Material Culture and Semiotics

What this unit covers

This unit sits in the Culture, Language and Meaning strand of Anthropology. Most of what it lists is mind maps built around chapters of one book on material culture, What Objects Mean. Several maps cover the same chapter, so you can compare how different students have organised it.

Start with the basics

Begin with the maps on Chapter 1, Making Sense of Material Culture. They define material culture as things people make, buy or possess, which show what we are like and how we live. One excerpt describes it as the behaviour patterns acquired and passed on through symbols, along with material items. Another separates an object from an artifact, which is a relatively simple object showing human workmanship.

• Making Sense of Material Culture
• Chapter 1: Making Sense of Material Culture Edited
• Wilhite: What Objects Mean: Chapter One: Making Sense of Material Culture

Move on to semiotics

The largest group of maps covers Chapter 3, Semiotic Approaches to Material Culture. The first one in the list starts with Saussure on signs and his book Course in General Linguistics, where he set out what he called semiology. Another describes semiotics as the science of signs, treating artifacts as signs whose meaning must be worked out. A further map notes that signs combine a sound image and a concept, and that meaning comes from oppositions and relationships.

1. Open Chapter 3: Semiotic Approaches to Material Culture first.
2. Read a second version of the same chapter and note what differs.
3. Write the key terms on your own flashcards.

Widen out to theory

Once the signs are clear, try the maps on economic theory and Marxism in Chapter 5 and on cultural theory in Chapter 6. The Ceramics map shows theory applied: technologies can be analysed as cultural choices, and material culture helps shape social relations and values. Three flashcard decks, including one on art and aesthetics, add vocabulary practice.

Using maps and notes together

Read a map to see the structure, then close it and try to rebuild it from memory. There are no quizzes on this page, so flashcards and your own notes are the way to check yourself. Choose a chapter and start making your own study set.