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28 Cards in this Set
- Front
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Explain what an oikotype is. Give two examples. |
A variant in a story that reflects the culture or place or time that it came from; a version of a story that has taken on the story with the features of a place that makes it sound like the story is from that place Example A) Cinderella in china--(small feet!) Example B) The hitchhikers story and changing it to fit the mormon culture (3 nephites, end of the world, food storage).
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Explain FOAF, PEN, and “validating formula.” What do these concepts have to do with urban legends? |
FOAF – Friend of a Friend Story; when we tell FOAF stories we leave off the extensions so that it seems closer than it really is PEN – Personal Experience Narrative - most stories the teller is not a character of the story, but in PENs the teller of the story is the main character in the story; when people retell them, they change over time, they use validating formulas; PENs are not legends Validating formula- adding details to make it more credible. Mentioning authority figures such as police officers, giving specific quotes from people, or dates and times. Sometimes saying others were involved; just because they’re using a validating formula doesn’t mean that it isn’t true |
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What does “traditionality” mean as a feature of folklore? Where does it rank from most to least significant? |
Passes on from one generation to the next. Usually means it has happened more than once. First on the list, Most important.
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Why are jokes classified as part of the folktale genre in the BYU folklore archive—rather than legend or something else? |
They are understood by both the teller and listener to be untrue. You are not trying to convince them that the joke is true, you are just trying to make them laugh so it falls more into the category of folk tale. |
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Who are “the folk?” How is this different than the concept of a “folk group” as described by Allan Dundes? Why did folklorists switch from talking about “the folk” to talking about folk groups? |
“The Folk” refers to the agricultural group of people that lived in the countryside before the industrial revolution. “The Folk” is more historic than current, now we use the term “folk groups.” A folk group is any group of people that share at least one thing in common.
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In the story passing exercise (or telephone game) we did in class, what things changed and what things stayed the same about the stories and why? Think of Elanor Long’s storyteller types, cultural content, structure, familiarity, and generic structure. |
The general outline, format, and structure of the joke stayed the same. The details were changed. The Pope was changed to the current Pope, the third person was changed completely, but President Hinckley stayed the same. The other story had no rythym or repetition, and names that we didn't recognize, so it almost changed completely. Elanor Long said that there are four types of people. 1. Persivators- They feel that they must tell the story as accurately as possible; tradition bearer; when they have a story or an item of folklore, they don’t see it as their own and can’t change anything, and they’ll pass it on as faithfully as they can 2. Integrators- they try to get the general idea right but do not worry if they do not remember all the details. They will fill in the gaps; they’re telling the essential structure of the story, (doesn’t matter if the sandwich is ham or turkey); if they can’t remember what it was, they just change it 3. Recreatators- feel free to change the story. They make new forms of the same story using the same general structure. They help create new forms of folklore; they look at stories as a grab bag to completely change up - they might make up their own stories 4. Confabulators- they make new stories and folklore out of totally new cloth. They do not follow the general structure and just make some giant totally different; completely make up stories with no tradition or reference -- Prof. Eliason feels that this kind of person is impossible -- everything references something else * You need both traditional and creative personalities with telling folklore and passing it on |
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Explain Richard Dorson’s concept of “fakelore.” What does this have to do with Paul Bunyan and 1960s “folk musicians” like Bob Dylan? |
Fakelore is something that people often mistake for folklore, but which doesn’t have solid folklore roots. Examples include Paul Bunyan, who was actually created and distributed via pamphlets; he was never a part of an oral american tradition but was produced as short stories that were told as if they came from folklore. Never told as oral folklore, but presented as if it had been. Is often part of pop culture rather than folklore. Bob Dylan claims to be playing “folk” music, but actually is playing his own original music with a “folksy sound”, using instruments that can be considered folksy or melodies or story lines that are folksy, but he isn’t performing a particular folk group’s music or telling their stories--he’s just an artist.
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What is an urban legend and why might “contemporary folktale” be a better term for this oral narrative genre—especially to people (like yourself) who have been exposed to folkloristic concepts. |
Story told and accepted as true in a contemporary, modern setting; unlike other legends, seems very recent, and they deal frequently with fears and poetic justice - Urban distinguishes from the view that legends were told in the countrysides only, but they are actually told everywhere. The time period setting is the very recent past, kind of overlaps with gossip. - They also are not typically legends (larger-than-life events or explaining the origin of things, which are very typical of legends). |
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Would Saba lace be folk art or outsider art? Explain your answer by defining the difference between folk art or outsider art. |
Saba lace = folk art. Community of people are doing them, NOT just one individual genius creating the art pieces. The lone individual genius is a standout feature of outsider art, this lace is a group of individuals and community and sharing the designs, they help each other, they meet together every Thursday night. However, it can be argued that it is outsider art, because it is a very small group of people who learned some lacework from somebody else, then innovated and modified it, trying to fit the stylings of “the original” group while not being formally trained by them. When it began, I feel it was more clearly outsider art, and over time has developed into folk art. |
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Explain the difference between emic and etic approaches to ethnography. Review some advantages and disadvantages of each. |
etic: an etic approach would be trying to describe a certain people using a vocabulary that other people who weren’t studying the same group would understand (using normal terms, not terms local to the group) emic: follows closely the language that the cultural group uses within themselves; local/native terms
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What are William Bascom’s four functions of folklore? |
1) Education 2) Reinforcement (Like when a general authority tells stories in general conference, or in the scriptures) 3) Social control - The idea is that through sharing stories, you don’t only educate or reinforce an idea, but you induce a way to act or not to act. 4) release value: our society may have certain constraints so folklore serves as a way to do what we can't do (insult other people, perfect comebacks, etc) (Why J Golden Kimball was so popular with Mormons) |
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What is a minstrel show? What does it have to do with the history of banjos? |
Groups of whites dressing up as blacks and playing music in ways that they perceived blacks dressed and played. It was usually quite unflattering. Blacks brought the banjo--a stringed instrument with the strings drawn over a drum--and so they were featured in minstrel shows quite often. As blacks continued to distance themselves from the instrument (and the insulting stereotypes it created), it became more and more a white man’s instrument, until it has gained the reputation it currently has. |
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Give examples of how ethnic Germans influenced both Cowboy and Cajun music? |
Accordions come from German immigrant cowboys; influenced zydeco conjunto and Tejano music Yodeling influenced cowboy music |
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Explain Elliott Oring’s concept of “appropriate incongruity” as an explanation for how jokes work. What are two features jokes must have to work? How do two common ways jokes fail demonstrate this? |
In any joke you know on an unconscious level that you’re going to get two things: (I know this is a joke and I know this isn’t real, but somehow I don’t understand it right now, but I will, and it will either be satisfying and it will be funny, or it wont be funny) they bring things in that have nothing to do together, but somehow at the end of the joke it comes together; has to be a certain amount of shared knowledge; rules of jokes: you have to be “one of them” to make a joke about a certain group/type of people/person (black people, jocks, blondes, etc.); esoteric and exoteric. |
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What is the difference between “intergenerational” and “kid-to-kid” lore? For the latter, be ready to give an example of folklore about the future and explain why kids have it, and give some examples of children’s’ customary folk law and punishments. |
Intergenerational- From parent to children (Lullabys, bedtime stories, toothfairy, santa claus, easter bunny) -Kid-to-kid- Folklore that emerges from solely amongst kids. They are capable of most types of folklore themselves. (Children's Law- They have many ways of policing things and punishing bad behavior, Who is it in tag? Eenie meenie, "not it", Kids who lie have songs sung to them "liar liar pants on fire", Pinky swears, Dibs) |
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What is meta-folklore? Give some examples. At least one must be one we did not talk about in class. |
Meta folklore is folklore that references the fact that it is folklore, or folklore about folklore. Examples include: the movie Robin Hood Men in Tights; “a priest, a nun, and a mormon walk into the bar and the bartender says “what is this, some kind of joke”?” —mentions the genre inside itself.
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What is ostention and how does this relate to the idea of a “legend trip.” |
Ostention: refer to moments in oral communication when, instead of using words, people substitute actions, such as putting a finger on your lips to indicate that someone should be quiet; It is usually accompanied with a gesture pointing out the object Legend Trip: an adolescent practice (containing elements of a rite of passage) in which a usually furtive nocturnal pilgrimage is made to a site which is alleged to have been the scene of some tragic, horrific, and possibly supernatural event or haunting. |
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Give the two definitions of ethnography, and relate this to ethnocentrism, salvage ethnography, and cultural relativism. |
1. A genre where one writes about a people. 2. The study of people. * Cultural relativism is the opposite of ethnocentrism--all cultures have intrinsic value, and almost never is there one “right” way to do it. |
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When folklorists say that one of the features of folklore is that it is “variable” what does this mean and what does it say about the possibility of finding the “correct” or “original” version of a story? |
Folklore, just like organisms, evolves, is subjected to selective pressures, and can occur in different forms. Folklore is alive! Folklore can vary in time, space, and culture. Often, we do not know the origin of the story, or the original author, so there is not really an “original” version of a story, because it is always changing, and it’s hard to tell what came first! If folklore only has one version, if often fades, as people no longer argue or care about it. |
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Explain ethnobotany, the “cultural placebo effect,” and why “folk belief” is a better term than superstition but still has some problems. |
Cultural placebo effect - when someone believes that something will help them and then it actually does. It is one thing when an individual believes, but much more powerful when the community believes. Ex: witch doctor in Nigeria telling the one brother that he is allergic to chicken and will die if he eats it. The other brother slips chicken into his food for the next few months with no problem, until he reveals his secret to the allergic brother and then he dies after that.
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J. Golden Kimball stories might be considered to perform a release-valve function in Mormon culture. Explain. |
He was the "cussing apostle" (because of his farm life background) - He was completely himself and had a gift of whit - mormons live vicariously through him because he says what they feel they could never say. |
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Different types of Three Nephite stories have been more common among Mormons at certain times during the twentieth century. Give some examples of the kinds of stories popular in certain decades and discuss the possible relationships between the prevalence of certain story types and historical events of this century. |
Story Motifs: 1) A person has a problem or is posed with a challenge 2) A Nephite appears unbeknown and helps solve the problem 3) The Nephite disappears
1930’s- wandering stranger looking for food (great depression-everybody was hungry) 1950’s- Vanishing hitchhiker stories(Cold war, Highway system expanded so more hitchhikers) 1980’s-Sister missionary protection stories (First time numbers of sisters began to grow, crime rise in Utah: Ted Bundy) 1993- End of the world, stock up on food storage (President Clinton elected to office) |
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What is a “performer-hero?” How is this different from a regular folk-hero? Use examples from Mormon and western folk heroes to show who is and who is not one. |
performer hero: he realized that the great salt lake wasn’t a part of the ocean coming in, but went around it, and found out that it was a lake; he was the originator of his own legends folk heros: do what we all wish we could do: we like seeing the victorious over enemies one groups folk hero is another folk groups folk villain |
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Define and differentiate between “life cycle,” “folklife,” and “legend cycle.” |
Life cycle - the idea that people change and develop as they grow. As they live, their life isn't the same as they lived (stages) and the different stages are often marked by ceremonies. Folklore tends to accumulate at these ceremonies (rites of passage, marriage ceremonies, etc). Folklife: also includes the study of belief systems, including folk religion,folk medicine, and popular beliefs. |
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In the 1970s, the field of folklore underwent some comprehensive shifts. Explain how folklore was and how it changed as “performance-centered theory” gained ascendancy. Use changes over the years of collection assignment forms as an example. |
Performance centered theory in approaching folklore in the late 60s and 70s - overemphasized concepts that were milked for all they were worth-so they need to come up with new ideas of how to think about it |
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Ethnography and ethnopoetics are both terms with two common definitions. Define them both for each term. |
ethnopoetics: when we speak, you don’t see the question mark, but you can hear it (with a raised voice) there’s a lot of things in writing that you can’t see when you’re acting it out - it’s hard to describe actions on paper - they made ALL CAPS when spoken words were loud ethnography: the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures. |
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What does “naturally occurring context” mean? How is it relevant to your collection assignment? What is a student-proven way to induce it? |
The setting in which the story telling/ folk lore sharing is told in. -folklorist starts something in order to collect some lore (Ex: telling a joke that way a natural round of joke-telling gets started) Naturally Occurring: connected in its natural occurring environment, its connected to events; doesn’t show up randomly. |
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What are genetics, syntactics, semantics, and contextics? |
These are all different methods/approaches to studying folklore that have been used before or may be in use now! Genetics - where things came from, and what their origins are. Folklorists attempt to trace stories back to the “original” version. Unfortunately, this can lead to bias and opinion based on culture, and these questions are often unanswerable. This used to be used, but is not common anymore. Synactics - Questions about morphology of the folklore. Examines motifs, what order the building blocks of the story come in, etc…. Semantics - What the story actually means Contextics - (context): not just looking at the text of the story (or the pattern of the quilt) but what is the context of the quilt or story? who is the story teller? How old are they? what folk groups are they a part of? |
