Language and Culture Prof. R. Hickey SS 2006 Sociolinguistics, Language and Culture

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Language and CultureProf. R. Hickey SS 2006
Sociolinguistics, Language and Culture
Nadine Bieniek (Hauptstudium LN)Alina Biesenbaum
(Grundstudium LN)Maike Ebert (Grundstudium
TN)Katharina Kraatz (Grundstudium TN)Lukas Rott
(Hauptstudium LN)Magdalena Szuber (ECTS
Punkte)Anna Zagermann (Grundstudium TN)Jessica
Zeltner (Hauptstudium LN)
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Content

• 1. Standard Languages and Linguistic Engineering
• 2. Building National Identities
• 3. Language and Social Position Social
  Inequality
• 4. Social Deixis
• 5. Social Markers
• 6. Non-verbal communication
• 7. Expressive movements between cultures
• 8. Human Rituals

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1. Standard Languages and Linguistic
EngineeringThe Concept of the Nation-State and
the National Language

• Magdalena Szuber

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The notion of a nation state

• A result of economic and political developments
  in the 19th century, particularly the French and
  industrial revolutions, and from these via
  education of elites diffused throughout the
  world.

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The notion of a nation state

• Shift of political communities from Gemeinschaft
  community
• signifying relationships based on likeness,
  shared properties of kinship and descent or
  locality, e.g. home, farm, village
• to Gesellschaft association
• people of different backgrounds engaging in
  contracts of association and exchange, e.g.
  larger cities or industrial units as is clearly
  modern nation-state. (Toennis, 1955)
• In this sense the nation-state is an imagined
  community, basis of which (or a powerful force
  for its forming) is a shared, mostly standard,
  national language.

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The notion of a nation state

• Forces producing and molding standard national
  languages are various, but revolve mainly around
  politics and economy.
• Standard national language is likely to reflect
  the speech of nations elite.

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The Development of Standard English
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The Development of Standard English

• The idea of a standard English emerged in the
  London area, center of trade and commerce, around
  the 14th century English spoken in 4 main
  dialect groupings
• Northern, above the Humber River
• Midland, north of the Thames and Avon rivers,
  south of Humber
• Southern, south of the Avon and Thames rivers,
  west of London
• Kentish, south of the Thames River, mainly east
  of London

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The Development of Standard English

• The Dialect of English spoken in London has
  always been gradually seen as prestigious
  throughout the whole country
• 14th century - the Southern dialect
• 15th century - the East Midland dialect (The
  Black Death, William Caxton)
• 16th century - the Northern dialect (wool trade
  manufacture)
• 16th/17th century literacy solidifies position of
  the prestigious London dialect,
• late 18th century - the rise of a nation-state
  ideology mounts full-scale attack on the minority
  languages of the British Isles

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The Development of Standard English

• Late 18th century - the rise of a nation-state
  ideology mounts full-scale attack on the minority
  languages of the British Isles
• Unified British nation and people required
  acceptance of all of a standard British language
• Spelling standardized, stigmatizing certain
  variant forms (development of prescriptive
  grammars and dictionaries)
• The end result Standard English we know today

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Language standardization

• Countrys economic and political power
  centralized
• Standard likely to be based on speech of the
  higher social strata, the elite
• Literate forms and cultural activities

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Dutch as a Standard Language

• Two different stories - Belgium and the
  Netherlands

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Standard Dutch of Belgium and the Netherlands

• In Belgium Dutch is one of the two official
  languages. Originally modern Belgium and the
  Netherlands spoke regional dialects of Dutch.
• 17th century revolt against Habsburg rule
  produce a new standard of the independent
  northern provinces (The Netherlands), based on
  the language of Amsterdam. Amsterdam cultural
  and scientific center
• The developments in Belgium differ.

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Standard Dutch of Belgium and the Netherlands

• Habsburg hegemony in Belgium continued until the
  19th century, when the Kingdom of Belgium
  emerged.
• French was than an prestigious language of courts
  from Paris to Moscow, also bulk of elite in
  Belgium.
• Farmers and laboring classes continued to speak
  regional Dutch dialects.
• Dutch received an official status in Belgium only
  in 1938. Belgian Dutch has never been officially
  recognized.
• Real economic power lies in the hands of French
  speakers (Brussels and the European Union).

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Standard Languages in Norway
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Standard Languages in Norway

• Story reflects the Romantic idea that nations
  unique identity and distinctive national language
  are closely intertwined.
• From 15th century until 1814, Norway was ruled by
  Denmark
• official language Danish. When Norway regained
  its independence in 1814, there was no Standard
  Norwegian.
• Two Standard languages emerge.

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Standard Languages in Norway

• Bokmal, the book language,
• developed on the basis of speech of the urban
  elite, but influenced by the language of the
  enemy Danish.
• Nynorsk, the new Norwegian
• A school teacher Ivar Aasen introduces new
  standard, based on the rural western Norwegian
  dialects, which have had least Danish influence.

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Conclusion

• Language Standardization is primarily a
  political and economic process
• Significant role of ideologies of statehood and
  nationalism

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2. Building National Identities

• Alina Biesenbaum

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Building National Identities

• The concepts of nation and state
• State any region governed under a central
  administration with its own legal and political
  institutions, and separated by the administration
  from surrounding regions.
• Nation community of people who see themselves as
  an ethnic and cultural unit, and contrast with
  other communities of people surrounding them.

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Asia and Africa

• are multiethnic and multilingual
• problems of developing a standard language
• constructing a standard language is seen as an
  intrinsic part of building a modern nation-state
• one nation, one people, one language

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Asia and Africa

• citizens are often divided by tribe, race,
  region, custom, religion and language
• therefore struggles may arise ( conflict between
  Bantu and Nilotic tribes in 1970s and 1980s)
• conflicts can lead to a collapse of the
  nation-state

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Asia and Africa

• according to Geertz conflicts are a result of
  integrative failure
• important to bind people together into a state
• centralization of a national media, national
  school curricula, national governmental
  bureaucracy

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Asia and Africa

• one of the major conflicts today is the struggle
  of communities (nations) to become states (Kurds)
• ex colonies they are states struggling to be
  nations

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Standard language and Elite Hegemony

• common identity of citizens same national
  language
• official languages are necessary for the
  functioning of the state and its central
  institutions
• many ex-colonies have chosen English or French to
  be their national language

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2 main reasons for this situation

• 1. countries are highly multilingual
• 2. prior to independence, the political and
  economic elite were educated in the colonial
  languages
• good and active control of these languages is
  essential to gaining access to power and prestige

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Forging a Standard language- the case of
Indonesian

• not all ex-colonies have adopted French or
  English
• Indonesia and Tanzania have raised regional
  languages to the status of official national
  languages
• Indonesia multiethnic, multilingual (over 300
  languages)

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The Malay language

• Malay language of trade, also used by the Dutch
• in 1928 Malay was claimed as official national
  language

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The Malay language

• colloquial
• aku tanam sayur di kabun
• I plant vegetables in garden
• standard
• saya men-(t) anam-i kebun dengun
• I plant garden with
• sayur
• vegetables
• prefix men- indicates active voice
• suffix i indicates that direct object is a
  location

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The Malay language

• the colloquial varieties employ word order to
  signal grammatical functions and are
  morphologically unelaborated
• Standard Indonesian makes use of derivational
  morphology

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Modernization in Language Standardization

• standard Indonesian is under pressure to
  modernize
• lack of words for concepts and practices
  connected with the modern world of technology,
  bureaucracy, economy

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Modernization in Language Standardization

• In coining new words for modern concepts,
  language planners look
• 1.for sources in Indonesian languages,
• 2. Sanskrit,
• 3. Indic languages,
• 4. European languages (English)

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Modernization in Language Standardization

• antropologi anthropology
• kwalitet - quality
• rasionalisasi rationalization
• politik - politics
• demokrasi - democracy
• In the field of politics, economies, technology
  the words are borrowed from the English language

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3. Language and Social Position Social Inequality

• Jessica Zeltner

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Contents Language and Social Position

• Social Inequality Class, Power, and Prestige
• Social Roles
• Other Types of Social Structure
• Conclusion

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Social Inequality Class, Power, and Prestige
Sociolinguistics deals with the
inter-relationships between language and society.
It has strong connections to sociology,
through the crucial role that language plays in
the organization of social groups and
institutions. (Yule 1996 239)

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Social Inequality Class, Power, and Prestige

• Social Stratification
• the arrangement of any social group or society
  into a hierarchy of positions that are unequal
  with regard to power, property, social evaluation
  (Tumin 1967 12)
• Power
• The ability to realize ones wants and interests
  even against resistance (according to Max Weber
  1972)

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Social Inequality Class, Power, and Prestige

• Class
• defined by occupation and educational level
• people behave in ways appropriate to their class
  position
• Class System
• positions people so that access to scarce
  goods is either given or denied

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Social Inequality Class, Power, and Prestige

• Conflicts of interests higher vs. lower class
• Social Classes aggregates of people who have
  similar overall positions in the economic system
  (Foley 1997 308)
• indicators occupation, educational level

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Social Inequality Class, Power, and Prestige

• Status
• the hierarchical ranking of individuals along a
  dimension of social prestige, which leads to
  differentials in power and access to scarce
  goods (according to Weber)

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Social Inequality Class, Power, and Prestige

• Criteria of Status
• inferior / superior
• Status entitlements are not fixed
• determined by occupation and educational
  background
• deference / avoidance
• hierarchy

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Social Roles

• Criteria of Roles
• particular attitudes and practices
• Influenced by class position and education
• different contexts - different behavior

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Social Roles

• Criteria of Roles
• actors take on roles
• different roles differing status entitlements
• asymmetrical power

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Social Roles

• Criteria of Roles
• expectations
• asymmetry of power - strictness of roles
• specific code of behavior styles of language
• highly pervasive roles

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Social Roles

• Society
• network of fields of conventionalized
  interactive relationships of differential power,
  reward, and prestige (Foley 1997 311)

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Other Types of Societies

• Caste Society
• indicator birth
• no alteration
• multidimensional
• hierarchical

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Other Types of Societies

• Age Set Society
• biological features
• hierarchy structured by age age grades
• political power the eldest
• younger must defer to older
• alteration by aging

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Conclusion

1. Societies are structured in various ways
2. Most common way in Western Societies class
   system
3. Social roles are linked to concept of class and
   status
4. Languages have various ways to indicate social
   class, status and roles

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4. Social Deixis

• Maike Ebert

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Contents Social Deixis

• T/V Phenomenon
• Example Japanese
• Example Javanese
• Conclusion

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T/V Phenomenon

• described by Brown and Gilman
• best known type of social deixis
• refers to the phenomenon that in almost every
  European language but also elsewhere
  second-person singular pronouns are used

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T/V Phenomenon

• T from Latin tu, V from Latin vos
• T form ? informal
• V form ? formal
• Two dimensions how to use the forms
• Power
• Solidarity

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T/V Phenomenon

• Dimension of Power
• One has power over another to degree to which one
  can control or influence the behaviour of another
• Asymmetrical
• V form
• Inferior uses V form, Superior T form
• Expl. Teacher Pupil
• Employer Employee

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T/V Phenomenon

• Dimension of Solidarity
• No asymmetry of power
• Related to social roles
• Two types 1. equal and solidary ? T form
• 2. equal and not solidary
  ? V form

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Japanese

• Special class of words or grammatical morphemes,
  whose sole function is to indicate social deixis
  among the interlocutors or the referent of some
  participant in the utterance.
• These grammatical units are called honorifics

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Japanese

• Boku kare ni au yo
• I he meet
• DAT
• Ill meet him
• T form

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Japanese

• Watakushi kare ni aimas u
• I he meet
• DAT
• Ill meet him
• V form
• I changes in V form (boku ? watakushi)
• Mas is added (au ? aimas)

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Japanese

• Referent honorifics
• -Deference is accorded by the speaker to the
  referent of a nominal participant in her
  utterance
• Neutral, non-deferential form, used to a solidary
  or inferior addressee
• Sakai drew a map for Suzuki

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Japanese

• 2. Both are equal to the speaker
• Mr Sakai drew a map for Mr Suzuki
• 3. Speaker is considerably lower in status than
  Sakai, special subject honorific forms must be
  used to indicate the relative high status
  entitlement
• Mr Sakai came to draw a map for Mr Suzuki
• 4. Significant status differential between Sakai
  and Suzuki
• ? Mr Sakai did the drawing of a map for Mr Suzuki

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Javanese

• Most complex systems of honorifics, humbling,
  expressions and polite speech form indicating
  deference to the addressee
• Two speech levels which exemplify lexical items
  for most items of basic vocabulary
• Ngoko ? T form
• Krama ? V form

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Javanese

• Ngoko apa kowé njupuk sega semono
• Krama menapa panjenengan mendhet sekul semanten
• ? Will you take that much rice?

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Javanese

• Madya
• Middle language
• Small vocabulary
• Disliked by nobility
• Used by speakers that cant speak krama
• Krama-speakers mainly use it as an outgroup code

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Javanese

• Napa sempéyan mendhet sekul semonten
• njupuk sega
• Will you take that much rice?
• Mixed form of both languages

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Conclusion

• T/V Phenomenon
• Use of second-person singular pronouns
• Common in almost every European language
• Dependent on dimension of
• solidarity and power
• Honorifics
• Special class of words or grammatical morphemes,
  whose sole function is to indicate social deixis
  among the interlocutors or the referent of some
  participant in the utterance ? Japanese

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Conclusion

• Different language are used to show different
  speech level ? Javanese

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5. Social Markers

• Lukas Rott

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Contents

• 1. Sociolinguistic Variables
• 2. Code Switching
• 3. Social Markers and Ethnicity

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Sociolinguistic Variables

• Definition
• - indexical linguistic feature present in most,
  if not all, languages

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Sociolinguistic Variables

• A linguistic feature that shows statistically
  significant variation along the lines of social
  variables (class, age, sex)
• - Most commonly involves phonological variation,
  but can involve any linguistic feature.

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Example

• Labov investigated differences in the phonetic
  realization of the phoneme /r/ in postvocalic
  position among speakers of New York City English
• - two different realizations
• a) retroflection of the vowel /r/ -ed variety
• b) phoneme r is absent /r/ -less variety
• After World War II the first realization became
  the standard pronunciation

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Example

• Labovs research in three different New York City
  department stores revealed that higher-class
  speakers tend to pronounce the postvocalic /r/
• lower- and working-class New Yorkers often leave
  out the /r/ in postvocalic position

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Code Switching

• Code Switching is the shifting from one language
  or variety of language to another in the course
  of verbal interaction.

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Example

• Almost all adults in Yimas village (Papua New
  Guinea) are bilingual.
• They speak
• a) Tok Pisin The major lingua franca of Papua
  New Guinea
• ? is used for political affairs, means
  modernity, lacks intimacy, can show superiority
• b) Yimas vernacular carries social connotations
  of traditional cultural patterns, intimate
  relations and local conditions
• ? shows solidarity, belonging

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Diglossia

• Diglossia is a language situation in which there
  is, in addition to the primary dialect of the
  language, a very divergent and extremely codified
  variety, which is learned in formal education and
  is only used for written and formal spoken
  purposes. It is basically the result of an early
  codification of a language.

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Example

• In Cairo there are two different varieties of the
  Arabic language
• - Classical Arabic of the Koran ? prestigious
  variety, predominantly a written language
• - Colloquial Arabic ? predominantly an oral
  language, comprises several mutually
  unintelligible languages

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Social Markers and Ethnicity

• There is a strong relation between ethnicity/race
  and language in many societies.
• Code switching is very popular among the
  different ethnic groups in hybrid countries
• ? use of a shared local ethnic language is a
  claim to solidarity

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Example

• Vernacular Black English is very different from
  Standard American English
• - pronunciation is different in many cases
  (postvocalic /r/)
• - grammatical differences ( 3rd pers. sg.
  present)
• - different speech genres and styles of speaking

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Conclusion

• Languages have social markers forms that differ
  according to the social category one belongs to.
•  
• Good examples of social markers are
  sociolinguistic variables, which is e.g. the
  difference in pronunciation of postvocalic /r/
  among New Yorkers of different social classes.
•  
• Other social markers are code switching and
  disglossia in which languages or varieties of
  languages are shifted to index categories of
  status or solidarity
•  
• People of different ethnicities and races tend to
  talk differently because they want to label
  social identity.

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6. Non-verbal communication

• Katharina Kraatz

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Main non-verbal signals

• Bodily contact
• like hitting, pushing, stroking
• involves a variety of areas of the body
• extend depends on culture
• Proximity
• how close people sit or stand
• reflects relation between people

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Main non-verbal signals

• Orientation
• angle at which people sit or stand to each other
• varies with the nature of the situation
• side-by-side position (cooperative
  situations/close friends)
• head-on position (confronting/bargaining)
• Appearance
• 1. clothes, hair, skin ? under voluntary control
• 2. physique and bodily condition ? only
  partly under control
• purpose of manipulating appearance is
  self-presentation
• conveys information about personality and mood

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Main non-verbal signals

• Posture
• way of lying, standing, sitting
• are culturally defined
• conventions about posture have to be adopted in
  certain situations (e.g. church)
• it can be a signal for status (upright posture),
  varies with emotional state (tense- relax)
• is less well controlled than facial expression

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Main non-verbal signals

• Head- nods
• connection with speech
• usually a reinforcer (e.g. permission to speak)
• Facial expression
• cultural universal and independent of learning
  (e.g. smiling)
• some aspects are hard to control (e.g. expansion
  of the pupils)
• used in close combination with speech

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Main non-verbal signals

• Gestures
• movements of the hands
• more expressive than movements of head or body
• close connection with speech (e.g. illustrates)
• can even replace speech gesture languages
• Looking
• people look about twice as much while listening
  as while speaking
• looking sends a signal of interest
• amount of looking seems to be a signal for
  intimacy
• used to obtain information feed-back while
  talking, extra information while listening

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Non- verbal aspects of speech

• paralinguistic signals emotions expressed by
  tone of voice group membership expressed by
  accent, personality characteristics expressed by
  voice quality, speech errors, etc.
• not closely linked with language

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Functions of non-verbal communication

• to communicate attitudes and emotions, to manage
  the immediate social situation
• ? cultural variations in the signals used and
  situational rules governing their use
• to support and complement verbal communication
  
• ? coordinated with speech in a complex way
• developed to replace verbal language

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Sources of variations in non-verbal communication

• there are different rules of behaviour in
  different situations
• leads to different patterns of non-verbal
• communication
• different forms of groups
• family intimacy, dependence, aggressions,
  affections ? more bodily contact less formality
  and politeness
• work-groups bodily contact ?helping gesture
  language ? where noise or distance prevents
  speech facial expressions? work performance
• friendship- groups more self-presentation and
  attention to appearance behaviour is more polite

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7. Expressive movements between cultures

• Nadine Bieniek

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Similarities

• Smiling
• Crying
• Laughing

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Similarities

• Greeting
• smiling
• nodding
• raising eyebrows for 1/6th second (if friendly)
• signals readiness for contact

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Similarities

• Eyebrowflash
• ? greeting
• ? flirting
• ? approving
• ? thanking
• ? emphasizing a statement
• ? seeking information

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Similarities

• Coyness / embarassment / flirting
• hiding the face/mouth behind one hand
• ? especially young children and flirting girls

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Differences

• Yes No
• Central European
• yes ? nodding the head
• no ? shaking the head

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Differences

• Ceylonese
• factual question (Do you drink coffee?)
• yes ? nodding the head
• agreement to do something (Will you join me for
  a cup of coffee?)
• yes ? swaying the head in slow sideway
  movements
• no ? shaking the head

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Differences

• Greece
• yes ? nodding the head
• no ? jerking the head back, thus lifting the
  face

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Differences

• Darwin
• suggested that shaking the head originated from
  food-refusal
• when a baby is satiated it refuses the breast by
  turning its head away
• even deaf- and blind-born children refuse food
  in the same pattern

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8. Human Rituals

• Anna Zagermann

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Human Rituals

• Definition
• situation in which an individual actor puts on a
  performance
• performance consists of symbolic actions
• showing mutual statuses in relation to other
  persons/parties

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Human Rituals

• cultural traditions
• characteristics of a certain group
• take place within a cultural context
• not an innate process
• if you want to be part of a society you
  
• have to learn the rituals

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Why Rituals?

• rituals in humans and animals life
• strategy to survive
• individual wants that the society of which
• it is part continues
• to define its own group

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Examples
Prayer Hinduism
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Examples
Salutations
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Problem of Rituals

• problem of interpretation
• context of action
• Private Arena
• Public Arena
• each code used in a ritual is unique

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Conclusion

• many kinds of non-verbal signals are culturally
  dependent
• non-verbal communication is used to communicate
  attitudes, to complement speech and to replace
  speech
• non-verbal communication differs with the groups
  you communicate in and the rules which govern
  communication

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References

• Foley, William 1997 Anthropological Linguistics.
  An Introduction. OxfordBlackwell
• Tumin, Melvin M. 1967 Social Stratification. The
  Forms and Functions of Inequality. Englewood
  Cliffs Prentice Hall, Inc.
• Weber, Max 1972 Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft
  Grundrisse der verstehenden Soziologie Tübingen
• Yule, George 1996 The Study of Language.
  Cambridge CUP
• Hinde, R.A. 1972 Non-Verbal Communication.Cambrid
  ge University Press.Cambridge
• http//www.harekrsna.com/practice/sadhana/morning/
  mangala-arati/mangala-arati.htm
• http//de.wikipedia.org/wiki/GruC39F

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Thank you for your attention!