Language and Anthropology Flashcards
Definition of Human Language Universals
A system of communication using sounds put together in meaningful ways according to certain rules
What are the Multimedia Potential in which all languages use to communicate?
Spoken
Signed
Touch
Written
Smell
What are differences between languages?
Languages differ in the sounds they use (Phonology)
Languages differ in their (morphology), As in the rules used to make words (prefixes, suffixes, plurals, etc)
All languages use syntax rules to create infinite number of sentences (Productivity/creativity)
All languages are able to communicate about objects, ideas, people, things that are remote in space and time (Displacement)
What is Morphology in language?
They differ in the morphology, I.e. rules used to make words (prefixes, suffixes, plurals, etc…).
What is the Phonology of a language?
Languages differ in the sounds they use (Phonology)
What is displacement in Language?
All languages are able to communicate about objects, ideas, people and things that are remote in space and time (displacement)
What is arbitrariness/conventionality in language?
All Languages rely on arbitrary symbols agreed upon (arbitrariness/conventionality).
What is syntax in language?
They differ in the rules used to make sentences (syntax).
Examples of differences in Syntax in language
SVO “cows eat grass” English; Finnish
VSO “eat cows grass” Welsh; Samoan
OVS “grass eat cows” Hixkaryana
What is Paralanguage in Language?
Extralinguistic noises that accompany language (grunts, moans. Pitch, pauses, etc….).
What are Proxemics in language?
The study of how people structure the space around them when interacting with others
What does Historical Linguistics study?
Why does language change?
How are languages related to eachother?
What were ancestral languages like?
How long ago have languages seperated?
Why does language change?
Due to outside influence
Simplicity to reach out to more of the population
How are languages related to eachother?
The more similar two languages are, the more likely they have a common origin
Ethnic Languages split off into new ones as populations divide and migrate into their own societies
What were ancestral languages like?
Trick Question, Impossible to know especially if there are no populations to speak it
What are the two language families and what are they?
Non Indo-European
Indo-European
not one of the group of European and Asian languages that are spoken in most of Europe and in parts of Asia and that include English, French, Greek, Russian, and Hindi, or not speaking one of these languages: The most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in Europe is Hungarian.
What are sociolinguistics? And provide an example
The study of the use of language and how it reflects the social setting in which it is used
Example: How we speak around friends vs at an interview
-Age, gender, class, ethnicity all influence the use of language
What is the Reflexivity of Language?
Language can give us information about the culture of a people
Vocabulary can tell us what is important to a culture
Syntax can tell us about values and worldviews
What is Language Relativity?
The belief that interpretations of reality are influenced by the language one speaks
