Culture Exercise, Part 1

1. Break into groups of 8 people or less
2. Pick a culture that one or more of you belongs to. For example: church group, students at UNCW, southern high school students, northern high school students, fraternities/sororities, the US as a whole, etc.
3. Write everyone’s names on a piece of paper—which of you have the emic perspective on the culture, and which have the etic perspective? How does it effect your views of this culture? Write this down.
4. List five characteristics or unifying beliefs of your culture
5. Are there any disagreements about the characteristics or unifying beliefs or behaviors in your culture? List no more than five of these disagreements, if any.
6. Are there any linguistic peculiarities of your culture? Slang unique to a culture is a good example of this. What do these peculiarities mean, in terms of the culture?