ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE

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ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE

• Linguistic Anthropology
• reconstructing ancient languages by comparing to
  contemporary descendants-historical linguistics
• how universal features of all languages says
  something about the human brain
• how language differences reflect world view
• how speech reflects social relations

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Language is a System of Symbols

• symbols are objects, events, speech sounds,
  written forms, gestures, which humans attach
  meaning
• Symbols operate in changing fields of social
  relationships
• symbols are multivocal -- enables a wide range of
  groups individuals to relate to the same symbol
  in a variety of ways

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LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY

• Descriptive Linguistics or FORMAL LINGUISTICS
• study language as a formal system of rules
• a set of rules that can be studied apart from its
  context
• Historical Linguistics
• Ethnolinguistics

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Language in its Social Cultural Settings

• Does language influence the perception of reality
  and cultural behavior?
• Does language reflect reality in a culture?
• Or, is it both?

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LINGUISTIC RELATIVISM and DETERMINISM

• Edward Sapir/Benjamin Lee Whorf the
  Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
• language culture intrinsically linked
• "language is a guide to social reality... it
  powerfully conditions all our thinking about
  social problems and processes."

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Language and Thought

• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
• Language predisposes people to see the world in a
  certain way guiding behavior
• Language reflects reality
• Rich vocabulary reflects a cultural focus

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GRAMMAR AND CONSCIOUSNESS

• linguistic conditioning of behavior linguistic
  determinism
• language is not simply a way of voicing ideas,
  but the very thing which shapes those ideas

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Lexicon and Focal Vocabulary

• lexicon a vocabulary a dictionary of terms
• focal vocabulary -- specialized set of terms
  distinctions that are particularly important to a
  certain group
• tell us something about world view, historical
  events, ideas, influences, perceptions important
  to a particular group
• Inuit terms for snow skiers terms for snow

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Ethnolinguistics/Ethnoscience/Ethnosemantics

• the new ethnography (1960s)
• emics and etics
• maps of a lexicon and its focal vocabularies
• method of studying parts (domains) of a culture
  primarily on the basis of how they are lexically
  encoded by native speakers

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SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND ETHNOGRAPHY OF COMMUNICATION

• Trace connections among linguistic and social
  variables
• speech the way people use a language
• Linguistic features as markers of class divisions
  in society
• Languages in contact

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Sociolinguistics

• Sociolinguistics - the study of the relationships
  between a language system (langue) and speaking
  (parole) in a social and cultural context
• Study of the structure and use of language as it
  relates to its social setting

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Ethnography of Communication

• the descriptive study of the use of language,
  deeply embedded in its cultural context (Dell
  Hymes)

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The acronym SPEAKING

• S setting and scene
• P participants
• E ends the desired or expected outcome
• A Act how form and content are delivered
• K key mood or spirit (serious, ironic, etc.)
• I instrumentalities the dialect or language
  variety
• N norms speaking conventions
• G genres different types of performance
  (speech, joke, sermon, etc.)

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Paralinguistic Features

• Body language and extralinguistic noises
• At least 90 of emotional information in English
  is transmitted by body language and tone of
  voice

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Kinesics

• System of notating and analyzing postures, facial
  expressions, and body motions that convey messages

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Social Dialects

• Forms of a language
• Reflecting regions or social classes
• Similar enough to be mutually intelligible
• Social dialects (or sociolects) are language
  varieties that are correlated not so much with
  geographic as with social space
• Examples black English, Spanglish, inner city
  Boston, Newfie

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Regional/Geographic Dialects

• Define people by where they live
• southern dialect
• newfie

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Language and Gender

• Linguistic features as markers of social
  divisions in society
• North American society
• Men and Women use English differently
• Language reflects traditional gender inequality

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Are Women More Polite than Men? N. America

• Women typically use more polite speech
• Characterized by a high frequency of honorific
  and softening devices such as hedges and
  questions
• act like a lady respect those around you
• Boys and men the masculine voice

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Languages in Contact

• Diglossia
• Bilingualism
• Pidgins and creoles

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DIGLOSSIA

• Speech communities in which two or more varieties
  of the same language are used by some speakers
  under different conditions
• Classic Arabic of the Koran and diversified local
  forms of Arabic
• Java Javanese and Bahasa Indonesia

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BILINGUALISM

• native-like control of two languages
• A gradient
• Degrees or stages of bilingualism based on
  performance the ability to understand and
  produce meaningful utterances in the second
  language

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Pidgin Languages

• a pidgin is a lingua franca that comes into use
  in situations where a group of individuals with
  no language in common find a need to communicate
• a minimal language
• a mixed language, bulk of vocab usually from the
  language of the dominant power
• many pidgins are short-lived

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Creole Languages

• a creole a pidgin that remains in use and is
  expanded to serve the whole range of functions
  necessary to a speech community over the course
  of two or more generations
• Reflects hybrid origins

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SPEECH EVENTS

• how individuals behave with speech in a specific,
  culturally defined situation

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LINGUISTIC CODES AND SPEECH COMMUNITIES

• Speech communities a real social unit within
  which speakers share a repertoire of ways of
  speaking
• may include one or several languages
• Members of such communities engage in verbal
  interaction that is not randomly alternating
  between distinct LINGUISTIC CODES but choose
  systematically among them and put them to
  specialized uses

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CODE SWITCHING

• Crystal (1987) suggests that code, or language,
  switching occurs when an individual who is
  bilingual alternates between two languages during
  his/her speech with another bilingual person

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WHY CODE SWITCH?

• a speaker may not be able to express him/herself
  in one language so switches to the other to
  compensate for the deficiency
• switching commonly occurs when an individual
  wishes to express solidarity with a particular
  social group
• to create a special effect

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CODE SWITCHING AS METACOMMUNICATION

• Code switching is an indirect form of social
  commentary
• code switching is a linguistic device for FRAMING
  verbal messages
• it is a fine-grained technique for identifying
  stretches of talk as particular kinds of doings
  that are intended to accomplish particular kinds
  of work

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Language Registers

• A variety of language that serves a particular
  social situation
• Monolingual code switching styles of speaking
• The vernacular, the standard, the honorific
• Specifically defined varieties scientific,
  legal, religious, intimate, etc.

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LANGUAGE SHIFTS

• the social meaning communicated by language
  shifts
• reflexive statements about social structure

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Language, Nationalism, Ethnicity

• Linguistic nationalism attempt by ethnic
  minorities and even countries to proclaim
  independence by purging their languages of
  foreign terms or reviving unused languages

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Language Planning and Identity

• Purification
• Revival
• Reform
• Standardization
• Modernization

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A SPEECH EVENT IN A SPEECH COMMUNITY
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Discourse, Subjectivity, Power

• Discourses
• Ways of talking about the world
• a system of representation
• Codes and conventions
• rules and practices that produced meaningful
  statements and regulated discourse in different
  historical periods
• about language and practice
• Discourse is "a group of statements which provide
  a language for talking about ...a particular
  topic at a particular historical moment." 
• "Discourse, Foucault argues, constructs the
  topic.  It defines and produces the objects of
  our knowledge.  It governs the way that a topic
  can be meaningfully talked about and reasoned
  about.

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Discourse, Subjectivity, Power

• Discourse -- the bearer of various subject
  positions
• Subject positions -- specific positions of agency
  and identity in relation to particular forms of
  knowledge and practice
• Subjectivity --produced within discourse,
  subjected to discourse.
• subject position--for us to become the subject
  of a particular discourse,  and thus the bearers
  of its power/knowledge we must locate ourselves
  in the position from which the discourse makes
  most sense, and thus become its 'subjects' by
  subjecting' ourselves to its meanings, power and
  regulation.

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Discourse, Subjectivity, Power

• power follows from our casual acceptance of the
  "reality with which we are presented"
• Power a field of possibilities in which several
  ways of behaving, several reactions and diverse
  comportments may be realized
• the totality of practices, by which one can
  constitute, define, organize, instrumentalize the
  strategies which individuals in their liberty can
  have in regard to each other.

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Discourse, Gender, Power

• sexuality and the body -- sites of power and
  politics
• socially imposed structures that objectified
  sexual identity and gender differences
• socially imposed structures that shape gender
  relations and behavior