HUBER, BRAD RICHARD; PHD

                         UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, 1985
 
                         ANTHROPOLOGY, CULTURAL (0326)
 

                         The primary contribution of this study is the development of a theoretical model accounting for the
                         reinterpretation of social institutions introduced into a different cultural tradition. The proposed model
                         successfully accounts for modifications made to household fiestas (e.g. weddings, baptisms, first
                         communions) adopted by residents of a Nahuat-speaking community of the Sierra Norte de Puebla. A
                         detailed ethnographic description of the research community is presented to provide a complete picture
                         of the socio-cultural setting in which these modifications have taken place. Standard taxonomic and free
                         description interviews are used to elicit folk classifications and attributes of household fiestas. Multivariate
                         analyses of these data support the following general model of rapid culture change: When a foreign
                         institution is initially introduced into a society, attributes of this institution which are consistent with
                         previously existing members of its class tend to be assimilated. Gaps in knowledge are filled in with
                         features imported from this institution's cognitive prototype. Once this cultural complex reaches a fairly
                         stable form, it is embellished with features distinctive to it. Over time, institutions initially borrowed from
                         another cultural tradition become increasingly more typical of the borrowing group's folk classification
                         system. Individuals with the least contact with people, ideas, and institutions originating outside their
                         social group are those most intimately involved in reinterpreting foreign cultural institutions. This study
                         has broad implications in a number of areas. The results of this study support the claim that semantic
                         change has its roots in synchronic heterogeneity of the speech community. In addition, this study
                         demonstrates that the internal structure of categories is related to yet another major dependent variable,
                         i.e., diachronic change. Finally, the proposed model should be of particular interest to social scientists
                         studying the processes of diffusion, innovation, and culture change.

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