
> > Thanks for the clarifications Rex.
> > I must admit I have been out of touch with a number of Humanmarkup
> > activities and the comments of late, and am admittedly a newbie in
> > this initiative, and seem to have somehow lost sense of the thread on
> > the issues, and would appreciate some direction.
> > ..  Particularly, I am having difficulty locating the strawman
> > toolkit referred to in previous posts. I will take some time today
> > reviewing that if pointed at it.
> > Also, with regard for structured
> > vocabularies and source origins for terminology, the Getty Art and
> > Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) may be a useful resource for
> > consideration of choice of definitions of terms applied in
> > Humanmarkup, at least insofar as the TC deems appropriate or
> > applicable within constraint of context.
> > see http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/
> > for example, enter keyword "culture" and then try
> > "artifact",
> > Note also, for further example, that the AAT does not have base
> > definition of "community"
> > Note also that a number of markup
> > language initiatives, particularly those in the cultural heritage
> > sector, cite AAT as an authoritative structured vocabulary (among
> > others).
> > Rex Brooks wrote:
> > > Thanks, James, I will review the
> > > material in the URLs and I am sure it will be helpful. I must admit
> > > that I was so immersed in the semiotics of the article and the
> > > resources it led to in turn, that I did not make it clear that the
> > > restriction was meant to be the most atomistic definition. I agree
> > > with you that it was a definition not description--description is the
> > > terminology of xml schema. This illustrates what may be the necessity
> > > for distinguishing between a strict huml-prefixed-namespace definition
> > > of certain terms and the more broad, and widely used definitions. I'm
> > > not saying that we need this, only that we may. By
> > > "interpreter" I was meaning semiote as defined by Sylvia
> > > Candelaria deRam previously, and I'm afraid that even in my own mind I
> > > was overlapping the semiotic experiment with the more focused
> > > discussion of the element: culture from the straw man schema. Also,
> > > and I admit that I was wrong headed in this, I was laying out the
> > > foundation for specifying particular cultures along the lines we had
> > > noodled out a little more than a year ago which would involve a
> > > hierarchy of attributes like geographical location, historical
> > > context, etc. Since our aim is to reduce miscommunication, here
> > > is a good example. I look forward to reviewing the material. I expect
> > > we will be at work on this term for a little while. This is one of the
> > > most important elements, so we need to get this one pinned down as
> > > accurately as we can. Thanks, again,Rex At 11:51 AM -0500
> > > 8/11/02, James.Landrum wrote:
> > > > A condensed definition of culture, which
> > > > may perhaps be more easily be transposed into the boolean:
> > > > "Culture is shared
> > > > knowledge."
> > > > In the above definition of culture,
> > > > "experience" is implied, as are "behavior" and
> > > > "actor."
> > > > (Note: "Interpreter", as in
> > > > Rex's definition (what he calls a description) "culture is the
> > > > community of interpreters that shares the same sum of
> > > > experience,"  is too restrictive. No 2 people interpret in
> > > > exactly the same way, as their individual sum of experiences are not
> > > > identical, despite being part of a community; one can experience
> > > > cultural manifestations without strictly interpreting them, or can
> > > > misinterpret the manifestation. Salience is an issue here- e.g.,
> > > > meaningful interpretation of culture, or cultural behavior, implies
> > > > insider knowledge. In the above definition, "shared knowledge"
> > > > implies the ability to communicate meaningfully, that is to say, if
> > > > one cannot transmit information meaningfully, crucial, or core,
> > > > cultural  knowledge is not shared.  The crux of the latter
> > > > point is that if there is miscommunication, cultural knowledge is not
> > > > understood appropriately, if at all, and although there may be
> > > > misinterpretation or miscommunication in the process of information
> > > > exchange, sharing does occur- and that is culture in process).
> > > > review the following URLs for discussions
> > > > on baseline definitions of culture:
> > > > Baseline Definition of Culture (WSU)
> > > > http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vcwsu/commons/topics/culture/culture-definition.html
> > > > A Definition of Culture (U.
> > > > Manitoba)
> > > > http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/courses/122/module1/culture.html
> > > > Definition of Culture (Slippery Rock
> > > > University)
> > > > http://www.sru.edu/depts/artsci/ges/discover/d-4-1.htm
> > > > "Culture: The learned patterns of thought and behavior
> > > > characteristic of a population or society."
> > > > Marshall Soules' "Toward a
> > > > Definition of Culture" (Malaspina CC)
> > > > http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/media112/culture.htm
> > > > Culture: Some Definitions (Southern
> > > > Illinois University)
> > > > http://www.siu.edu/~ekachai/culture.html
> > > >

-- 

Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com