Specific Questions Flashcards
Name, explain, and give examples of the components of the linguistic sign.
- Signifier and signified
- Signifier = physical form of sign (experienced through 5 senses); EG: sound /tri/, written word “tree”, drawing of tree
- Signified = Concept/idea that is signified; EG: idea of tree in our minds
What is the concept of semiotics?
Signs are never in isolation and always belong to particular systems
Name and explain the properties of signs.
- Arbitrary = link between signifier and signified is conventional and depends on socio-cultural rules; EG: gender in Romance languages
- Relational = always related to other signs (relational axes)
Explain the relational axes of signs.
- Syntagmatic = when a sign is in a particular slot, the second sign must occupy another specific and adjacent slot
- Paradigmatic = signs are defined by their relationship to each other and not by intrinsic qualities
Name, explain, and give examples of the 3 kinds of signs.
- Icon = connects sign and object through similarity; EG: realistic image or map
- Symbol = connects sign and object through general convention; EG: morse code and smoke signals
- Index = connects sign and object through spatio-temporal continuity; EG: knock on door or smell of food
What are indexical signs and expressions?
- Signs point to or indicate some state of affairs
- Expressions associated with different referents on different occasions; need context to be understood
What are the kinds of indexical signs (AKA deixis)?
- Personal = whoever is speaking
- Temporal = when the words are being spoken
- Spatial = when speaking is taking place
What is Agar’s definition of culture? Include its 3 characteristics.
An ensemble of beliefs, values, norms, signs, and practices that is learned, shared, and disputed
What are the 8 components of culture?
Beliefs, values, norms, partiality, plurality, relatedness, pattern, and evolution
What is the best way to study culture? Why?
- Learning a language
- Because it helps us dig up many basic patterns of culture (EG: gender differences in Romance languages)
What is linguistic determinism?
It presents language as a causative process that determines one’s perception and understanding of the world.
What were the problems with Whorf’s research?
- Poor fieldwork data
- Interviewed only 1 Hopi man living in NYC
- Interacted with people of Hopiland, NYC in English
- No hypothesis to test
What is linguistic relativism?
Language…
- Correlative guide to the world
- Shapes different kinds of observations and lays down comfortable pathways of cognition
- Shapes habitual understanding
- Consists of specific cognitive processes (knowing, thinking, talking, acting)
What does skin symbolize to the Kayapo people?
- Physical skin = separates individual from external environment (boundary between 2 levels of human personality: presocial drives from biological constitution and moral or intellectual conscience from cultural principles)
- Social skin = socialization of the human body; culturally standardized patterns
Why are bodily adornments so important to Kayapo people?
- Symbolic language that communicates info about social status, sex, age, etc.
- Establishes communication channel within individuals between social and biological aspects of personhood
- Expresses heightened integration and participation in social order
- Shows individual biological and psychological powers
