Language and culture final Flashcards
Theoretical principles:
Looks for universal principles, it focuses on form and structure, and it works to develop universal, generalizable rules and are not concerned with the effects of social cultural and linguistic behavior
Comparative linguistic perspective:
we can trace how a language was developed based on how people lived
*Ferdinande de Saussure:
ather of linguistics, argument was that if you want to study a language, you need to bring the language in a separate setting, and a separate language from other languages - study the language isolated, by itself
Language:
the language system in the abstract
Parole
everyday speech
Noam Chomsky
- Competence: The abstract and usually unconscious knowledge that one has about the rules of language
- Performance: the putting into practice of the rules
- However - for the purpose of this class the above section is wrong
- We like these two:
(Katherina Clark and Michael Holquist) Words are socially charged lives… (Alessandro Duranti) language is …not only a mode of thinking….but a form of social action (Language always takes place in a social action - anthropological view, must consider the context in which language takes place)
Anthropology is:
1) field based, 2) holistic (the four concentrations, bio, ling, arch, and culture, and 3) comparative
*Comparing:
the diversity of what it is to be human and the potential underlying patterns that link us as a species
-Cultural relativity
words and language are culturally bound, we cannot generalize
(Boas idea) Field-Work:
spending time in another cultural system is the best (and possibly the only) way of gaining an insider’s understanding of that system
Article: Color, do you see what I see?
- Universalists: people see and name color in a similar way
- Relativists: who believe in a spectrum of experience and who are often offended by the very notion that Westerner’s sense of color might be imposed on the interpretation of other cultures and languages
- Article: the sound of language:
*Metaphor:
s understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another and the concepts that govern our though are not just matters of the intellect. They are govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details
- We don’t just talk using metaphors, but also at by them
- Human language, thought, and activity are large metaphorical
Perception
response and ignores different types of stimuli
Categorise
filter out the unimportant
Relativism
understanding each culture for their own definition of color (concept from the article about colour
Language use with Guugu Yimithirr & Kuuk Thaayorree,
that it does not matter where in the world you are because you look for north, south, east, and west, geographical language, not egocentric
Environmental determinism
*Steven Pinker: argues that geographical features shapes ones language, and the language is merely a reflection of geography
*Linguistic reality, 3 ideas
- 1) Languages are different
- There is no underlying commonality
- 2) They are arbitrary systems
- There are no reasons behind how things were created, no relationship with the material things
*3) Knowing one language does not allow you to predict how another language will categorize and name the world
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
never published, but it is commonly known in combination between
*Strong Sapir
his is not testable, but argues that Language is a prison, fundamentally different, it is impossible to understand
*Weaker Whorf:
language is a room, open the door and you can understand the person with another language
-As such, language is more predispositional rather than determinative since you can understand a situation without word-by-word explanation. Therefore, language does not completely determine but it does affect the predispositional understanding of our previous cognition
Language Thought Cognition
are multidirectional, they all influence each other
Hypocognition
lack of ideas that you need for talking or thinking about something
*Phonology
the study of sound systems in language
-Tip to remember: this is the only one of the words that we need to know (except morphology) with the letter “L,” this “L” is for the “L”anguage
Phonology is divided
into Phonetics and Phonemics
-Phonetics:
The study of classification of speech and sound, raw ingredients
-Phonemics:
To analyse how ways that sound are arranged, how the ingredients are cooked
-People inside of a culture
tend to think about their language in terms of Phonemics, while outsiders tend to think in terms of Phonetics
Morphology
the analysis of words and how they are structured
-Tip to remember: “morph” - something is morphing/something is being structured
Morpheme:
smallest unit of meaning of a language, which has roots & stems
-Roots:
can’t be broken down any further (example “fish”)
-Stems:
can have additional affixes attached to them (example “fish-es”)
*Syntax:
the study of the structure of sentences
*Semantics:
The study of meaning in languages
-Tip to remember: “man” is close to “m(e)an,” which is for the meaning of languages
*Pragmatics:
the study of language use
Tip to remember: “Pra” stands for “Pra”ctice, how language is being used in practical ways
Phone:
which is the smallest unit of sound in a language
*Phoneme:
a speech sound that distinguishes one word from another
Utterance:
a succession of phones that make up a stretch of speech
Phonetic chart:
is used to understand every language in the world
Allophones
different languages have different allophones, different ways of pronouncing phones
Emic:
culture can be described from insider’s perspective
Etic:
can be described from an outsider’s perspective
Allomorph:
is a variant form of morpheme
Prefixes:
attaches to the front of a word
Suffixes
attached to the back of the word
Infixes:
attaches in the middle of the word, abso - bloody - lutely
Circumfixes:
attaches both at the beginning and at the end, en-light-en
*Reduplication
added quality, easy-piecy
Portmanteau
combination of two words, hangry
*Syntaxes:
-Grammatical genders: gives gender to certain words, “mother earth”
- Substitution frames: can substitute words, but it still makes sense
- Case: based on its position in a sentence, it talks about how words are being structured (need clarification)
Perspective:
provides a “proper” order of how to speak
Descriptive:
describes a language structure on its own terms
*Generative:
generates all possible sentences of a language, “deep structure”
*Chomsky:
All humans learn to speak
-Without being taught in schools, eventually all humans learn to speak
-Speed of acquisition
By age 7 all children have basic language proficiency
Critical-age hypothesis
Talks about the critical age from when you are more receptive to learn a language, for example age 2-3
Poverty of stimulus
Even though children are raised in a mono-linguistic culture, and the amount of stimulus is limited, children still have the potential to learn the full length of another language from their environment
Universal Grammar
a certain set of structural rules are innate in humans that works independent from sensory systems
Broca’s area:
is linked to speech production and grammar, and if you have this part damaged you can struggle with understanding grammar
Wernicke’s Area:
linked to speech, grammar makes sense, but the meaning does not
Charles F. Hocket
Talks about the design features of language
-On the list of features of languages, all animals can communicate with feature between 1-9, but humans are the only animal that can also communicate from 10-13
Semiotics
study of signs
Paralinguistic:
are the aspects of spoken communication that do not involve words. These may add emphasis or shades of meaning to what people say. Some definitions limit this to verbal communication that is not words.
-Prosody:
Studies how something is said rather than what is being said, by looking at voice qualities (loudness of tone, pitch, speed, rhythm, vocal modifications) and vocal segregates: uhm-mmh, mhmh, aha
Ideophones
words that represents sounds like: kapow, pow, kablam, bam, and slurp
Speech substitutes:
For example whistling and drumming
Silence:
or just by being silent as we see in the article about the Apache (final exam question, see the end of this document)
- Times when Apache are silent:
1. Meeting strangers, 2.Courting, 3.Children coming home, 4.Getting cussed out (crazy), and 5.Being with people who are sad
Proxemics:
The study of cultural patterns and spatial separation that individuals maintain in face-to-face interactions, which is tied to history, politics, and culture
Kinesics
The study of body movements and facial expressions
Kinemes:
meaningful unit of visual expression
Gestures
Iconics: types of gestures
iconically describing what is being described verbally, for example, Thumbs up
Metaphorics: types of gestures
representation of more abstract things concepts
Deictics: types of gestures
pointing or indexing
Beats: types of gestures
for example snapping your fingers
Oculesics:
study of eye movement
The functions of eye contact are:
- Regulating interactions
- Monitoring interactions
- Conveying information
- Establishing interpersonal connections
Five key methodological principles of cross cultural comparative interaction studies:
1) Ecologically valid,
2) ethnographically enriched,
3) Empirically grounded,
4) Multi-modal, and 5) Comparable
Cross cultural comparisons and multimodality
- Conversational structure: response times, turn taking of when to speak differs, and there are cues for when to speak
- Turn taking: not simply by spoken elements, but complex model of moves, such as: lip movement & eyebrow flash
- Repair: dealing with problems when speaking, interjection’s intonation might be falling or rising when you speak: “huuuuuuh?” (rising at the end)
Nonverbal communication:
Nonverbal communication is usually accompanying verbal communication
- Can substitute verbal communication
- Can contradict verbal communication
- Can complement verbal communication
- Can accent verbal communication
- Can regulate verbal communication
Multilingualism
Pathological view of multilingualism: is that if they speak more than one language the people must suffer from a biological illness (old mentality), Nazi view on bilingual jews
Loyalty
speaking more languages than English is a sign that they are not loyal to the nation
Class of consciousness:
when code switching and having multiple languages that must be a sign of schizophrenia
The probability of the third-generation
speakers are speaking a language outside English is higher when:
1) Endogamy, a second generational bilingual person marries another second generational person bilingual person and
2) Community, that they reside in a community that speaks another language than English
Diglossia
two languages ( or two varieties) are used under different conditions by a singe language community.
L Low “vernacular” language
H high “ official” language
Triglossia:
The coexistence of three closely related native languages or dialects among a certain population.
Triglossia in most African countries
The official language
LWC (a Language of Wider Communication), usually a former colonial language
Administration and national communication
The (regional) Lingua Franca
a common language between speakers whose native languages are different
Inter-ethnic communication and integration
Local language
For intra-ethnic communication and solidarity
most African languages belong to the category of deprived languages, not being used for important social functions
Lingua Franca/ Ethonoglossia:
the expressive power of language it commutative strength determined by the number of functions it performs
Register
linguistic repertoire that is associated with particular social practices and with persons who engage in such practices
Language switch
Heteroglossia: the multiplicity of social tinged ways of speaking in any given society
Code switching : use of two or more languages varieties in the same speech even or exchange.
indexicality : The process of creating a link between semioc form, indexing identity, occurrence in context.
Code mixing (fused lects): shiting that occurs in mid sentence or even mid word
Article: They speak really bad english down south and in new york
Higher-status groups impose their behaviors (including language) on others, claiming theirs are the standard ones.
The standard variety is selected through purely social processes and has not one with more logic, historical consistency, communicative expressivity, or internal complexity or systematicity than any other variety.
Modernist Assumptions about language
Language as a stable entity with clear boundaries, with a historically continuous relationship to its speakers
Idiolect -
An individual’s speech variety
Voice identity – one’s idiosyncratic combination of voice quality (timbre), pronunciation, grammatical usage, and choice of words
Style -
The distinctive manner in which people express themselves in a particular situation
Lexical, phonological, morphological, and syntactic
Dialect
A form of language/speech used by members of a regional, ethnic, or social group
Dialects that are mutually intelligible belong to the same language
E.g. familect
Regional dialect
No inherent feature makes a language variety “standard”
Most applaud one’s own language variety; sometimes denigrate that of others
“Standard” is a stylistic/dialectic variety of speech is used on formal occasions, and carries social prestige
Great divide assumptions
Literate vs. oral ( illiterate) Prehistory vs. history civilized vs primitive Scientific vs mythological Logical vs. prelogical
Problems of the autonomous model-ignoring structural contexts
Women’s low literacy rate caused poor health of their children?
India’s health management in the 1970s ignored the role of structural poverty
Problems of the autonomous model-ignoring local meanings of literacy
The UNESCO program in the 1960s oriented functional literacy campaign
“Literacy ≈ functional
“traditional” mentality to “modern” mentality
Literacy events
Written language is integral to communications and their interpretive processes and strategies
Literacy practices
Not specific, observable occurrences, but general norms, routines, habits regarding how written texts tend to be produced, interpreted, or discussed
Literacy and nationalism
The autonomous model The development of mass literacy gave rise to the modern nation state
The arrival of Islam and Christianity has a negative impact in the literacy rates, particularly among women
Gender issues in literacy
generally in the Third World countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America
Fewer girls go to schools than boys
They remain shorter time in schools than boys
Anthropological studies on literacy
Hispanic women in Los Angeles seen “illiterate” by the men in their lives
practice theory – an anthropological approach Pierre Bourdieu
Language as an instrument of action and power
Habitus – predispositions/habits shaped by social structures
Symbolic capital The amount of prestige a person holds acting within a certain set of social structures
What literacy actually means
Which literacies are developed in which contexts
How oral and written languages are related
Performance
Entextualization – Performers mark their speech with devices such as repetition, rhyme, changes in vocal quality, and the use of certain expressions (proverbs, parables)
Intersubjectivity
Everyday talk proceeds on a turn-by-turn basis, and interactions are built up incrementally, sequentially, and interactionally
failed humor
Multivocality (heteroglossia)
Metacommunication-
Communication that indicates how verbal information should be interpreted; s
Multivocality
Keith Basso’s (1979) case of Western Apache’s joke imitating behavior that they attribute to white American culture and consider rude and offensive
Epitomization
portraying one’s characters so as to make them appear ludicrous and ridiculous
Superiority theory
Both the maker of the joke and the audience simultaneously consider themselves superior to the butt of the joke. (subversive force)
Inferiority theoy
Joke intimacy – displaying mutual humanity helps achieve humor
Play theory
Jokes are fictions that allow people to mentally inhabit imaginary worlds
Relief theory
A mental shift occurs from a tricky puzzle to silly confusion, so to laugh to vent the energy
Incongruity theory
Humor lies in the incongruity found in the joke, the funny picture, in the imitation, etc.
Cleverness theory
In the joke world, people do something that demonstrates a cognitive virtue
Digital media
Don’t dictate behavior Allow a person with 4 affordances Modularity Modifiability Archivability Accessibility
Social Media
Sites and services that allow participants to create and share their own content, including social network sites, video sharing sites, blogging and microblogging platforms Multimodality Reappropriation Resonance Collectivism Spread
Why social media?- Entertainment and sociality
Shrinking social landscape (parental regulations, less free time, limited geographic freedom, etc.
New opportunities to participate in public life, not with a completely new identity but with various personas
Networked Public: The imagined community that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice
Persistence: the durability of online expressions and content;
Visibility:the potential audience who can bear witness;
spreadability : the ease with which content can be shared,
searchability : the ability to find content
