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See you soon. Hello, hello, dear listeners and welcome to IELTS speaking part 3, Mmm Culture.
Rory don't you have any questions about culture?
I do. I'm reading a book about human culture at the moment, so this should be fun to talk about.
Yeah, Rory is an educated native speaker, okay?
Allegedly. How is culture formed?
Oh god, that's a big question.
I suppose it's a top down and bottom up thing really.
I mean the people that make up the culture contribute ideas to make sense of the world and the biggest, most successful ones feed back down to help them make decisions.
I make it sound so simple but it's probably actually a very messy process.
What kind of culture is popular among young people?
Well, usually it's portrayed as new or subversive since young people crave novelty and like to challenge boundaries.
You can see it with things like phones which come out on an annual basis or some TV shows which are produced as if they break some kind of boundary or taboo.
Whether or not that's true is immaterial but it's at least part of the reason why these decisions are made.
How do young people learn about different cultures?
Probably just by being alive in the world.
It's hard to go anywhere these days without bumping into or coming across something or someone that's different to you in some way, shape or form.
Aside from that, they're probably told things about other people and places and ways of living at school and I'm assuming they must be told by other adults as they go through life it would be difficult to imagine otherwise.
Which is more important in terms of culture, literature or music?
By and large it's probably music.
You can see or hear that demonstrated in the number of famous singers and bands compared to the number of well -known authors.
Someone like Kylie Minogue has an almost global audience whereas most authors are isolated to genre communities.
Moreover, music has almost primordial quality to it.
People have been making noise for millions of years whereas writing is a relatively new invention.
So it makes sense that its impact has been more limited in scope.
Does the culture of the past have an impact on today's culture?
Well, it has to when you think about it.
Things don't just appear from nowhere even in the case of things like a counterculture.
It's usually a rebellion against the established cultural norms.
So you need to have that foundation as a sort of launch pad almost for anything new to happen.
How does the internet affect culture?
Probably in well as many ways as there are people although it's not clear how you would measure that.
In 2011 there was this wave of revolutions and protest movements that kicked off partially as a result of coordination on the internet and it also serves as a place to create and transmit memes of all descriptions all over the place.
So the ways that it can influence culture if not just outright create it are easy to see or should be easy to see.
And what about the future?
How do you think culture will change in the future?
I think that depends on where we're talking about.
I mean, culture will change everywhere in the future because everywhere is changing all the time.
But how? I don't know.
And if we think about how it could happen there when it comes to culture there are centrifugal forces and centripetal forces.
One of these acts to bind the culture together and the other acts to do the opposite of that.
And one is about order and the other one is about control.
So you'll probably find that one of these things dominates more than another.
But where that will happen will vary based on what the culture is like at the time.
And do you think more people will be interested in their own culture, in the culture of their own country in the future?
It's hard to say with any accuracy because it will depend on the strength of the national spirit.
Lots of people think we're moving in the direction of having lots of supranational entities where the power of the nation is sort of devolved to these bodies like the European Union or the Organization of American States.
So if that happens then it might be a sign that people are becoming less interested.
And it seems to be moving in that direction in lots of places.
But in other places it's not.
You have lots of breakaway countries with very strong national identities.
So it depends again on the context.
Thank you Rory for your cultured answers.
No worries. Rory you do know a lot of things about culture.
Yes it's almost like I studied this at university.
I know look at you.
So it's because you read a lot.
So you just read books.
Or like where do you take all these ideas from Rory?
Well when we talk about national culture I mean I just studied politics at university.
And then when we talk about the future of culture well that's something people are making and shaping all the time.
So it's just observation really.
Yeah dear listener.
Just observation you see.
But you can get ideas about culture from articles.
You can read articles in your native language.
If you can read in English it's better to read about culture in English.
And if you are not into culture unfortunately questions in IELTS are about culture.
And also some essays might be about culture.
So yeah art, culture, music, architecture sorry.
Do some reading. I always think it's really funny when people complain that IELTS is difficult.
Because of course you need all of this background knowledge.
And it's like yes in order to have the same level of language as an educated native speaker you need to work very hard.
I mean I had to work hard too.
Even though I'm a native speaker.
True. I imagine the same is also true of you Maria.
Oh yeah like reading a lot.
Listening to different podcasts.
Reading lots of sample answers and sample essays.
Oh yeah. Yeah and also it's about reading in your mother tongue.
Like in Russian I listen to audiobooks.
I read the news. I read different you know blogs about technology.
I sometimes go to different conferences you know.
And I listen to smart people who read a lot more than me.
I steal their ideas.
So yeah do listen. This is it.
You don't skill you become inspired by them.
So the first question is crazy.
How is culture formed?
Like what? Well quite.
Oh yeah. And Rory gave us some scientific answers.
A top down bottom up thing.
I have like to listen.
Don't worry about it okay.
What's difficult about that?
Bottom up is just individual elements coming together and top down is the result of that and how it feeds back into the process.
And why is it top down?
Why is it bottom? What is bottom?
What is down? The bottom up part of cultural formation will be the individual people that make up a group.
Okay and so you have this group but they must have something in common or some shared ideas about the world or they must be expressing this.
So what happens is all of this comes out and it's almost like a battle of survival or survival of the fittest ideas and the strongest ideas win and they dominate how the decision making process happens for the people in the group.
So for example the formation of religion could be about people believing a higher power but then there's this big discussion about what the higher power is and how it acts in the world and the ideas that become the strongest in this filter back down to control how people behave or how the religion operates
in society. Oh my god, how are you doing?
Are you okay? Well we could also use it to talk about food.
Would you like to talk about food?
Would that be easier?
Yes please. Okay what's a really popular kind of food?
Pizza. Okay what kind of topping?
Ah topping okay margarita cheese and tomato margarita.
Right okay so all of the people in let's say pizzas from Italy for the sake of argument all the people in Italy were like experimenting with different kinds of pizza doing their own thing because this is not centrally controlled.
But what happens is one pizza recipe becomes more popular than all of the others this margarita pizza and it catches on and more people start buying into this idea of margarita pizza and until this is one of like the main things that people go to when they think about pizza.
So the bottom up process is all of the people experimenting and the top down one is this is a super successful idea and it comes back down into the culture and people it's a popular thing for them.
Does that make it clearer?
Yeah much clearer. Thank you Rory.
Well look at Rory wow.
I should say this is these are really simple examples obviously how culture is formed is not just the people in the group it's also outside the group and it's not just people creating things there's also violence involved things like this so it's just messy still.
Yeah and if the examiner asks you what is culture you just say how long is a piece of string?
What no culture is really easy to explain culture is the thing that people use in order to understand how the world works.
Okay yeah and if you don't know the answer to the question well the question is very abstract very broad very difficult and it's very difficult to give the answer you just respond how long is a piece of string?
This means that I have no idea nobody knows it's very difficult.
I know. Young people and their culture.
Young people crave novelty.
Novelty new things crave they want new things in their lives like give me new things so I can say young people crave novelty they challenge boundaries boundaries limits so they don't like limits they are free and they enjoy crazy cultures.
Well I mean it's just something that young people do they don't want to understand where the boundaries are and so the best way of finding that out is to test where they are.
This is why they're um why young people have such unusual behavior compared to fully grown adults.
And then you can say that um you can see it in how they use their phones so in new models or phones which come out models or phones come out they appear and also tv shows which are produced for young people.
And also when we talk about kinds of culture you can say pop culture or different sub cultures so kind of like youth culture different sub cultures.
What's a subculture can I get an example?
For example ghosts, skaters.
Subcultures are so cool.
Yeah do listen so you can just google what subcultures are popular in your country.
But there's lots to choose from there are ones based around music or fashion sometimes a combination of the two and then there are subcultures that revolve around individuals like the people who follow Taylor Swift or called Swifties.
That's a subculture that's pretty cool.
Also do listener like gamers so people who are into video games so they have their subcultures like gamers or players.
Maria has discovered other cultures this is amazing.
People learn about different cultures how from books from just being alive okay from being alive in the world and as we live our life we bump into different things and people so bump into to see something unexpectedly or you come across something new some painting or graffiti or some clothes right and this is how
you discover different cultures.
And also we are told things about other people and places.
We have different types of culture like literature, music they are all different like types.
What other types do we have?
What artistic culture, fashion maybe its own culture or it may be a subculture of art it depends on who you talk to.
There's also vernacular culture which is quite fun and high in contrast to that there's a high culture as well.
What? Vernacular culture or low culture is the culture of the common people of a country whereas the high culture is something connected to the elite.
Wow! So in my country things like the carry -on films which is like a kind of comedy film released before the 90s and after the 1940s is considered a feature of the vernacular culture because it's about common people and what they find funny.
But an example of high culture might be the poems of certain well just of poetry in general to be honest it's usually higher classes of people that made poems before the last century.
And a listener culture could be material something like tv, radio, different products and non -material culture.
Beliefs, values, languages, music, literature.
Yeah, language could be a part of culture as well.
Oh it definitely is it's a part of subcultures as well.
Lots of subcultures have their own ways of talking to each other.
I love this topic. So here literature or music Rory says it's probably music and Rory has written several books and he still thinks music is more important than literature.
Interesting. Well if it's been around longer.
Okay and we have a lot of singers and bands, bands like music groups, compared to the number of well -known authors.
There must be more, there have to be more singers and bands.
Music has been around for millions of years longer than writing.
And then you can give an example.
For example Kylie Minogue, for example Madonna, for example I don't know the Beatles has a global audience so pretty much all over the world everybody knows who Madonna is, who the Beatles were, whether they want to know who Madonna is or not.
And music has an almost primordial quality.
What is this primordial?
Oh it's to do with well I'm using it to connect to not the beginning of time but like way way back in time, the time when like human beings were emerging, when things were emerging and starting.
Yeah primordial means existing at or since the beginning of the world.
Yeah it could also be used to refer to like the first stages of something.
So here I'm not talking about the world I'm talking about music and human beings.
Yeah so when people appeared music was with them right away, something like that.
And people have been making noise for millions of years.
Present perfect continuous people have always been making music or making noises which then became music.
Writing is a relatively new invention but dear listener you may disagree with Rory.
You may be incorrect, yes this is true.
The past has an impact on today's culture.
The past influences our today's culture.
It does, it's inevitable or inescapable.
Yeah and you said like counterculture.
A counterculture is like subculture.
Well it could be. A counterculture is more about resistance to the existing culture.
So what happens is you have the dominant culture and the counterculture provides an alternative to that.
So I'm trying to think of a good example.
Hippies, hippies. Well yes exactly.
Hippies are an example of a counterculture because well I imagine hippies have the view that the dominant culture promotes violence and competition and is not harmonious whereas they would promote harmony and community over those other values.
As they see it just because one culture sees things a certain way does not mean that we must accept that the definition of the world.
So the past serves as a foundation okay or lays the foundation for our today's culture.
The internet affects culture and we can talk about cyber culture or we can call it a digital culture.
Oh wow. Cyber culture dear listener.
The social conditions brought about by the widespread use of computer networks for coming unique ish.
So our lives are influenced by cyber culture.
We're doing it right now.
Yeah and it's a new culture form by the way.
Oh yeah for sure. So it's the internet did influence culture.
Cyber culture emerged, appeared.
People started creating different memes and you know like memes are considered to be art.
Perhaps they are part of our culture already.
Well that's one conception memes yes but memes are like an essential element of any culture or any kind of system or way of living that's passed from one person to another despite it could be by imitating it or by having it in your thoughts.
Here Rory told us about 2011 there was that wave of revolutions.
So back in 2011 there were protest movements against the internet.
Well not against the internet they were aided by the internet.
Oh so the internet helped to organize certain revolutions and protest movements.
Yeah well it was used this way I don't know if the internet helped actively in that.
Yeah you can say that today we have internet culture cyber culture or internet culture.
So online communities people meet online people create online paintings right so they are kind of from photos are all online they can actually create clothes for you online and this is going to be your online image your online clothes not like not physical clothes but kind of your online image it's
crazy it's cool yeah we can say about like online games blogs chat rooms all these like internet memes micro blogs online videos like social networks virtual worlds right virtual reality glasses I can't go to this museum I would just like have a virtual tour or I want to rent this flat I'm gonna see
a 3d virtual tour so you can talk about things like this cancel culture oh there you go yeah when you get cancelled thank heavens that's never going to happen to us no no no we're super neutral cancel culture do you listen so yeah this is something that you should talk about about what kinds of culture
is popular among young people cancel culture a cultural phenomenon in which an individual thought to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner is just cancelled so if you say something wrong about other people or other countries you can get cancelled and like nobody buys your products everybody
burns your books kind of yeah they cancel you and it could be pretty bad it's just off is serial listener crazy it is a crazy world it's cool though but hopefully you've been able to learn a lot about how culture is formed and the various words that help us understand it yeah thank you very much for listening
if you are not into culture make sure you read about culture in your mother tongue okay the listener if you're not into culture find me on instagram send me a message about a question about culture and and i will help you with it sweet bye how is culture formed oh god that's a big question i suppose
it's top down and bottom up thing really i mean the people that make up the culture contribute ideas to make sense of the world and the biggest most successful ones feed back down to help them make decisions i make it sound so simple but it's probably actually a very messy process what kind of culture
is popular among young people well usually it's portrayed as new or subversive since young people crave novelty and like to challenge boundaries you can see it with things like phones which come out on an annual basis or some tv shows which are produced as if they break some kind of boundary or taboo
whether or not that's true is immaterial but um it's at least part of the reason why these decisions are made how do young people learn about different cultures probably despite being alive in the world it's hard to go anywhere these days without bumping into or coming across something or someone that's
different to you in some way shape or form aside from that um they're probably told things about other people and places and ways of living at school and i'm assuming they must be told by other adults as they go through life it would be difficult to imagine otherwise which is more important in terms
of culture literature or music well by and large is probably music i mean you can see or hear that demonstrated in the number of famous singers and bands compared to the number of well -known authors is someone like kylee minow but has an almost global audience whereas most authors are isolated to their
genre communities and moreover music it kind of has this almost primordial quality to it people have been making noise for millions of years whereas writing is a relatively new invention so it makes sense that its impact has been more limited in scope does the culture of the past have an impact on today's
culture well it has to when you think about it the things don't just appear from nowhere even in the case of things like a counterculture it's usually rebellion against the established cultural norms so you need to have that foundation as a sort of launch pad almost for anything new to happen how does
the internet affect culture probably in well as many ways as there are people although it's not clear how you would measure that in 2011 there was this wave of revolutions and protest movements that kicked off partially as a result of coordination on the internet and it also serves as a place to create
and transmit memes of all descriptions all over the place so the ways that it can influence culture if not just outright create it are easy to see or should be easy to see and what about the future how do you think culture will change in the future i think that depends on where we're talking about i
mean culture will change everywhere in the future because everywhere is changing all the time but how i don't know and if you think about how it could happen there when it comes to culture there are centrifugal forces and centripetal forces one of these acts to bind the culture together and the other
acts to do the opposite of that and one is about order and the other one is about control so you'll probably find that one of these things dominates more than another but where that will happen will vary based on what the culture is like at the time and do you think more people will be interested in their
own culture in the culture of their own country in the future it's hard to say with any accuracy because it will depend on the strength of the national spirit lots of people think we're moving in the direction of having lots of supranational entities where the power of the nation is sort of um devolved
to these bodies like the european union or the organization of american states so if that happens then and it might be a sign that people are becoming less interested and it seems to be moving in that direction in lots of places but in other places it's not you have lots of breakaway countries with very
strong national identities so it depends again on the context
