Week 2: Linguistic Anthropology Flashcards
Linguistic Anthropology
- The study of patterns of language use in social and cultural contexts
- Explains why we can learn new languages and translate from one language to another
- Highlights variety within and between languages
Language and Adaption
- Culture, Language, and adaptation
Adaptation
Refers to a natural process organisms undergo to achieve a beneficial adjustment to an available environment AND the results of that process
Anthropological Linguistics
- Descriptive or Structural - - Linguistics
- Historical linguistics
- Relationship between - language and culture
- Socio-Linguistics
- Gender
- Discourse
Openness
- Create new languages
- Create new words within a language
- Create new concepts
- Utter messages never heard before and be understood
- Words such as meme, woke, selfie, screenshot, party
- New words or words that have changed meaning
Displacement
- Can talk about absent or non-existent objects
- Can talk about past or future events
- Non-human primates do not appear to be able to do this
Arbitrariness
- The is no necessary link between a particular sound in a language and a particular meaning
Ex: “Table” is no more necessary a string of sounds to describe what we mean by table than is “mesa”
Duality of Patterning
- Phonology (Sounds)
- Morphology (units of meaning)
- Syntax (sentence)
- Semantics
- Pragmatics (use)
Semanticity
- Linguistic signals are associated with aspects of the physical, cultural, and social world of speakers
- Some words have comitations
Prevarication
- We can tell lies, write poetry, form scientific hypotheses
- Example: “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.”
- Using language to manipulate
Structural or Descriptive Linguistics
- Phonetics
- Phonemics
- Morphemes
- Syntax
- Semantics
- Pragmatics
Ethnolinguistics
- Linguistic relativity principle (Sapir and Whorf)
- Cultural models
- Code switching
Linguistic relativity principle (Sapir and Whorf)
Explored the relationship between language and culture
Cultural models
Shape the metaphors we use to think about the world
Code switching
Moving between speech communities or language registers
Non-verbal Communication
- Paralanguage - Voice qualities and vocalization
- Non-verbal communication - Space, movements, touch
- Marcel Mauss - habitus
- Etiquette, bowing, how you eat, sit, walk etc
Signed Languages
- Deaf communities are distinct culture
- More than 200 signed languages in the world plus dialects
Language Use in the Digital Age
- Electronically mediated communication
- Fingered speech
- Change in vocab and rules
Whorf-Sapir hypothesis
Language shapes the way we see the world
Ex: Study of colour, gender specific vs. gender neutral language, basically says that the lingerie we speak shapes the worlds
Language Loss
Genocide, Colonialism, Merging languages, Deliberate language suppression
Language Revitalization
- Reject English loanwords
- Revitalizing at-risk languages through school
- Online and visibility
Body ritual among the nacirema
Note the use of language
