Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society
Encyclopedia
Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society is a book written by the Welsh
Marxist academic Raymond Williams
, and published in 1976 by Croom Helm.
Originally intended to be published along with the author's 1958 work Culture and Society
, this work examines the history of more than a hundred words that are familiar and yet confusing: Art
; Bureaucracy
; Culture
; Educated; Management
; Masses; Nature
; Originality
; Radical
; Society
; Welfare; Work; and many others.
The approach is cultural rather than etymological
. Sometimes the origins of a word cast light on its meaning, but often one finds that it originally meant something quite different. Or that there has been a fierce political struggle over the 'correct' meaning.
A revised and expanded edition of Keywords was published by Fontana
in 1983. In 2005 Blackwell published New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society
, an attempt to update Williams' text.
Williams then goes on to map the treatment that the word has undergone (in Latin and French), along with the range of meanings it has been a host to, until it got passed on to English. "The primary meaning was then in husbandry, the tending of natural growth." This then explains the metaphoric meaning (a noun of process) it undertook when "the tending of natural growth was extended to the process of human development". This, along with the meaning in husbandry, was the main sense until 1C18 and eC19.
Williams points out that this sense developed crucially towards a "degree of habituation" being added to the metaphor as well as "an extension of particular processes to a general process, which the word could abstractly carry". It is from here that the independent noun 'culture' began its complicated modern history with its complicated latencies of meaning.
Williams refers to a letter from 1730 (Bishop of Killala to Mrs. Clayton) which he cites from John H. Plumb's England in the Eighteenth Century as one of the earliest recorded references of 'culture' in English appearing as an independent noun, an abstract process or the product of such a process. He then quotes Mark Akenside
(1744), William Wordsworth
(1805) and Jane Austen
(1816) on their uses of the word 'culture' to make clear the fact that "culture was developing in English towards some of its modern senses before the decisive effects of a new social and intellectual movement".
Williams then looks at the developments in other languages, especially in German, to follow the development of 'culture' in English. German borrowed the word from French, Cultur and later spelt Kultur, its main use synonymous to 'cultivation': first in the abstract sense of a general process of becoming 'civilized or cultivated'; second in the sense which had already been established for civilization
by the historians of the Enlightenment as a description of the secular process of human development. Then Johann Gottfried von Herder, according to Williams, in his unfinished Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1784—91), brought about a decisive change of use in the word where he challenged the universal histories' assumption that civilization or culture - the historical self development of humanity - was a unilinear process; an assumption that led to the "high and dominant point of C18 European Culture" and thereby attacking that very dominant claim to a superior culture. Taking up from Herder, "cultures in the plural" were looked at; to speak of "cultures of the plural: the specific and variable cultures of different nations and periods, but also the specific and variable cultures of social and economic groups within a nation." This sense of culture was widely developed in the Romantic movement as an alternative to the orthodox and dominant 'civilization'. And from here, the new concept of 'folk-culture' emerged, emphasizing national and traditional cultures. this sense of culture was primarily a response to the emergence of the "mechanical character of the new civilization", and was used to distinguish between "human and material development".
However, the 1840s in Germany saw Kultur being used very much in the sense of civilization as used in the C18 universal histories. Williams uses G F Klemms' Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte de Menschheit - 'General Cultural History of Mankind' (1843–52) - to show this use of Kultur in the sense of tracing human development from savagery through domestication to freedom.
These various treatments of 'culture' contribute to its modern usage and complexity. There is then the literal continuity of physical process as used in say 'sugar-beet culture' or 'germ culture'. Beyond this physical reference, Williams recognises three broad categories of usage:
"(i) The independent and abstract noun which describes a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development, from C18.
(ii) The independent noun, whether used generally or specifically, which indicates a particular way of life, whether of a people, aperiod, a group, or humanity in general, from Herder and Klemm.
(iii)the independent and abstract noun which describes the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity."
The third category, a relatively late category according to Williams, seems to lend itself to the widespread usage of 'culture
' to be music, literature, painting and sculpture, theatre and film.
The complex and still active history of the word, along with the complex senses, "indicates a complex argument about the relations between general human development and a particular way of life, and between both and the works and the practices of art and intelligence". Embedded within the complex argument are also the opposed as well as overlapping positions, thereby further complicating the argument. Rather than trying to reduce the complexity of usage, Williams advocates that "The complexity, that is to say, is not finally in the word but in the problems which its variations of use significantly indicate".
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
Marxist academic Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams
Raymond Henry Williams was a Welsh academic, novelist and critic. He was an influential figure within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the mass media and literature are a significant contribution to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts...
, and published in 1976 by Croom Helm.
Originally intended to be published along with the author's 1958 work Culture and Society
Culture and Society
Culture and Society is a book published in 1958 by Welsh leftist writer Raymond Williams, exploring how the notion of culture developed in the West, especially Great Britain, from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries....
, this work examines the history of more than a hundred words that are familiar and yet confusing: Art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
; Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
; Culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
; Educated; Management
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
; Masses; Nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
; Originality
Originality
Originality is the aspect of created or invented works by as being new or novel, and thus can be distinguished from reproductions, clones, forgeries, or derivative works....
; Radical
Radicalization
Radicalization is the process in which an individual changes from passiveness or activism to become more revolutionary, militant or extremist. Radicalization is often associated with youth, adversity, alienation, social exclusion, poverty, or the perception of injustice to self or others.-...
; Society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
; Welfare; Work; and many others.
The approach is cultural rather than etymological
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
. Sometimes the origins of a word cast light on its meaning, but often one finds that it originally meant something quite different. Or that there has been a fierce political struggle over the 'correct' meaning.
A revised and expanded edition of Keywords was published by Fontana
Fontana
-Places:*Fontana, Chaco, a settlement in San Fernando Department in Chaco Province, Argentina*Fontana, Cape Verde, a settlement in the island of Sal, Cape Verde*Fontana, Gozo, on Gozo Island, Republic of Malta*Fontana , a neighborhood of Belgrade, Serbia...
in 1983. In 2005 Blackwell published New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society
New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society
New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society is a book edited by Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg and Meaghan Morris and published in 2005 by Blackwell Publishing. It is an attempt to revise Raymond Williams' seminal 1976 text, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society....
, an attempt to update Williams' text.
Excerpts from Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society
In his essay on CULTURE within Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Williams begins by tracing the origin and development of the word. For him, it is one of the most complicated words in the English language not just due to its intricate historical development but mainly due to its relevance and undisputable impact in other systems of thought.Williams then goes on to map the treatment that the word has undergone (in Latin and French), along with the range of meanings it has been a host to, until it got passed on to English. "The primary meaning was then in husbandry, the tending of natural growth." This then explains the metaphoric meaning (a noun of process) it undertook when "the tending of natural growth was extended to the process of human development". This, along with the meaning in husbandry, was the main sense until 1C18 and eC19.
Williams points out that this sense developed crucially towards a "degree of habituation" being added to the metaphor as well as "an extension of particular processes to a general process, which the word could abstractly carry". It is from here that the independent noun 'culture' began its complicated modern history with its complicated latencies of meaning.
Williams refers to a letter from 1730 (Bishop of Killala to Mrs. Clayton) which he cites from John H. Plumb's England in the Eighteenth Century as one of the earliest recorded references of 'culture' in English appearing as an independent noun, an abstract process or the product of such a process. He then quotes Mark Akenside
Mark Akenside
Mark Akenside was an English poet and physician.Akenside was born at Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the son of a butcher. He was slightly lame all his life from a wound he received as a child from his father's cleaver...
(1744), William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
(1805) and Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
(1816) on their uses of the word 'culture' to make clear the fact that "culture was developing in English towards some of its modern senses before the decisive effects of a new social and intellectual movement".
Williams then looks at the developments in other languages, especially in German, to follow the development of 'culture' in English. German borrowed the word from French, Cultur and later spelt Kultur, its main use synonymous to 'cultivation': first in the abstract sense of a general process of becoming 'civilized or cultivated'; second in the sense which had already been established for civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
by the historians of the Enlightenment as a description of the secular process of human development. Then Johann Gottfried von Herder, according to Williams, in his unfinished Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1784—91), brought about a decisive change of use in the word where he challenged the universal histories' assumption that civilization or culture - the historical self development of humanity - was a unilinear process; an assumption that led to the "high and dominant point of C18 European Culture" and thereby attacking that very dominant claim to a superior culture. Taking up from Herder, "cultures in the plural" were looked at; to speak of "cultures of the plural: the specific and variable cultures of different nations and periods, but also the specific and variable cultures of social and economic groups within a nation." This sense of culture was widely developed in the Romantic movement as an alternative to the orthodox and dominant 'civilization'. And from here, the new concept of 'folk-culture' emerged, emphasizing national and traditional cultures. this sense of culture was primarily a response to the emergence of the "mechanical character of the new civilization", and was used to distinguish between "human and material development".
However, the 1840s in Germany saw Kultur being used very much in the sense of civilization as used in the C18 universal histories. Williams uses G F Klemms' Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte de Menschheit - 'General Cultural History of Mankind' (1843–52) - to show this use of Kultur in the sense of tracing human development from savagery through domestication to freedom.
These various treatments of 'culture' contribute to its modern usage and complexity. There is then the literal continuity of physical process as used in say 'sugar-beet culture' or 'germ culture'. Beyond this physical reference, Williams recognises three broad categories of usage:
"(i) The independent and abstract noun which describes a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development, from C18.
(ii) The independent noun, whether used generally or specifically, which indicates a particular way of life, whether of a people, aperiod, a group, or humanity in general, from Herder and Klemm.
(iii)the independent and abstract noun which describes the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity."
The third category, a relatively late category according to Williams, seems to lend itself to the widespread usage of 'culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
' to be music, literature, painting and sculpture, theatre and film.
The complex and still active history of the word, along with the complex senses, "indicates a complex argument about the relations between general human development and a particular way of life, and between both and the works and the practices of art and intelligence". Embedded within the complex argument are also the opposed as well as overlapping positions, thereby further complicating the argument. Rather than trying to reduce the complexity of usage, Williams advocates that "The complexity, that is to say, is not finally in the word but in the problems which its variations of use significantly indicate".