CHAPTER 3

Preparatory Activity
1. Indigenous
- Indigenous Peoples are distinct social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to
the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been
displaced. The land and natural resources on which they depend are inextricably linked to their
identities, cultures, livelihoods, as well as their physical and spiritual well-being. They often
subscribe to their customary leaders and organizations for representation that are distinct or
separate from those of the mainstream society or culture. Many Indigenous Peoples still
maintain a language distinct from the official language or languages of the country or region in
which they reside; however, many have also lost their languages or on the precipice of extinction
due to eviction from their lands and/or relocation to other territories, and in. They speak more
than 4,000 of the world's languages, though some estimates indicate that more than half of the
world's languages are at risk of becoming extinct by 2100.

2. Language
- Language is the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of
acoustic as well as kinesics signals to express thoughts and feelings, and language is used for
the exchange of knowledge and experiences. The problem on this planet is the language
systems vary greatly from region to region. The variety may be so different that one individual
does not understand the language of a member from another region or country.

3. Social Process
- Social processes are the ways in which individuals and groups interact, adjust, and readjust
and establish relationships and pattern of behavior which are again modified through social
interactions. The concept of social process refers to some of the general and recurrent forms
that social interaction may take. The interaction or mutual activity is the essence of social life.
Interaction between individuals and groups occurs in the form of social process. Social
processes refer to forms of social interaction that occur again and again.
4. Social Relations

- Social relationships refer to the connections that exist between people who have recurring
interactions that are perceived by the participants to have personal meaning. This definition
includes relationships between family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and other
associates but excludes social contacts and interactions that are fleeting, incidental, or
perceived to have limited significance. Social relations as the response of the rational individual
to the outside environment. Individuals are assumed to be able to determine, and then act, on
their personal self-interest.

5. Gender Role
- Gender roles can be conceptualized as behavioral expectations based on biological sex.
Traditionally, for men to be masculine, they are expected to display attributes such as strength,
power, and competitiveness, and less openly display emotion and affection. Gender role stress
arises when individuals feel that they are deviating from their prescribed gender role. Both
gender roles and gender-role stress have been associated with body image attitudes in men.
Generally speaking, men who espouse a more traditional ideology about men’s roles report a
higher desire for muscularity and may feel that achieving the mesomorphic ideal is a
mechanism through which they can meet the gender-role expectations of power and control.
Furthermore, gender-role discrepancy has been associated with body dissatisfaction and higher
drive for muscularity.

Outcome-Based Assessments
1. Relate your knowledge on the different significant issues concerning indigenous people in
Southeast Asia. Write your answer on the space provided below.
- For centuries, Indigenous Peoples have hunted, gathered, and farmed their food using
practices that are suitable to their landscapes. However, more recently, their traditional
farming systems in Southeast Asia of rotational agriculture has in some instances been
banned. Climate change, the deepening penetration of commercial agriculture and cash
cropping, growing threats from hydropower development and extractive industries, and
modern consumption practices have also posed threats to food sovereignty. While new plant
varieties and new forms of agriculture are being introduced, Indigenous Peoples fear that
their ability to share seeds with each other will be curtailed by trade-related intellectual
property rights due to laws that disallow sharing once a country signs on to these
agreements. In some areas, conservation measures and protected areas exclude
Indigenous peoples, leading to loss of food sources and a change in their ability to produce
and consume food according to their culture.
2. Explain the connecting ideas and relatedness of the following combined concepts. Write your
answer on the space provided.
a. Language and Culture
- The relations between language and culture. It is indeed more in accordance with reality to
consider language as a part of culture. Culture is here being used, as it is throughout this article,
in the anthropological sense, to refer to all aspects of human life insofar as they are determined
or conditioned by membership in a society. The fact that people eat, or drink is not in itself
cultural; it is a biological necessity for the preservation of life. That they eat particular foods and
refrain from eating other substances, though they may be perfectly edible and nourishing, and
that they eat and drink at particular times of day and in certain places are matters of culture.
b. Origin and Diffusion
- Diffusion, also known as cultural diffusion, is a social process through which elements of
culture spread from one society or social group to another, which means it is, in essence, a
process of social change. It is also the process through which innovations are introduced into an
organization or social group, sometimes called the diffusion of innovations. Things that are
spread through diffusion include ideas, values, concepts, knowledge, practices, behaviors,
materials, and symbols.
Southeast Asia has shared a common history characterized by numerous foreign occupations
and takeovers that have influenced the cultures and countries that thrive within its boundaries
today. The countries that currently comprise the region are now Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia,
Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Borneo, the Philippines, and Singapore. All of these have
intermingled in one form or another throughout the past century in a way that has created many
borrowed cultural aspects. What is now Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore used to
comprise the once great Malay empires of Srivijaya and Malacca. The Vietnamese, Burmese,
and Khmer people used to comprise the three main kingdoms that governed those in mainland
Southeast Asia, or what is commonly referred to as Indochina.
c. Kinship and Gender
- Refers to the culturally defined relationships between individuals who are commonly thought of
as having family ties. All societies use kinship as a basis for forming social groups and for
classifying people. While gender identity is how you feel inside and how you express those
feelings. Clothing, appearance, and behaviors can all be ways to express your gender identity.
Most people feel that they're either male or female. Some people feel like a masculine female,
or a feminine male.
3. Trace the lineage of the common language tree of the given cultural group by completing the
diagram and filling-in the boxes of the parent languages.

a.
Tai

Southwest Branch

Lao

b. Austroasiatic

Eastern MK

Pearic

c. Austronesian

Western Malayo-Polynesian

Cebuano and Tagalog

Sino-Tibetan
d.

Tibeto-Burman

Kamarupan North India

4. How language and culture affect the social processes such as cultural diffusion in the different
Southeast Asian indigenous communalities? Write your answer on the space provided below.
- It could be argued that India had the strongest cultural influence in Southeastern
Asia. Hinduism and Buddhism spread into portions of Southeast Asia, with teachers and
practitioners alike migrating into Southeast Asia and engaging in commerce. Hindu literature
also found a home in Southeast Asia.

5. Contrast different aspects of family and kinship system from the point of view of gender by
filling-in the table below.

Kinship System Emotional Ties Transfer of Property Position of Women

or Wealth

patrilineal family's line of male Inheritance to the Neutral Position

descendants male

lineage and increase a

matrilineal group’s female inheritance are woman outside
members traced through a option
group’s female

both the father’s property can be

bilateral and mother’s side claimed from Equal Position
of the family either or both
1. “You cannot understand one's culture without accessing its language directly.” Expound this
statement by constructing an essay. Cite several readings and articles as support and bases of
your essay.
- The human communication process is complex, as many of our messages are transmitted
through paralanguage. These auxiliary communication techniques are culture-specific, so
communication with people from other societies or ethnic groups is fraught with the danger of
misunderstanding, if the larger framework of culture is ignored. Growing up in a particular
society, we informally learn how to use gestures, glances, slight changes in tone or voice, and
other auxiliary communication devices to alter or to emphasize what we say and do. We learn
these culturally specific techniques over many years, largely by observing and imitating.
Language communicates through culture and culture also communicates through language:
Michael Silverstein proposed that the communicative force of culture works not only in
representing aspects of reality, but also in connecting one context with another. That is,
communication is not only the use of symbols that “stand for” beliefs, feelings, identities, or
events, it is also a way of bringing beliefs, feelings, and identities into the present context.
Language can mark the cultural identity, but it is also used to refer to other phenomena and
refer beyond itself, especially when a particular speaker uses it to explain intentions. A particular
language points to the culture of a particular social group. We can therefore presume that
language learning is cultural learning, so language teaching is cultural teaching due to the
interdependence of language and cultural learning.