15.13: Time Value of Money
Learning Outcomes
- Discuss the time value of money
A dollar today is worth more than a dollar a year from now. If someone handed you a $1000 today, and you invested it or they offered you $1000 a year from now, which would you choose? The obvious answer is to take it now, right? What will happen when you put that money into an investment account? It will grow because you will get interest on it! If you stick the same $1000 in a drawer, it will not gain that value, and the buying power will be less than today.
The interest rate is an important component of the time value of money.
Watch It
Present value can be calculated using the following equation:
\(\begin{array}{rcl}PV&=&FV\frac{1}{\left(1+r\right)^n}\\\\FV&=&\text{Future value}\\r&=&\text{rate of return}\\n&=&\text{number of periods}\end{array}\)
So if you had the option of taking $1000 today, or $2000 in 10 years, and the interest rate is 8%, which would you take? We can calculate that as follows:
\(\begin{array}{rcl}PV&=&1000\\r&=&8\%\\n&=&10\text{ years}\end{array}\)
So, if you follow the chart to page 2.This chart is the time value of $1, so we will need to multiply by 1000 to find our value!
Find 10 periods at 8% interest. At the end of the first period, your $1000 would be worth $1080 with the 8% interest, right? At the end of the second year it would be worth $1166.40 and so on. So at the conclusion of the 10 year period, your $1,000 at 8% interest would be worth $2,158.90 based on the time value of money. SO, now, would you take the $1,000 now, or wait and get $2,000 in 10 years?
From this example, it would be better to take the $1,000 NOW and invest it yourself! How would your answer change if the interest rate was 5%? Take a few options and practice with it!!
When we look at money this way, it is important to look at capital budgeting decisions on the basis of WHEN the cash flow will come back to us on an investment. If we invest $1000 today in a new piece of equipment that will not return our investment for 10 years. Is this a good decision? What if we have an alternative that costs $10,000, but we will get our money back on this one in 2 years? Which piece of equipment should we purchase?
Here is an online calculator you can use as well to check your work!!
Practice Questions


6.2.4: Natural Killer Cells
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Learning Objectives
- Describe the role of natural killer cells in the immune response
Lymphocytes are leukocytes (white blood cells) that are histologically identifiable by their large, darkly-staining nuclei; they are small cells with very little cytoplasm.  While NK cells are part of the innate immune response, they are best understood relative to their counterparts in the adaptive immune response,T cells, which are also classified as lymphocytes.
T cells are lymphocytes that mature in the thymus gland and identify intracellular infections, especially from viruses, by the altered expression of major histocompatibility class (MHC) I molecules on the surface of infected cells. MHC I molecules are proteins on the surfaces of all nucleated cells which help the immune system distinguish between “self” and “non-self.” If the cell is infected, the MHC I molecules display fragments of proteins from the infectious agents to T-cells. Healthy cells do not display any proteins and will be ignored by the immune system, while the cells identified as “non-self” by foreign proteins will be attacked by the immune system.
An infected cell (or a tumor cell) is often incapable of synthesizing and displaying MHC I molecules appropriately. The metabolic resources of cells infected by some viruses produce proteins that interfere with MHC I processing and/or trafficking to the cell surface. The reduced MHC I on host cells varies from virus to virus and results from active inhibitors being produced by the viruses. This process can deplete host MHC I molecules on the cell surface, which prevents T-cells from recognizing them, but which NK cells detect as “unhealthy” or “abnormal” while searching for cellular MHC I molecules. As such, NK cells offer a complementary check for unhealthy cells, relative to T cells. Similarly, the dramatically-altered gene expression of tumor cells leads to expression of extremely- deformed or absent MHC I molecules that also signal “unhealthy” or “abnormal.”
NK cells are always active; an interaction with normal, intact MHC I molecules on a healthy cell disables the killing sequence, causing the NK cell to move on. After the NK cell detects an infected or tumor cell, its cytoplasm secretes granules comprised of perforin: a destructive protein that creates a pore in the target cell. Granzymes are released along with the perforin in the immunological synapse. A granzyme, a protease that digests cellular proteins, induces the target cell to undergo programmed cell death, or apoptosis. Phagocytic cells then digest the cell debris left behind. NK cells are constantly patrolling the body. They are an effective mechanism for controlling potential infections and preventing cancer progression.

- Unlike the related T cells, NK cells do not recognize fragments of the infecting particle, but rather the incorrect display of major histocompatibility complex ( MHC ) I molecules.
- NK cells are always active, but will not perform their killing function on cells with intact MHC I molecules.
- When NK cells detect an infected or tumor cell, they secrete granules that contain perforin, creating a pore in the target cell; granzymes then pass through these pores, degrading cellular proteins, causing cells to undergo apoptosis.
Key Terms
- lymphocyte : a type of white blood cell or leukocyte that is divided into two principal groups and a null group: B-cells, T-cells, and natural killer (NK) cells
- major histocompatibility complex : a protein present on the extracellular surface of the cell that displays portions of the proteins that are degraded inside the cell
- T cell : a lymphocyte, from the thymus, that can recognize specific antigens and can activate or deactivate other immune cells


17.8: Catalysis
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain the function of a catalyst in terms of reaction mechanisms and potential energy diagrams
- List examples of catalysis in natural and industrial processes
Catalysts Do Not Affect Equilibrium
A catalyst can speed up the rate of a reaction. Though this increase in reaction rate may cause a system to reach equilibrium more quickly (by speeding up the forward and reverse reactions), a catalyst has no effect on the value of an equilibrium constant nor on equilibrium concentrations.
The interplay of changes in concentration or pressure, temperature, and the lack of an influence of a catalyst on a chemical equilibrium is illustrated in the industrial synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen according to the equation
A large quantity of ammonia is manufactured by this reaction. Each year, ammonia is among the top 10 chemicals, by mass, manufactured in the world. About 2 billion pounds are manufactured in the United States each year.
Ammonia plays a vital role in our global economy. It is used in the production of fertilizers and is, itself, an important fertilizer for the growth of corn, cotton, and other crops. Large quantities of ammonia are converted to nitric acid, which plays an important role in the production of fertilizers, explosives, plastics, dyes, and fibers, and is also used in the steel industry.
Fritz Haber
In the early 20th century, German chemist Fritz Haber (Figure 17.19) developed a practical process for converting diatomic nitrogen, which cannot be used by plants as a nutrient, to ammonia, a form of nitrogen that is easiest for plants to absorb.
The availability of nitrogen is a strong limiting factor to the growth of plants. Despite accounting for 78% of air, diatomic nitrogen (N 2 ) is nutritionally unavailable due the tremendous stability of the nitrogen-nitrogen triple bond. For plants to use atmospheric nitrogen, the nitrogen must be converted to a more bioavailable form (this conversion is called nitrogen fixation).
Haber was born in Breslau, Prussia (presently Wroclaw, Poland) in December 1868. He went on to study chemistry and, while at the University of Karlsruhe, he developed what would later be known as the Haber process: the catalytic formation of ammonia from hydrogen and atmospheric nitrogen under high temperatures and pressures. For this work, Haber was awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for synthesis of ammonia from its elements. The Haber process was a boon to agriculture, as it allowed the production of fertilizers to no longer be dependent on mined feed stocks such as sodium nitrate. Currently, the annual production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers exceeds 100 million tons and synthetic fertilizer production has increased the number of humans that arable land can support from 1.9 persons per hectare in 1908 to 4.3 in 2008.
In addition to his work in ammonia production, Haber is also remembered by history as one of the fathers of chemical warfare. During World War I, he played a major role in the development of poisonous gases used for trench warfare. Regarding his role in these developments, Haber said, “During peace time a scientist belongs to the World, but during war time he belongs to his country.” 1 Haber defended the use of gas warfare against accusations that it was inhumane, saying that death was death, by whatever means it was inflicted. He stands as an example of the ethical dilemmas that face scientists in times of war and the double-edged nature of the sword of science.
Like Haber, the products made from ammonia can be multifaceted. In addition to their value for agriculture, nitrogen compounds can also be used to achieve destructive ends. Ammonium nitrate has also been used in explosives, including improvised explosive devices. Ammonium nitrate was one of the components of the bomb used in the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.
It has long been known that nitrogen and hydrogen react to form ammonia. However, it became possible to manufacture ammonia in useful quantities by the reaction of nitrogen and hydrogen only in the early 20th century after the factors that influence its equilibrium were understood.
To be practical, an industrial process must give a large yield of product relatively quickly. One way to increase the yield of ammonia is to increase the pressure on the system in which N 2 , H 2 , and NH 3 are at equilibrium or are coming to equilibrium.
The formation of additional amounts of ammonia reduces the total pressure exerted by the system and somewhat reduces the stress of the increased pressure.
Although increasing the pressure of a mixture of N 2 , H 2 , and NH 3 will increase the yield of ammonia, at low temperatures, the rate of formation of ammonia is slow. At room temperature, for example, the reaction is so slow that if we prepared a mixture of N 2 and H 2 , no detectable amount of ammonia would form during our lifetime. The formation of ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen is an exothermic process:
Thus, increasing the temperature to increase the rate lowers the yield. If we lower the temperature to shift the equilibrium to favor the formation of more ammonia, equilibrium is reached more slowly because of the large decrease of reaction rate with decreasing temperature.
Part of the rate of formation lost by operating at lower temperatures can be recovered by using a catalyst. The net effect of the catalyst on the reaction is to cause equilibrium to be reached more rapidly.
In the commercial production of ammonia, conditions of about 500 °C, 150–900 atm, and the presence of a catalyst are used to give the best compromise among rate, yield, and the cost of the equipment necessary to produce and contain high-pressure gases at high temperatures (Figure 17.20).
Among the factors affecting chemical reaction rates discussed earlier in this chapter was the presence of a catalyst , a substance that can increase the reaction rate without being consumed in the reaction. The concepts introduced in the previous section on reaction mechanisms provide the basis for understanding how catalysts are able to accomplish this very important function.
Figure 17.21 shows reaction diagrams for a chemical process in the absence and presence of a catalyst. Inspection of the diagrams reveals several traits of these reactions. Consistent with the fact that the two diagrams represent the same overall reaction, both curves begin and end at the same energies (in this case, because products are more energetic than reactants, the reaction is endothermic). The reaction mechanisms, however, are clearly different. The uncatalyzed reaction proceeds via a one-step mechanism (one transition state observed), whereas the catalyzed reaction follows a two-step mechanism (two transition states observed) with a notably lesser activation energy . This difference illustrates the means by which a catalyst functions to accelerate reactions, namely, by providing an alternative reaction mechanism with a lower activation energy. Although the catalyzed reaction mechanism for a reaction needn’t necessarily involve a different number of steps than the uncatalyzed mechanism, it must provide a reaction path whose rate determining step is faster (lower E a ).
Reaction Diagrams for Catalyzed Reactions
The two reaction diagrams here represent the same reaction: one without a catalyst and one with a catalyst. Estimate the activation energy for each process, and identify which one involves a catalyst.Solution
Activation energies are calculated by subtracting the reactant energy from the transition state energy.
The catalyzed reaction is the one with lesser activation energy, in this case represented by diagram (b).
Check Your Learning
Reaction diagrams for a chemical process with and without a catalyst are shown below. Both reactions involve a two-step mechanism with a rate-determining first step. Compute activation energies for the first step of each mechanism, and identify which corresponds to the catalyzed reaction. How do the second steps of these two mechanisms compare?
For the first step, E a = 80 kJ for (a) and 70 kJ for (b), so diagram (b) depicts the catalyzed reaction. Activation energies for the second steps of both mechanisms are the same, 20 kJ.
Homogeneous Catalysts
A homogeneous catalyst is present in the same phase as the reactants. It interacts with a reactant to form an intermediate substance, which then decomposes or reacts with another reactant in one or more steps to regenerate the original catalyst and form product.
As an important illustration of homogeneous catalysis, consider the earth’s ozone layer. Ozone in the upper atmosphere, which protects the earth from ultraviolet radiation, is formed when oxygen molecules absorb ultraviolet light and undergo the reaction:
Ozone is a relatively unstable molecule that decomposes to yield diatomic oxygen by the reverse of this equation. This decomposition reaction is consistent with the following two-step mechanism:
A number of substances can catalyze the decomposition of ozone. For example, the nitric oxide -catalyzed decomposition of ozone is believed to occur via the following three-step mechanism:
As required, the overall reaction is the same for both the two-step uncatalyzed mechanism and the three-step NO-catalyzed mechanism:
Notice that NO is a reactant in the first step of the mechanism and a product in the last step. This is another characteristic trait of a catalyst: Though it participates in the chemical reaction, it is not consumed by the reaction.
Mario J. Molina
The 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was shared by Paul J. Crutzen, Mario J. Molina (Figure 17.22), and F. Sherwood Rowland “for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone.” 2 Molina, a Mexican citizen, carried out the majority of his work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
In 1974, Molina and Rowland published a paper in the journal Nature detailing the threat of chlorofluorocarbon gases to the stability of the ozone layer in earth’s upper atmosphere. The ozone layer protects earth from solar radiation by absorbing ultraviolet light. As chemical reactions deplete the amount of ozone in the upper atmosphere, a measurable “hole” forms above Antarctica, and an increase in the amount of solar ultraviolet radiation— strongly linked to the prevalence of skin cancers—reaches earth’s surface. The work of Molina and Rowland was instrumental in the adoption of the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty signed in 1987 that successfully began phasing out production of chemicals linked to ozone destruction.
Molina and Rowland demonstrated that chlorine atoms from human-made chemicals can catalyze ozone destruction in a process similar to that by which NO accelerates the depletion of ozone. Chlorine atoms are generated when chlorocarbons or chlorofluorocarbons—once widely used as refrigerants and propellants—are photochemically decomposed by ultraviolet light or react with hydroxyl radicals. A sample mechanism is shown here using methyl chloride:
Chlorine radicals break down ozone and are regenerated by the following catalytic cycle:
A single monatomic chlorine can break down thousands of ozone molecules. Luckily, the majority of atmospheric chlorine exists as the catalytically inactive forms Cl 2 and ClONO 2 .
Since receiving his portion of the Nobel Prize, Molina has continued his work in atmospheric chemistry at MIT.
Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Deficiency
Enzymes in the human body act as catalysts for important chemical reactions in cellular metabolism. As such, a deficiency of a particular enzyme can translate to a life-threatening disease. G6PD (glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase) deficiency, a genetic condition that results in a shortage of the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, is the most common enzyme deficiency in humans. This enzyme, shown in Figure 17.23, is the rate-limiting enzyme for the metabolic pathway that supplies NADPH to cells (Figure 17.24).
A disruption in this pathway can lead to reduced glutathione in red blood cells; once all glutathione is consumed, enzymes and other proteins such as hemoglobin are susceptible to damage. For example, hemoglobin can be metabolized to bilirubin, which leads to jaundice, a condition that can become severe. People who suffer from G6PD deficiency must avoid certain foods and medicines containing chemicals that can trigger damage their glutathione-deficient red blood cells.
Heterogeneous Catalysts
A heterogeneous catalyst is a catalyst that is present in a different phase (usually a solid) than the reactants. Such catalysts generally function by furnishing an active surface upon which a reaction can occur. Gas and liquid phase reactions catalyzed by heterogeneous catalysts occur on the surface of the catalyst rather than within the gas or liquid phase.
Heterogeneous catalysis typically involves the following processes:
- Adsorption of the reactant(s) onto the surface of the catalyst
- Activation of the adsorbed reactant(s)
- Reaction of the adsorbed reactant(s)
- Desorption of product(s) from the surface of the catalyst
Figure 17.25 illustrates the steps of a mechanism for the reaction of compounds containing a carbon–carbon double bond with hydrogen on a nickel catalyst. Nickel is the catalyst used in the hydrogenation of polyunsaturated fats and oils (which contain several carbon–carbon double bonds) to produce saturated fats and oils (which contain only carbon–carbon single bonds).
Many important chemical products are prepared via industrial processes that use heterogeneous catalysts, including ammonia, nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and methanol. Heterogeneous catalysts are also used in the catalytic converters found on most gasoline-powered automobiles (Figure 17.26).
Automobile Catalytic Converters
Scientists developed catalytic converters to reduce the amount of toxic emissions produced by burning gasoline in internal combustion engines. By utilizing a carefully selected blend of catalytically active metals, it is possible to effect complete combustion of all carbon-containing compounds to carbon dioxide while also reducing the output of nitrogen oxides. This is particularly impressive when we consider that one step involves adding more oxygen to the molecule and the other involves removing the oxygen (Figure 17.26).
Most modern, three-way catalytic converters possess a surface impregnated with a platinum-rhodium catalyst, which catalyzes the conversion of nitric oxide into dinitrogen and oxygen as well as the conversion of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons such as octane into carbon dioxide and water vapor:
In order to be as efficient as possible, most catalytic converters are preheated by an electric heater. This ensures that the metals in the catalyst are fully active even before the automobile exhaust is hot enough to maintain appropriate reaction temperatures.
The University of California at Davis’ “ChemWiki” provides a thorough explanation of how catalytic converters work.
Enzyme Structure and Function
The study of enzymes is an important interconnection between biology and chemistry. Enzymes are usually proteins (polypeptides) that help to control the rate of chemical reactions between biologically important compounds, particularly those that are involved in cellular metabolism. Different classes of enzymes perform a variety of functions, as shown in Table 17.3.
| Class | Function |
|---|---|
| oxidoreductases | redox reactions |
| transferases | transfer of functional groups |
| hydrolases | hydrolysis reactions |
| lyases | group elimination to form double bonds |
| isomerases | isomerization |
| ligases | bond formation with ATP hydrolysis |
Enzyme molecules possess an active site, a part of the molecule with a shape that allows it to bond to a specific substrate (a reactant molecule), forming an enzyme-substrate complex as a reaction intermediate. There are two models that attempt to explain how this active site works. The most simplistic model is referred to as the lock-and-key hypothesis, which suggests that the molecular shapes of the active site and substrate are complementary, fitting together like a key in a lock. The induced fit hypothesis, on the other hand, suggests that the enzyme molecule is flexible and changes shape to accommodate a bond with the substrate. This is not to suggest that an enzyme’s active site is completely malleable, however. Both the lock-and-key model and the induced fit model account for the fact that enzymes can only bind with specific substrates, since in general a particular enzyme only catalyzes a particular reaction (Figure 17.27).
The Royal Society of Chemistry provides an excellent introduction to enzymes for students and teachers.
The connection between the rate of a reaction and its equilibrium constant is one we can easily determine with just a bit of algebraic substitution. For a reaction where substance A forms B (and the reverse)
The rate of the forward reaction is
And the rate of the reverse reaction is
Once equilibrium is established, the rates of the forward and reverse reactions are equal:
Rearranging a bit, we get
Also recall that the equilibrium constant is simply the ratio of product to reactant concentration at equilibrium:
So the equilibrium constant turns out to be the ratio of the forward to the reverse rate constants. This relationship also helps cement our understanding of the nature of a catalyst. That is, a catalyst does not change the fundamental equilibrium (or the underlying thermodynamics) of a reaction. Rather, what it does is alter the rate constant for the reaction – that is, both rate constants, forward and reverse, equally. In doing so, catalysts usually speed up the rate at which reactions attain equilibrium (though they can be used to slow down the rate of reaction as well!).
Footnotes
- 1 Herrlich, P. “The Responsibility of the Scientist: What Can History Teach Us About How Scientists Should Handle Research That Has the Potential to Create Harm?” EMBO Reports 14 (2013): 759–764.
- 2 “The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1995,” Nobel Prize.org, accessed February 18, 2015, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_priz...aureates/1995/ .


15.11: Summary
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Anthropologists use long-term ethnographic fieldwork and holistic perspectives to study media genres such as photography, film, radio, television, and digital media. In visual anthropology, gaze theory is used to think about the relationship between viewers and the people depicted in photographs, particularly in terms of gender, power, and cultural identity. Anthropologists studying news media focus on the construction of national public spheres of official ideology and political contest. Radio is often used by communities for more participatory and community-based forms of communication. Many anthropologists study how soap operas and other television programs promote forms of ethnicity, gender, and nationalism. Digital media construct entirely new forms of sociality, including illicit shadow forms of impersonation and scamming such as sakawa.


8.2: Ethnomedicine
Ethnomedicine refers to the medical systems based on the cultural beliefs of varying ethnic groups (e.g. Traditional Chinese Medicine).
- Ethno-nosology: Refers to the cross-cultural systems of classification of health issues.[1]. In a wide sense, nosology deals not only with diseases, but with any kind of medical condition, like injuries, lesions or disorders. Medical conditions, like diseases, can be defined by cause, pathogenesis (mechanism by which the disease is caused), or by a collection of symptoms, medical signs and biomarkers, particularly when the other two definitions are not available (idiopathic diseases). From a nosological point of view, medical conditions could be divided in disorders, diseases, syndromes, lesions and injuries, each one with some specific meaning
- Culture-bound syndromes: Also known as culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness, is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease, whether it be psychological or physical, only within a specific society or culture.
- Disease/Illness Dichotomy: Dichotomy is the division of one thing into two parts or a subdivision into halves or pairs. In medical anthropology, the two aspects of sickness are divided to better care and heal those in need. Disease and Illness are two very different things in the medical field that are responded in different ways. Diseases are the biological and psychological malfunctioning of the body physically. Illnesses deal with the psychology of the human where the psychosocial experiences bring on the sense of illness or disease.
- Diagnosis/Divination: A diagnosis is the act of identifying or determining the nature and cause of a disease or injury through the evaluation of a patient. Divination is the seeing of future events or somehow gaining unknown knowledge through the supernatural.
Traditional Healing and Western Medicine
Cultures around the world offer various perspectives on the relationships between healing, spirituality, and illness. The coexistence of traditional and biomedical healing systems common in many places, and finding somewhere where only one method is relied upon is difficult. Medically pluralistic societies and cultures provide a variety of treatment options in both traditional and modern practices.
Traditional healing is largely regarded as the oldest form of structured medicine, and from it came the later forms of medicine commonly practiced. Traditional healing was originally an integral part of semi-nomadic and agricultural tribal societies, and involved the use of ceremonies that included plant, animal or mineral- based medicines, energetic therapies, or physical techniques. Common medical practices and persons that lie in the realm of traditional healing include acupuncture, herbalists, shamans, and faith healing.
Western medicine, compared to traditional healing, bases its theories and practice of medicine on the scientific method and on knowledge supported by scientific research. The practice is more based in empiricism rather than culture, but its effects and use can be seen in a wide variety of societies. Many civilizations, both current and early, utilized forms of Western medicine including Ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Medieval Arab Empire. Modern day Western medicine was considered to have been developed around 300 BCE by Hippocrates. Common medical practices and persons employed by Western medicine include surgeons, physical therapists, psychiatrists, and dentists.
The "sick role" is a term used in traditional medicine that is prevalent in western societies. It is culturally defined as an agreement between the patient and family members of the patient to acknowledge that the person is sick. Examples of this can be seen when a person has cancer and is encouraged by his or her family to seek treatment, thus acknowledging the sick role in the process.
Often in Western culture, traditional healing concepts still exist in the form of various superstitions and traditions. The concept of the Aphrodisiac though it has little scientific backing is still common in western culture. An Aphrodisiac is a food or substance that is believed to increase sexual energy or prowess. Examples of aphrodisiacs differ between cultures examples include oysters in English speaking countries, Balut in the Philippines, and Durian throughout Southeast Asia.
Healing Substances
Cultures use a variety of different substances for healing. Some cultures rely on drugs to induce a state of healing, while others put their lives in the hands of healers such as shamans to regain health. In many cases, people rely on both medical pluralism and medical syncretism. Medical pluralism refers to the integration of biomedicine and other forms of healthcare, while medical syncretism is the fusing of more than one medical practice, such as fusing spiritual practices with biomedical practice. It is important to note that in many cases the state of healing that is accomplished in one culture may not be able to be accomplished in another due to differing perspectives on how the substance is meant to affect a person. For example, there is a vast difference between the use of drugs for recreation and their use for healing. In some cultures it is believed that during drug use a person reaches a heightened state in which they are able to begin healing, whereas in other cultures this heightened state is used for pure enjoyment.
Examples of healing substances include Peyote, a rare cactus found in Mexico containing the chemical mescaline which induces hallucinogenic experiences if ingested properly. This cactus has historically been used ritualistically in many indigenous cultures. It causes an enhanced feeling of introspection and visual or audio hallucinations. Another example is the magic mushrooms of Oaxaca, similar to the Peyote in which the consumer enters a psychedelic state and is able to allow the mushrooms to heal themselves spiritually and physically. Ayahuasca is an Amazonian plant mixture that is capable of inducing altered states of consciousness, usually lasting between 4 and 8 hours after ingestion. Shamans or medicine men take ayahuasca to communicate with nature or to see what is causing a patient’s illness on a spiritual level. The drink is taken in the form of tea, typically in a ceremonial session under the guidance of an experienced drinker. The main ingredient of this jungle tea is a vine, Banisteriopsis caapi, which like the tea itself is also called ayahuasca (which means ‘vine of the soul’ or ‘vine with a soul’). This vine is combined with a variety of plants that contain the psychedelic drug DMT. The Banisteriopsis caapi contains an MAOI, which allows the DMT to be active orally. Coca, tobacco and alcohol can also be considered healing substances and are more prevalent across cultures than the aforementioned drugs.
Ethnobotany
Ethnobotany The study of native plants that is used by a particular culture. The study of these plants is used to garner accurate understanding of their medical potential and cultural usage. An ethnobotanist's job is to travel to different locations in the world for the purpose of studying the relationships between plants and culture. Their knowledge is gleaned from the perspective and information provided by the culture with which the plant is used. Ethnobotanists look for plants which effectively treat disease or relieve symptoms. These plants can then be synthesized into medication to provide treatment for other populations.
The roots of ethnobotany can be traced back to an ancient Greek surgeon named Dioscorides. He was the first person to organize plants into specific classifications. Around AD 77, Dioscorides produced the publication, “De Materia Medica”, which consisted of information on all the plants he researched. This botanical reference book compartmentalized approximately 600 plants. It also included facts about the plants such as; what season it was in bloom, how to use it medicinally, its toxicity level and whether or not it was edible. In 1542 Leonhart Fuchs achieved a similar feat when he published, “De Historia Stirpium”, another botanical reference book that catalogued plants indigenous Germany and Austria (the book contained information on about 400 plants). Another important figure in the development of ethnobotany was John Ray. He was the first person to understand and explain the concept of species; he also produced important publications such as, Catalogue of Cambridge Plants, Synopsis Methodica Avium et Piscium and Methodus Plantarum (works were published between 1660–1713). The methods for categorizing plants continued to develop and it reached its apex with a Swedish medical student named Carl Linnaeus. Linnaeus invented the classification system known as taxonomy. This system of classifying organisms is still utilized in contemporary times. His book, Species Plantarum, had listings for approximately 5,900 plants. The term ethnobotany was developed by John Harshberger around 1895. Harshberger was the professor of botany at the University of Pennsylvania. He spent many years traveling the globe researching and cataloguing different regions native plant life.
Ibogaine
As stated previously, ethnobotany is the study of how a culture uses its indigenous plants for medicinal purposes. An example of an idiosyncratic way of healing (pertinent to ethnobotany) can be seen in the religious rituals of the Bwiti. Bwiti is a religion that is practiced by the people of Gabon (a country in west central Africa). This particular creed relies heavily on the use of ibogaine (a powerful psychoactive which is derived from the root of the Tabernanthe ibona shrub). Tabernanthe iboga is indigenous to Gabon and is easily accessible to people of the Bwiti religion. Iboga is most commonly ingested through chewing on the root of the shrub or brewing the plant into a tea. The plant is revered by the Bwiti because of its hallucinogenic properties which cause practitioners to receive revealing visions and deep introspective self-contemplation. Iboga is consumed for religious ceremonies, initiations, coming of age rituals and healing processes. When a person within the Bwiti community becomes ill he or she is fed iboga to get in touch with their imbwiri. The imbwiri is a spirit represented in a human configuration which will either cure the individual or provide valuable information on the antidote. Iboga was brought to Europe by French and Belgian researchers in the late 1800’s. By the 1960’s ibogaine (although still rare) had been introduced to many different parts of the world. (mainly as a psychoactive drug). The medical potential of this drug was discovered by a man named Howard Lotsof in 1963. He realized that this substance could combat heroin and opiate addiction. It also could alleviate the painful and mentally exhausting withdrawal symptoms. Howard cured his own heroin addiction through this method and introduced ibogaine to his friends who were also habitual heroin users with positive results. As time progressed ibogaine was found to be useful in treating many addictions including unhealthy reliance on cocaine, crack, alcohol, methamphetamine, and nicotine. Even though this drug showed potential towards battling addiction it was outlawed in many countries (including the U.S.) because of its hallucinogenic properties. Although ibogaine has been marked illegal there are still underground clinics that provide full treatments serving the drugs medical ideology. Research on ibogaine is still being conducted today and it could eventually become a fully marketable, synthesized anti-addiction medication.
Ayahuasca
For thousands of years Amazonian shamans have been concocting and administering one of the most powerful psychoactive substances on earth. The main psychoactive ingredient in Ayahuasca is DMT, and users report life-changing trips, often involving out of body experiences and extraterrestrial contact. Ayahuasca remains a schedule 1 drug in the U.S. and many other countries. The brew is made by mixing Banisteriopsis caapi, which contains the DMT, with Psychotria Viridis, which contains MAO inhibiting alkaloids and allows for oral ingestion. Ayahuasca is gaining popularity in the western world as people attempt to create centers in the U.S. where one can safely consume the drug.
The Candlenut Tree
The Kukui or Candlenut tree, is an example of an indigenous plant used by a culture for food, medicine, and other purposes. Native Hawaiians used the nut, sap, and leaves for various everyday uses. The nut, which produces copious amounts of oil, was strung onto palm fronds and used a torch or candle (thus the name Candlenut). The nut was also roasted and sprinkled on food for added flavor, but it was also known to have laxative properties. The sap of the green nut was spread on cuts and cold sores to speed up healing. The leaves and flowers were used for making lei. As a child growing up in Hawaii, my friends and I made spinning tops out of the shell of the nut. Many visitors to Hawaii would recognize the Kukui nut as the black, shiny nut strung on ribbon to make a lei that lasts indefinitely. The unique part about this tree is that all of the components of the tree are toxic, but the seed, leaves, flowers and bark can be all be used in medicine systems if used in the correct way. The candlenut tree provides a multitude of uses including health benefits, decoration, jewelry making, and more.
The Cure-All Herb
The "Cure All Herb" is a herb called Combretum micranthum, but is most commonly known as Kinkiliba . It is found in West Africa, specifically Senegal. This drinking herb has a positive impact on the population drinking it. Kinkiliba is the most common herbal tea found throughout West Africa. Many West-Africans begin their morning with a cup of this powerful tea that is great for maintaining general health and well-being. Kinkiliba is known to aid in the treatment of fevers, colds, aches, pains, and the flu; but is also used to aid weight loss, sleep loss, and even cancer. This herb is a natural diuretic and helps to speed up the healing process when one is ill. One may also apply solutions of the leaves or the roots to speed up the healing of old wounds. This miracle tea is also known to prevent malaria and lower blood pressure. The herb serves as an antibacterial and antispasmodic as well.
The Detoxifying Herb
Kelle (khaya senegalensis) is a common herb used throughout West Africa for a body cleanser and energy booster. West Africans soak the bark in water and drink the mixture for a general detoxification and intestinal cleanser. Kelle is also used to bring down fevers and to combat general fatigue. Khaya senegalensis is very effective when it is used as a body cleanser or an energy booster, but it also has other uses. For example, the seeds and leaves can be used to treat fevers and headaches, and the roots can help with the treatment of mental illness or as an aphrodisiac.
Acacia Senegal
Uses - Gum arabic’s main effect is to form a soothing, protective coating over the respiratory, alimentary, and urinary tracts. In conjunction with various astringents, it is helpful for coughs, sore throat, and catarrh (excessive discharge or buildup of mucus in the nose or throat, associated with inflammation of the mucous membrane.), as well as in cases of diarrhoea and dysentery. The mucilage makes a good vehicle for other medicines, in addition to having nutritional value in its own right. However, most of the gum arabic imported to USA goes to the food industry to give body and texture to products for bakers and a hard sheen coating on candies.
Marijuana
Marijuana has an extensive medical and shamanic history throughout a multitude of cultures. Researchers often site the Chinese to be one of the first cultures to recognize it's medical potential. Author Robert Deitch states, "The Chinese Emperor Fu Hsi (ca. 2900 BC), whom the Chinese credit with bringing civilization to China, seems to have made reference to Ma, the Chinese word for Cannabis, noting that Cannabis was very popular medicine that possessed both yin and yang." Marijuana has long been used in Chinese medical practices. Other cultures such as the Egyptians, going as far back as 1213 BC, have made use of cannabis. It was found in the tomb of Ramesses II. Ancient Egypt would often use marijuana for a myriad of issues such as inflammation, psychological problems, treat glaucoma, cataracts, hemorrhoids, vaginal bleeding, in addition to many other issues. In modern America, the homeopathic potential of cannabis only just began to be recognized in 1973 when Oregon decriminalized the use of marijuana. It wasn't until 1996 that California became the first state in the United States to legalize medical marijuana. Recently the use of medical marijuana has become much more widespread across the country. The most common use for medicinal cannabis is pain management, specifically for patients with long term illnesses, such as cancer. Muscle spams can be much improved with the use of medicinal marijuana, especially in the case of treating multiple sclerosis. Cannabidiol, also known as CBD in marijuana is the non-psychoactive, medicinal part of the cannabis plant. CBD unlike THC, the active ingredient in the plant that creates the euphoric “high”, is almost exclusively used for medicinal purposes. If one where to intake only the CBD parts of the herb, one would only feel pain relief, in addition to relief of any specific ailments they may have – such as an epileptic’s reduction in seizures. In conclusion, marijuana has numerous medicinal properties that have been respected and cultivated by cultures throughout our long human history.
Echinacea
Native to North America and has long been used by the Plains Indians for its medicinal properties. It is believed to shorten the duration of a cold and treat many of the symptoms such as coughing, sore throats, and headaches. Recent studies have suggested that Echinacea has little or no effect on the duration or severity of a cold, and it is merely taken to provide some sort of comfort to the sick person, in many ways a placebo. The effectiveness of Echinacea is still a subject of debate, but it remains a culturally important remedy in North American ethnobotany.
Goldenseal
Also known as Orange-root, Orangeroot, or Hydrastis Canadensis, is a perennial herb in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native to southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States and is another prominent herb used in North America. Goldenseal was in extensive use among certain Native American tribes of North America, both as a medicine and as a coloring material. Goldenseal was extensively used for cancers and swellings of the breasts by the Eclectics, although it was not considered sufficient for cancer alone [1]
Pacific Yew
Also known as taxus brevifoila or the Western Yew, is a small fir like a tree that can be identified by its flaky bark, as well as its flat needles that protrude horizontally from either side of the twig. It is usually found in shaded environments alongside trees such as Douglas firs and hemlock. The bark is a traditional medicine used for “internal problems like ulcers and liver ailments”(Turner & Hebda). In recent years Yew bark has become famous for containing a cancer-fighting compound called Taxol that slows or stops cell replication in cancer cells. It is most commonly used in the treatment of breast, lung, and ovarian cancer.
"Pacific Yew, Taxus Brevifolia." Native Plants PNW. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2016. "Paclitaxel (Taxol®, Abraxane®): Cancer Drug Information | CTCA." CancerCenter.com. N.p., 01 Jan. 0001. Web. 01 Dec. 2016.
"Taxus Baccata (common Yew)." Taxus Baccata (common Yew) | Plants & Fungi At Kew. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2016. Turner, Nancy J., and Richard J. Hebda. Saanich Ethnobotany: Culturally Important Plants of the WSANEC People. Victoria, BC: Royal BC Museum, 2012. Print.
Essential Oils
Another form of ethnobotany that has been on the rise in popularity in the United States is the use of 'essential oils'. Essential oils are potent oils that are “extracted from flowers, barks, stem, leaves, roots, fruits and other parts of the plant by various methods” (Ali, et al., 2015). Those who use them believe that they are nature's medicine, and if used properly can treat many infections and ailments, replacing or assisting modern medicine. Through laboratory studies, scientists have found that these oils contain antiseptic and skin permeability properties. Certain essential oils can be even more effective than pharmaceutical antibiotics due to their complex chemical makeup.
One popular way that essential oils are used is through aromatherapy. “Inhalation, local application, and baths are the major methods used in aromatherapy that utilize these oils to penetrate the human skin surface with marked aura” (Ali, et al., 2015). Through use of single oils, as well as combinations or mixtures of oils, people have used essential oil aromatherapy to get relief from “numerous ailments like depression, indigestion, headache, insomnia, muscular pain, respiratory problems, skin ailments, swollen joints, urine associated complications, etc.” (Ali, et al., 2015).
Many are still skeptical of its use, the FDA has not approved of the oils act as medicine. However, use of plants has been the way that many cultures have historically gone about creating medicine, and the effectiveness of essential oils has been proven to many who choose to fight their ailments a more natural way. Some examples of essential oils are Lemongrass, peppermint, orange, and countless others all of which can be used in different ways. Essential oils are starting to become more well known and potentially used on an everyday basis for some, and they are easy to find at pretty much any local grocery store or market.
Critics of Ethnomedicine
Although most individual ethnomedical practices have been criticized for various traits they possess (e.g. claims of spiritual healing being a hoax, psychiatry not being able to cure alcoholism), one argument stands out as criticizing almost all forms of ethnomedicine. This argument criticized the mental orientation of most forms of ethnomedicine. Biologist Horacio Fabrega Jr. Writes:
The implicit assumption adopted by the researcher is that he is dealing with a disorder that is either typically psychiatric or at least psychiatric-like. Excessive preoccupation with this dimension on the part of culturally oriented anthropologists has tended to obscure the influences that biological components have on [culturally defines] illnesses. Consequently, the potential of examining the reciprocal influences that psych culture and biological factors have on instances of illness occurrence [as defined and categorized by subjects] has been missed.
Doctors and anthropologist who practice ethnomedicine experience criticism for making the assumption that an ailment can be cured using ethnomedicine without weighing the possibility of biological medicine.
Biopiracy
Biopiracy is the exploitation of plant and animal species by foreign entities to restrict their general use. There are two parts to biopiracy, being bioprospecting that exploits plant and animal species by claiming patents to restrict their general use. The second piece is the 'piracy', this takes place when individuals or corporations patent these plants and the methods of processing plant based substances, aromas or the genetic information for their exclusive use and sale. The patent often prohibits the communities that identified or actively use the bio active properties, developed processing and extractive technologies and bred the plants, for personal use or sale.
A related concept is bioprospecting. This term is sometimes used to refer to biopiracy with a less negative connotation, where the assumption is the patented item had a known use already. Alternately, the bioprospecting company is searching for novel compounds or genes in items that were not used traditionally. Companies can harvest plants or organisms with little to no opposition in some parts of the world, and then patent any part of them that ends up being useful.[2]
An example of biopiracy was the basmati rice patenting! Basmati is a variety of long, slender-grained aromatic rice which is traditionally from the Indian subcontinent. In 1997 the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted a patent (No. 5663484) to a company called 'Rice Tec Inc' based in Texas. There have been many efforts by the Indian government to reclaim the use to their traditional rice grain and to some avail. In one attempt the Indian government filed fifty-thousand pages of evidence to prove that high quality basmati rice varieties already contain the qualities that Rice Tec Inc had patented. Due to a large movement against rice Tec in March 2001 the USPTO rejected seventeen of the twenty claims the patent was based on![3]


13.2: Introduction
After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer these questions:
- Understand and describe the communication process.
- Know the types of communications that occur in organizations.
- Understand how power, status, purpose, and interpersonal skills affect communications in organizations.
- Describe how corporate reputations are defined by how an organization communicates to its stakeholders.
- Know why talking, listening, reading, and writing are vital to managing effectively.
EXPLORING MANAGERIAL CAREERS
John Legere, T-Mobile
The chief executive officer is often the face of the company. They are often the company's North Star, providing guidance and direction for the entire organization. CEOs usually take more reserved and structured approaches with stakeholders such as shareholders, suppliers, regulatory agencies, and customers. One CEO who stands out is John Legere, the CEO of T-Mobile. The unconventional CEO of the self-proclaimed “un-carrier” hosts a Sunday morning podcast called “Slow Cooker Sunday” on Facebook Live. Where CEOs appear on television interviews in standard business attire, Legere appears with shoulder-length hair and is dressed in a magenta T-shirt, black jacket, and pink sneakers. Whereas most CEOs use well-scripted language to address business issues and competitors, Legere refers to T-Mobile’s largest competitors, AT&T and Verizon, as “dumb and dumber.”
In the mobile phone market, T-Mobile is the number-three player competing with giants AT&T and Verizon and recently agreed to merge with Sprint. Of all the consolidation sweeping through the media and telecommunications arena, T-Mobile and Sprint are the most direct competitors. Their merger would reduce the number of national wireless carriers from four to three, a move the Federal Communications Commission has firmly opposed in the past. Then again, the wireless market, as does the administration in power, looks a bit different now.
John Legere and other CEOs such as Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson have a more public profile than executives at other companies that keep a lower profile and are more guarded in their public comments, often restricting their public statements to quarterly investor and analyst meetings. Likely, the personality and communication style that the executives reveal in public also affect how they relate to their employees. The outgoing personality of someone such as John Legere will motivate some employees, but other employees might see him as too much of a cheerleader.
Sometimes, Legere's unscripted comments and colorful language can cause issues with employees and the public. For instance, some T-Mobile employees in their call center admonished Legere for comments at a press event where he said Verizon and AT&T were “raping” customers for every penny they had. Legere’s comments caused lengthy discussions in online forums such as Reddit about his choice of words. Legere is known for speaking his mind publicly and often uses profanity, but many thought this comment crossed the line. While frank, open communication is usually appreciated and leads to a clearer message, senders of communications, whether in a public forum, an internal memo, or even a text message, should always think through the consequences of their words.
Chen, B. X. (2013). “One on One: John Legere, the Hip New Chief of T-Mobile USA,” New York Times, https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/...-t-mobile-usa/ .
Kovach, S. (2014). “T-Mobile Employees Speak Out and Call CEO’s Recent Rape Comments ‘Violent’ and ‘Traumatizing’,” Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/t-mo...comment-2014-6 .
Lachapelle, T. (2018). “T-Mobile’s Argument for Sprint Deal is as Loud as CEO John Legere’s Style,” The Seattle Times, https://www.seattletimes.com/business/t-mobiles-argument-for-sprint-deal-is-as-loud-as- ceo-john-legeres-style/ .
Lerman, R. (2018). “T-Mobile’s Loud, Outspoken John Legere is Not Your Typical CEO,” The Seattle Times, https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/t-mobiles-loud-outspoken-john-legere-is-not-your-typical-ceo/#:~:text=Although%20the%20outspoken%20CEO's%20attitude,growing%20telecom%20in%20the%20country .
Roettgers, J. (2018). “T-Mobile CEO John Legere Pokes Fun at Verizon’s Go90 Closure,” Variety, https://variety.com/2018/digital/new...90-1202862397/ .
We will distinguish between communication between two individuals and communication amongst several individuals (groups) and communication outside the organization. We will show that managers spend a majority of their time in communication with others. We will examine the reasons for communication and discuss the basic model of interpersonal communication, the types of interpersonal communication, and major influences on the communication process. We will also discuss how organizational reputation is defined by communication with stakeholders.


6.3: Language and the Mind
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- Jennifer Hasty, David G. Lewis, & Marjorie M. Snipes
- OpenStax
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe the role of language in categorizing items in the natural world.
- Explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
- Provide at least two examples of linguistic universals.
- Describe how metaphor shapes how we talk about abstract concepts.
As discussed in the previous section, certain cognitive abilities were crucial to the development of language in humans. And reciprocally, once language emerged, it shaped our thoughts and actions in ways that helped our species cooperate, invent, learn, and adapt to the environment. Language must have been a fundamental element in the creation of human culture (singular) and the eventual development into human cultures (plural) as different groups of humans moved into different geographical areas and began adapting to different conditions.
One key advantage of language is that it provides a way of encoding specific information about the environment and sharing that information with others so that it endures over time. If, say, there are snakes in an area, it would certainly be important to distinguish the venomous ones from the harmless ones, so probably there would be separate words for those two categories of snake or at least words for each specific snake so that people could alert each other to the presence of a dangerous one.
This means that early language must have been developed relative to environmental conditions. Linguistic anthropologists are interested in the way that language varies across cultures, reflecting different environmental, historical, and sociocultural conditions. This is called linguistic relativity .
On the other hand, languages are also constrained by human anatomy and cognitive abilities. Say there were two species of snake in an area, one poisonous and the other harmless, but you could not tell them apart by looking at them. (This is actually an adaptive strategy deployed by harmless animals called adaptive mimicry.) In this case, early humans probably would have had just one word for snake, indicating that sometimes a snake’s bite made you sick and sometimes it didn’t. As this example shows, the human visual apparatus shapes our understanding of the world, which, in turn, shapes our language.
Consider another example from the natural world—the beetle. There are over 300,000 types of beetles in the world. How many can you name? All of them? Ten of them? Two of them? Outside of written scientific taxonomy, there is no language in the world that contains separate terms for each kind of beetle. This is not only because there are only a few thousand of each type of beetle living in any one environment but also because of limits to the number of terms any person can learn and remember. Our vocabulary is constrained by the limits of human memory.
So language is shaped not only by environmental conditions but also by how humans interact with their environments. Our common human anatomy influences our comprehension of the world, and that comprehension is expressed in language. This insight suggests that all languages must have some things in common by virtue of the fact that all humans have the same anatomy and cognitive abilities. Some linguistic anthropologists are interested in discovering these linguistic universals .
In the next section, we take a look at some intriguing research on both linguistic relativity and linguistic universals, seeking to better understand how language interacts with our human minds.
Linguistic Relativism and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
As seen in previous chapters, it was lamentably common for scholars in the early 20th century to think of non-Western societies as backward and primitive, incapable of complex, abstract thought. Franz Boas worked hard to disprove these racist notions, seeking to demonstrate the equal sophistication of all peoples and cultures. Boas trained a student named Edward Sapir who was particularly interested in how non-Western languages conveyed forms of complex, abstract thought that were different from the Euro-American habits of thought. Sapir, in turn, trained a student named Benjamin Whorf who further elaborated on this theme in his own research (Ahearn 2017). The result is what we have come to call the “Sapir-Whorf” hypothesis.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis argues that the particular language you speak influences how you think about reality (Lucy 2001). Thus, different languages encourage different habits of thought. This is an essential tenet of linguistic relativity. Whorf based his argument on a comparison between the Native American language of Hopi and what he called “Standard Average European” (SAE), a broad category of European languages including English. Whorf was interested in how speakers of each language might think differently about time. In English vocabulary, time is divided into units that can be counted. English speakers talk about the number of seconds, minutes, or days before an event or consider the number of months or years since something occurred. In Hopi, according to Whorf, time is conceived as indivisible and enduring, a whole process unfolding. The Hopi talk about the flow of events in a completely different way, a processual way Whorf termed “eventing.” Whorf argued that these linguistic features profoundly influenced sociocultural life in each of these two contexts. Holding with the understanding of time as process, Hopi culture emphasized preparation, endurance, and intensity. Coordinating with the SAE expression of time as countable units, Euro-American culture emphasized schedules, accounting, and record keeping. Many people use a calendar to keep track of meetings, appointments, and assignments. Whorf would argue that the English language encourages us to think of time and events in this way, as a spatialized set of boxes to be filled up with discrete objects.
In connection with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, it is sometimes said that the “Eskimos” have 400 words for snow. This notion is both problematic and untrue. The first problem is that “Eskimo” is considered a derogatory term by the Inuit and Aleutian peoples to whom it has been applied. And, secondly, the claim turns out to be wrong. Anthropologist Laura Martin (1986, also described in Ahearn 2017) has debunked the myth by documenting that Arctic peoples really have just two root words for talking about snow, one for snow that is falling and the other for snow that is on the ground. They use these roots much as English-speakers would, to talk about snowstorms, snowflakes, snow drifts, and snow melt. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is not typically applied to the vocabularies of different cultures anymore.
Recall the earlier example about snakes. We hypothesized that a culture might not distinguish between two species of snakes if those snakes looked identical. But if people gradually came to notice that the poisonous snakes were always found in trees while the harmless snakes were always found on the ground, it is likely that a different term would come to be used for the tree-dwelling kind of snake, the one with the harmful bite. That is to say, even if a culture previously had only one term for snake, the people in that culture could easily understand that there were, in fact, two kinds and would be able to change their language to mark that difference in their vocabulary for future reference. Their vocabulary would not limit their thinking to such a degree that they could not conceive of two different kinds of snake.
Rather than specific vocabulary words, researchers who study linguistic relativity have come to focus on larger abstract topics like space. In languages such as English, when people want to tell someone where a particular object is, they most frequently use language focused on their own bodies. English-speakers say, “You have a bit of arugula on the left side of your mouth” or “Grab the pink top hat on the shelf above you.” This way of talking relies on the human body as a point of reference and therefore is relative to the bodies of the speaker and/or hearer. This creates confusion when the speaker is facing the person they are talking to, sometimes prompting someone to say, “No, my left, not your left!” Steven Levinson has conducted research on languages that do not use the human body to talk about direction at all (2003). Instead, they use the cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) and specific features of their environments (mountains, oceans) to talk about where things are. A speaker of the Australian indigenous language of Guugu Yimithirr might say, “Watch out for the snake just north of your foot!” This way of talking about space is absolute, not relative. Such speakers never have to say “No, my north, not your north,” as there’s only one absolute north. Research suggests that these different ways of reckoning give us different kinds of mental maps, such that a Guugu Yimithirr speaker might be better at absolute navigation than an English speaker, and perhaps more adept at finding her way back home if she lost her way.
Linguistic Universals and Folk Taxonomies
While linguistic relativists explore how different linguistic patterns shape different thought patterns (and vice versa), other linguists are interested in how all languages are constrained by our common human biology and in finding universal linguistic patterns. There are specific domains of language that lend themselves particularly well to this kind of inquiry. One of them is color. The reason for this is that color relies directly on our human visual system, invariant across cultures.
And yet there is enormous diversity in the ways that different cultures divide up the spectrum of possible color. Some cultures have hundreds of color terms, while others have only two or three. Researchers Brent Berlin and Paul Kay analyzed the color term systems of 98 languages and found that the diversity of color term systems is governed by one set of rules. All of these color term systems are comprised of a few basic colors with specific colors added to the scheme over time (Kay 2015, Berlin and Kay 1969). The color schemes of all cultures are based on the distinction between black and white (or light and dark). If a culture has only two terms, those two terms will always be black and white. The next most important color is red. If a culture has three color terms, those terms will be black, white, and red. Next comes green and yellow, then blue, then brown, then purple, pink, orange, and gray, always in that order. Berlin and Kay suggested that these rules form a pattern for the way all languages develop over long periods of time. Although the scheme proposed by Berlin and Kay has been revised a little in the past 50 years, the basic tenets have held up pretty well (Haynie and Bowern 2016).
Video
Vox: The Surprising Pattern behind Color Names around the World
Oddly, though this finding lends very strong support to the notion of linguistic universals, the very same research has also been used to argue for linguistic relativity. Paul Kay later teamed up with another linguist, Willet Kempton, to consider how different color schemes might affect how people “see” color in the environment around them (1984). They presented people with color chips on the spectrum between true blue and true green. They asked subjects how they would group all the colors into two categories. People who spoke languages that had terms for both blue and green drew a more distinct boundary between the two colors than people who had just one word for both blue and green.
Clearly, relativity and universalism are both aspects of human language. Our common biology plays a role in how humans interact with the world, providing regularity to the way all languages categorize not only color but also plants, animals, weather, and other natural phenomena. Researchers who study the systems of categories people use to organize their knowledge of the world have a term for those cultural systems: folk taxonomies . The folk taxonomy for any area of human knowledge reflects both human biology and the surrounding environment and sociocultural practices. There are folk taxonomies for plants, animals, clouds, foods, and the cries of babies.
Folk taxonomies are not just vocabulary terms; they frequently structure any kind of distinction that is meaningful within a culture, even those that rely on simple qualifiers like “good” and “bad.” One example is death, surely invariant across cultures.  These notions reflect cultural beliefs and values—such as the American notion that a good death is a painless one. Among the Akan peoples of Ghana, a good death is the death of someone who has led a very long life, achieving all of the culturally valued accomplishments in life, such as getting married, having children, accumulating property, and providing support to friends and family members (Adinkra 2020). Imagine a very old great-grandmother surrounded by her many descendants as she lies in her bed, heaving one final breath as she drifts away peacefully into death. That is a good death. A bad death is tragic and violent, the sudden death of a person who has not had the chance to really live a full life. Think of a young person drowning or dying in a traffic accident. That is a very bad death. If someone has had a good death, that person is eligible to become an ancestor if the correct rituals are performed. The body must be washed, publicly mourned, and buried in a beautiful casket in a public cemetery, often with grave goods like tools and money to help the person in the afterlife. Ancestors are important, as they watch over their living relatives, possibly helping them out if called upon through libation or other ritual means. If someone has had a bad death, however, they may become an angry ghost, haunting family members with bad luck. The funeral rites of bad deaths are rushed, minimal, and private in order to avoid commemorating or communicating with the agitated spirit.
Categorization is central to our perceptions, thoughts, actions, and speech. The way humans categorize objects and experiences is limited by the way our brains and bodies work, resulting in linguistic universals like the developmental scheme of color terms. However, the complex meanings associated with cultural categories vary widely, resulting in a great deal of linguistic relativity. Linguistic relativism and universalism are often described as opposite positions, but in fact, they are both essential and complementary features of human language.
Meaning and Metaphor
How are you feeling today? Are you feeling up or feeling down ? If you’re feeling low , try doing something fun to lift your spirits . Take care of yourself so you don’t fall into a depression .
An old theory suggested that languages are primarily referential; that is, each language contains a set of vocabulary terms that correspond to elements in the natural world. According to this theory, language functions as a mirror of reality. We have seen in the last section, however, that different languages divide up the natural world in different ways, from the natural domains of color and plants to the human domains of life and death. Moreover, humans use language to talk about abstract issues like mood, social relationships, and communication itself. It is fairly easy to use our terms for spatial organization to talk about the location of concrete objects like arugula on somebody’s face. But what about more abstract issues? How do we talk about becoming friends with someone? How do we discuss an argument we’re making in a term paper? How do we talk about how we’re feeling today?
Mood is like color insofar as the human physiology of mood structures a set of near-universal basic categories including happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise. And yet, because mood occurs on a spectrum, it is divided up in different ways by different cultures. Consider “schadenfreude,” a German word combining the roots for “damage” and “joy.” Schadenfreude refers to taking pleasure in another’s misfortune. There is no equivalent word in English.
We don’t just use language to identify the emotions we’re feeling. We also talk about the process of developing an emotion, how one mood leads to another, and how we can prevent ourselves from feeling a certain way. These are mysterious and abstract processes. How do we do this? We use metaphor. A metaphor is a linguistic idiom where use what we know about something concrete to think and talk about something abstract . Cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue that metaphor is the primary way we create complex meaning in language (1980). In terms of mood, we use our concrete language of direction to talk about our abstract experience of mood. A positive mood is understood as up , while a negative mood is considered down. If you’re feeling really happy, you might say you’re on top of the world . If you’re really sad, you might say you’re down in the dumps . In fact, the word for prolonged sadness, depression , literally refers to a sunken place or the act of lowering something.
Metaphor is one of those things that you don’t notice until you start paying attention to it. And then you realize that it’s everywhere: in the way you think about time, number, life, love, physical fitness, work, leisure, sleep, and thought itself, just to name a few highly metaphorical topics. Just about any abstract area of experience is structured by metaphorical thinking. Here are three common metaphors in English, with examples.
LIFE IS A JOURNEY
He took the wrong path in life.
As you move ahead , you should follow your dreams.
When I left home, I came to a crossroads in life.
If you work hard, you’ll arrive at a sense of accomplishment later in life.
LOVE IS SWEET
She’s my sweetheart .
The newlyweds went on a honeymoon .
Sugar , would you pass the salt?
Our love was sweet , but then it went sour .
ARGUMENT IS COMBAT
The candidate launched a personal attack against her opponent.
His position on taxes is indefensible.
Armed with facts, she won the argument.
His criticism really hit the mark .
There are thousands and thousands of metaphors in English. Many abstract domains rely on a combination of various metaphors used to describe different aspects of the experience. You can think of love as sweet (as above) but also as a journey (as in “Will the couple go forward together, or will they go their separate ways ?”) or as combat (as in “He slew me with his come-hither glance”).
Metaphor is found in all human languages. Some specific metaphors, like the directional metaphors used to describe mood, are found in many, many cultures. A study by Esther Afreh (2018) found that the king of Asante (in Ghana) frequently uses metaphorical language in his public speeches, including such familiar ones as “life is a journey,” “life is a battle,” “ideas are food,” “knowing is seeing,” and “death is sleep.” Though the speeches were delivered in English, Afreh notes that these metaphors also exist in Akan, the local language of the Asante people. Alongside her analysis of the English-language speeches, she notes many proverbs and phrases in Akan that use the same metaphors.
As with our discussion of categorization in the last section, metaphor is both relative and universal. Lakoff and Johnson argue that our common human biology structures our experiences of things like emotion and life. When you’re feeling really sad, you might literally feel like lying down, and when you’re really happy, you might jump with joy. We may use the notion of a journey to structure our understanding of life, social relationships, and time in general because in our everyday life, we move forward in space to pursue objects and activities.
Sometimes the reasons for cross-cultural similarities are not so directly linked to human biology. English and Chinese have similar metaphorical systems for talking about moral issues. In both languages, the adjective meaning “high” is associated with things that are lofty, noble, or good, while the adjective “low” is used to describe things that are mean, contemptible, or evil (Yu 2016). Alternatively, it is also possible in both languages to describe moral behavior as “straight,” while immoral behavior can be termed “crooked.”
On the other hand (to deploy a useful metaphor), different cultures do rely on different metaphors to talk about some domains of experience, metaphors that emphasize certain aspects of those abstract topics. Consider the English notion that “time is money.” This is a metaphor, pure and simple, but many English speakers believe it to be absolutely true. You can spend time, waste time, save time, and invest time. So time does seem like money in capitalist cultures. But time is not literally money. Nor is time a journey or a horizontal line in space, though these are common ways of thinking about time in the English language. Time is just time, an abstract idea. Certainly Whorf did not find the Hopi talking about time as money. English speakers think of time in terms of money because they live in a society in which time is treated as money, a society that tends to monetize nearly everything, from land and labor to advice, attention, and even body parts like human sperm.


<IP_ADDRESS>: Time to Write
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If you’re a native speaker of English, most of the information in the Parts of Speech chapter comes pretty naturally for you, but all of us have trouble with some aspects of grammar and usage from time to time.
As you edit, you should not worry about every single part of speech or what its function is. Instead, you should consider any struggles you have in your writing, review those guidelines, and keep that in mind as you edit. For example, if you have trouble with pronoun agreement, you should review the section on pronouns before you edit, so the guidelines for correctness will be fresh in your mind.
It’s your turn now, and knowing more about correctness can help you as you edit your work and get it ready to submit to your professor.


9.3.4: Designing a 5K Course
Lesson
Let's map out the 5K course.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\): Make a Proposal
Your teacher will give you a map of the school grounds.
- On the map, draw in the path you measured earlier with your trundle wheel and label its length.
- Invent another route for a walking course and draw it on your map. Estimate the length of the course you drew.
- How many laps around your course must someone complete to walk 5 km?
Exercise \(\PageIndex{2}\): Measuring and Finalizing the Course
- Measure your proposed race course with your trundle wheel at least two times. Decide what distance you will report to the class.
- Revise your course, if needed.
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Create a visual display that includes:
- A map of your final course
- The starting and ending locations
- The number of laps needed to walk 5 km
- Any other information you think would be helpful to the race organizers
Are you ready for more?
The map your teacher gave you didn't include a scale. Create one.