Ch. 4 Language & Communication Flashcards
Linguistic Anthropologist
Keywords: What people ACTUALLY SAY
LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGISTS Study what people ACTUALLY say rather than what they SHOULD say.
- They study language in SOCIAL and CULTURAL contexts.
- They also explore the role of language in COLONIZATION and GLOBALIZATION.
- They can RECONSTRUCT ANCIENT LANGUAGES that result in NEW DISCOVERIES about history.
Sociolinguistics
Keywords: How LANGUAGE CHANGES with SOCIETY
SOCIOLINGUISTICS is the study of the RELATIONSHIP between SOCIAL and LINGUISTIC VARIATION as well as the study of LANGUAGE in its SOCIAL CONTEXT
- Deal with things like DIGLOSSIA and STYLE SHIFTS, PRESTIGE DIALECTS, R-PRONUNCIATION, and BLACK ENGLISH VERNACULAR (BEV)
- Asks: How different speakers use the same language? How do features of the language change with class, ethnicity, and gender?
- VARIATION WITHIN a LANGUAGE at a given time is Historical changes in progress as these changes have PRODUCED LARGE-SCALE LINGUISTIC CHANGE over the centuries.
- When new ways of speaking are associated with social factors, they are imitated and spread. This is HOW LANGUAGE CHANGES.
Linguistic Facts
- Men are more likely to speak UNgrammaticaly than women. Men also tend to REPORT and ESTABLISH their place in a HIERARCHY.
- WOMEN use words that have been ASSOCIATED with their TRADITIONAL LESSER POWER in society. Women are also more likely to use speech to DEVELOP a RAPPORT.
- Language (Written or spoken) has existed for about 6,000 years.
- Language is based on ARBITRARY, LEARNED associations between words and the things they stand for.
- Human Language differs from other animals’ communication systems in that it allows us to discuss the PAST and the FUTURE.
Call Systems (Primate Communication)
Though ONLY HUMANS SPEAK, other PRIMATES (monkeys and apes) have a NATURAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM named the CALL SYSTEM.
- These CALL SYSTEMS consist of a limited NUMBER of SOUNDS – CALLS – that are PRODUCED ONLY when PARTICULAR ENVIRONMENTAL STIMULI are encountered.
- CALLS are uttered ONLY WHEN the stimulus is PRESENT.
- Ex: They have a CALL for FOOD and a CALL for DANGER, but they do NOT PUT CALLS TOGETHER to form anything like a sentance.
Primate Communication (Nonhuman)
Nonhuman Primates can use CALL SYSTEMS, but nothing approaching the complexity of HUMAN LANGUAGE.
- Apes simply do NOT have the physical VOCAL TRACT necessary for SPEECH.
- One APE (Vicki) was taught to speak 4 words “Mama, Papa, Up, and Cup”
APES HAVE, however, been TAUGHT SIGN LANGUAGE.
- Washo, a Chimpanzee who learned ASL (American Sign Language), REVOLUTIONIZED the discussion of the language-learning abilities of apes.
- Washoe learned more than 100 signs (representing English words) and was able to structure simple sentances like “You, me, go, out, Hurry”.
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Lucy was another Chimp to learn ASL.
- Both Washo and Lucy began exhibiting human traits once they learned ASL, joking, swearing, telling lies, and trying to teach ASL to others.
- Kanzi, a Bonobo, learned to communicate with symbols (called LEXIGRAMS). When Kanzi was just 8, his trainer said he could communicate at the level of a human 2-year-old.
- Koko the Gorilla, however, outshines them all – by a lot. Koko’s vocabulary surpasses that of any chimp. She regularly employs 400 ASL signs and has used about 700 at least once (UPDATE: Koko now know 1,000 ASL signs).
Cultural Transmission
CULTURAL TRANSMISSION refers to the handing down (teaching/learning) of cultural traditions using language.
- CULTURAL TRANSMISSION is a FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTE of LANGUAGE.
Productivity
Keywords: “Baboonlet” and “DrinkFruit”
PRODUCTIVITY is the ABILITY to USE the RULES of one’s LANGUAGE to CREATE NEW EXPRESSIONS comprehensible to other speakers,
- This is a BASIC FEATURE of LANGUAGE.
- BOTH APES and HUMANS have this ability.
- Ex: Making up a word like “Baboonlet” (Using the suffix -let, designating the young of a species) to refer to a baboon infant would be understood by most English speakers.
- The Chimp, Lucy, did this – combining two signs creating the word “Drinkfruit” for watermelon.
Displacement
DISPLACEMENT is a linguistic capacity that ALLOWS HUMANS to talk about things and events that are NOT PRESENT (In space or time).
- This does NOT EXIST in nonhuman CALL SYSTEMS.
- HOWEVER, Koko the gorilla has shown that NONhuman Primates DO HAVE The CAPACITY for DISPLACEMENT.
Pidgins & Creole
PIDGIN is a MIXED LANGUAGE that develops to ease communication between members of different cultures in contact.
- Forms in situations of ACCULTURATION.
Over Generations of use, the Pidgins grow in sophistication and new generations learn it as their NATIVE LANGUAGE, EVOLVING the simple Pidgin INTO a SOPHISTICATED CREOLE.
- So a CREOLE is the more sophisticated EVOLUTION of the Pidgin with developed SYNTAX.
Universal Grammar
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR (Noam Chomsky 1957) is the idea that the HUMAN BRAIN contains a LIMITED SET of RULES for ORGANIZING LANGUAGE so that all languages have a commons structural basis.
- The FACT that people can learn foreign languages and that words and ideas translate from one language to another SUPPORTS THAT POSITION.
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS says that DIFFERNET LANGUAGES actually PRODUCE DIFFFERENT WAYS of THINKING.
- GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES of particular languages lead their speakers to think about thing in different ways.
- Ex: English looks at things in terms of PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE. The HOPI language looks at things in terms of EXIST/DOESN’T EXIST and things that DON’T or DON’T YET (Which refers to both FUTURE events as well as imaginary/hypothetical events).
- This makes HOPI speakers think about time and reality in different ways.
- They don’t see the need to distinguish between present and past, both of which are real, just that one no longer EXISTS, while the other does.
Lexicon
LEXICON is simply the VOCABULARY – a language’s DICTIONARY.
- A Language’s Lexicon (or Vocabulary) is the part that changes the most – almost continuously in large societies.
- Names for things get simpler as they become more common Ex: Television becomes TV)
Focal Vocabulary
FOCAL VOCABULARY is a SET of WORDS and DISTINCTIONS that are particularly IMPORTANT to CERTAIN GROUPS (Those with a particular focus of experience).
- Ex: Eskimos (The Inuit) have 5 words for snow – each showing a DISTINCTION for a DIFFERENT TYPE of SNOW. English has only one word for snow (requiring further words to differentiate – fluffy, wet, heavy, icy, etc.). But for the Inuit, differentiating between types of snow might mean life or death to their livelihood.
Semantics
SEMANTICS refer to a language’s MEANING SYSTEM.
- Most words have different meanings, but some words have NUANCED differences in MEANING.
- Ex: “destination” and “last stop” technically mean the same thing, but students of semantics analyze their subtle shades of meaning.
Diglossia and Style Shifts
STYLE SHIFTS refer to VARYING YOUR SPEECH in DIFFERENT SOCIAL contexts.
DIGLOSSIA refers to REGULARLY SHIFTING between HIGH and LOW variants of a language.
- NOTE that both HIGH and LOW variants (Dialects) are EQUALLY EFFECTIVE as systems of communication.
- This often (but not always) shows up in the shift from FORMAL to INFORMAL language depending on our SOCIAL SETTING.
