LANGUAGE

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LANGUAGE
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What is language?
A form of communication that is a systematic set
of arbitrary symbols shared among a group and
passed on from generation to generation
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A form of Communication
What is Conveyed or transmitted?
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System

• sounds
• system of sounds that when put together
  according to certain rules results in meanings
• Systematic nature of language is usually
  unconscious

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arbitrary symbols

• associations between words/sounds and the things
  they represent arbitrary
• not natural or self-evident meaning.
• meaning provided by tradition and consensus
• Because symbols are arbitrary they have to be
  learned.

Rabbit Conejo Usagi Kanninchen Cuniculus
grab hold of this
look at this
lobster
Descriptive symbols
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Other forms of communication

• Direct facial expression, body stance, gesture,
  tone of voice
• Indirect writing, algebra, music, painting,
  signs

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• Language has displacement
• Talk about stimuli which are not present
• The yellow elephant eats dancing peanuts.
• past, present, future
• Language is productive
• Produce novel utterances which can be understood
  (see the elephant sentence!)
• creative and one can create new messages. Human
  language is thus an "open" system while animal
  language is "closed,"

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• Call systems consist of a limited number of
  sounds that are produced in response to specific
  stimuli (e.g. food or danger)
• Calls cannot be combined to produce new calls.
• Calls are reflexive in that they are automatic
  responses to specific stimuli.

Apes, such as these Congo chimpanzees, use call
systems to communicate in the wild
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Shared

• profoundly social
• we use language to send social messages about
• who we are,
• where we come from,
• who we associate with

• we may judge a person's background, character,
  and intentions based upon the person's language,
  dialect, or, in some instances, even the choice
  of a single word.

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Descriptive or Formal Linguistics

• Also called structural linguistics
• Tries to discover the rules of phonology,
  morphology, and syntax of another language,
  especially those with no written dictionary or
  grammar.
• Seeks to discover language rules that are not
  written down but are discoverable in actual
  speech.

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Phonology The study of the sound patterns of a
language what sound combinations are
permissible how sound systems are
organized Morphology The study of meaning in
individual units of language. concerned with the
structure of words. The smallest unit of meaning
is a morpheme. Syntax The rules by which words
are put together to form sentences and phrases
e.g. order of Subject, Verb, Object Semantics The
meaning of symbols, words, phrases, and sentences
of a language.
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Historical Linguistics

• Focuses on how language changes over time and how
  languages relate to one another.
• Anthropologists are interested in cultural
  features that correlate with language families.
• Reconstruction of languages
• Proto-Indo-European
• Sino-Tibetan
• Linguistic divergence
• Gradual or by force

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• method of tracing the history of languages called
  glottochronology
• assumes that changes in the core vocabulary, e.g.
  pronouns, lower numerals, and names for parts of
  the body and natural objects change at a constant
  rate
• apply a formula to determine when the languages
  separated
• 1786 William Jones noted similarities between
  Sanskrit and classical Greek and Latin
• 1822 Jacob Grimm formulated rules to describe
  the sound shifts that had occurred when the
  various IE languages diverged from one another

• In Germanic, d of Romance switched to t deux to
  two
• The p of Romance switched to f pater to father,
  pied to foot
• German s switched to English t wasser to water

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Some cognates in Indo-European languages
Cognates words that are similar in sound and
meaning
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subgroups reflect long period of linguistic
divergence from an ancient unified language
50 of the worlds population speak an
Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European Linguistic Family Tree
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• individual languages are themselves the result
  of further linguistic divergence
• further subdivided into dialects
• speech characteristic of a particular region or
  social class
• boundaries may be psychological, social,
  economic, as well as geographical
• dialect continuums where the edges of languages
  blend
• French blends into Italian
• German into Dutch,
• Spanish into Portuguese

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Dialect Continuum
(The left-to-right dimension expresses range of
mutual intelligibility.)
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IE languages derive from a language spoken 5000
to 6000 years ago
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• Using controversial techniques, linguists seek
  the more elusive prehistoric tongues
• Nostraticancestral speech of the Middle East
  12,000 to 20,000 years ago
• Ancestral to nine modern language families
• A 500-word dictionary has been compiled
• Contemporary with Nostratic were other ancient
  tongues including Dene-Caucasian
• Dene-Caucasian reputedly gave rise to
  Sino-Tibetan, Basque, and one form of early
  Native-American called Na-Dene

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- an educated guess as to the original home of a
language can be also be made based on the number
of different geographical dialects - the more
there are the closer to the homeland. - Thus
there are far more dialects of English in England
than in New Zealand, or the USA. - same sort of
logic can be applied at higher levels - There are
far more languages and Language families in
Africa than anywhere else suggesting that Africa
is the homeland of human beings - attempts have
been made to find the original language of
humanity - mitochondrial DNA suggests that
modern humans migrated out of Africa about
100,000 years ago - maybe earlier - original
language about 100,000 years old
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Language Change

• geographical distance or barriers
• borrowing from another language
• usually results in greater resemblance due to
  borrowing e.g. about 50 of the English
  vocabulary has been borrowed from the French
• different social classes contact may borrow
  differentially

Pig pork Cow beef Sheep lamb
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• spread of linguistic features may be halted by
  racial, religious or social class differences
  that inhibit communication
• - eg. there are substantial differences in speech
  between the untouchable groups and other groups
• - members of the untouchable groups have work
  contracts with others but no friendships
• - without friendships and the easy communication
  between friends, dialect differentiation
  developed.

Child labour, Untouchables in quarry, Tamil Nadu,
India
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Sociolingusitics

• The Social Uses of Language
• - Language expresses, symbolizes and maintains
  the social order
• Social variables influence a person's use of
  language
• Class
• Gender
• Status
• Age
• National/ethnic/regional identity
• education
• A child learning the language is also acquiring
  social competence i.e. the ability to recognize
  and interpret the social activity taking place.
• e.g. opening or closing a conversation
• Telling a joke or story
• taking conversational turns

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Social Identity language use is fundamental to
the creation and expression of social identity
and difference. the social prestige or stigma
attached to linguistic varieties often supports
and expresses the value attached to social
identities. Eg. the Queens English vs Cockney
English distinctive aspects of language from
pronunciation to syntax, to slang, i.e. any
aspect of linguistic code

• Glottal stop City Ciy water wa'er
• Dropped h house ouse, hammer ammer
• TH fronting three free bath barf
• Vowel lowering dinner dinna, marrow marra

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• - Most prestigious form will be that of the most
  powerful group in society because it is this
  group that controls education and the media.
• Prestige form often forms the standard language
• - a national language permits internal cohesion
  and fosters external distinction
• - forms a powerful base for national identity
• - minority languages serve to mark off ethnic
  difference within multiethnic societies.

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• 90 of Paraguans speak Guarani, yet until 1992
  Spanish was the official language, the language
  of prestige and is used in government, schools,
  and commerce.
• Guarani is used in informal settings with friends
  and relatives, in talking with status inferiors.
• Guaraní raises feelings of pride and linguistic
  loyalty in the people

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- nineteenth century China united by a standard
written language but 8 mutually unintelligible
dialects - each dialect had its reading
pronunciation for the same character - thus a
shred literacy did not confer a shared spoken
language - 1932 pronunciation forms were
normalized to reflect that spoken in Beijing -
communists actively promoted use of Mandarin
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Restoration of languages in decline may be taken
as an aspect of ethnic revival eg. Irish -
English was the language of social prestige in
the mid 16th century when the English colonized
Ireland and Irish went into decline - Irish was
the language of the poor - In the mid 19th
century Irish nationalist movement emerged and
sought to encourage and revive the original
language - part of a national movement which led
to the Irish Free State - Irish was made the
official language - support for it in the form
of compulsory education, bilingual publications
etc.
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EBONICS A slang dialect used by certain groups
of the African-American community.Yo, Big Daddy
upstairs,You be chillinSo be yo hoodYou be
sayin' it, I be doin' itIn this here hood and
yo'sGimme some eatsAnd cut me some slack,
BloodSos I be doin' it to dem dat diss me Don't
be pushing me into no jiveAng keep dem crips
awayCause you always be da man, GStraight
up.Aa-men.
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English First
English First is a national, non-profit
grassroots lobbying organization founded in 1986.
The goal is to Make English America's official
language
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Indexicals
- items that mark features of the speakers and
for the hearers identity - include pronouns,
kinship terms, forms of address, and speech
levels - they create and sustain a relational
social identity
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Terms of address

• Is the formality of the setting relevant?

• Do you use kin titles to indicate a person's
  kinship relation to you? Is age or generation
  relevant in selecting them?
• Is relative status or rank relevant in selecting
  an appropriate term in your community?
• What, if any, is the age difference between
  people which is considered relevant in
  determining address usage?

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Forms of address
- terms of address vary with the nature of the
relationship between speakers - the reciprocal
use of first names generally signifies an
informal intimate relationship between two
persons - a title and a last name used
reciprocally indicates a more formal or
businesslike relationship between individuals of
roughly equal status - nonreciprocal use of
first names and titles in English is reserved for
speakers who recognize a marked difference in
status between themselves - this status can be a
function of age (as when a child refers to her
mother's friend as Mrs Miller and is in returned
referred to as Sally) - or it can be along
occupational lines as when as person refers to
his boss by title and last name and is in return
addressed as John
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Power Semantic

• Determines which pronoun will be used on the
  basis of the difference in social status (or
  power) between the speaker and addressee.
• wealth, age, sex, institutionalised role in the
  church, the state, the army, the family ...
• The T of "intimacy" versus the V of "formality"
  (French tu or vous)
• Based on an asymmetrical relation and is
  non-reciprocal.

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Politeness
Use of polite language was one aspect of the
enactment of social hierarchy in the Thai court -
politeness entailed the correct use of formal
modes of addressing royalty with linguistic terms
that exalted royalty and humbled those of lower
status. - The first person pronoun used when
addressing the king meant I the slave of the
Lord Buddha' - second person meant the dust
beneath the sole of your august feet' meaning
that the speaker did not dare address the king
directly but to the dirt on the floor. -The Thai
person who addresses his comments to the dirt
beneath the king's shoe is invoking a cultural
image of low status' but he is also indexing
relative identity in the social interaction of
discourse.
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Do Men and Women Use Language Differently?
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- American women taught women's language which
consists of polite deferential ways of speaking
which ultimately subordinate women in society -
men take longer conversational turns and
interrupt more frequently in order to take the
floor from current speaker. - women do more
maintenance work by providing encouraging
responses, asking questions and listening. - In
Japan women use special terms of self-reference
and address - The Carib Indians men and women
use different words for the same concepts In
Malagasy though women seen as abrupt and direct.
men speak with care and indirectness.
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Does Language determine how we Perceive the world?
Is Our thinking and Our Behavoiur determined by
our language?
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Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
'Human beings do not live in the objective world
alone, nor alone in the world of social activity
as ordinarily understood, but are very much at
the mercy of the particular language which has
become the medium of expression for their
society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that
one adjusts to reality essentially without the
use of language and that language is merely an
incidental means of solving specific problems of
communication and reflection. The fact of the
matter is that the "real world" is to a large
extent unconsciously built up on the language
habits of the group.' 1929
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Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

• two basic principles
• 1. linguistic determinism
• the language we use to some extent determines
  the way in which we view and think about the
  world
• Strong determinism
• language actually determines thought, that
  language and thought are identical.
• Weak determinism
• thought is merely affected by or influenced by
  our language,

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2. linguistic relativity

• distinctions encoded in one language are unique
  to that language alone.
• Eg. The Colour spectrum, is a continuum, each
  colour gradually blending into the next there
  are no sharp boundaries. But we impose
  boundaries we talk of red, orange, yellow,
  green, blue, indigo, and violet.
• these discriminations are arbitrary and indeed in
  other languages the boundaries are different

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• Colour Terms
• Dani (New Guinea) have only two colour categories
• mili which means dark, cold colours such as black
• mola which means warm, bright colours such as
  white
• languages with three colour terms add Red
• those with four add yellow
• English has 11

(red, yellow, black, white, green, blue, purple,
pink, brown, orange, grey)
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Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

• Sapir Whorf says habitual thought might be
  influenced, if not determined, by linguistic
  structures.
• We perceive the world through language - the
  colors we see is predetermined by what our
  culture prepares us to see
• do we see blue and green colours because our
  language has two different names for these two
  neighbouring parts of the colour spectrum?
• Can the Tiv perceive or distinguish between Red
  and yellow?

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Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

• The physiology of our eyes is essentially the
  same.
• All normal humans share similar sense perceptions
  of color despite differences in color terminology
  from one language to another.   
• People can see subtle gradations of color and can
  comprehend other ways of dividing up the spectrum
  of visible light. 
• However, as a society's economy and technology
  increase in complexity, the number of color terms
  usually also increases. 
• i.e. the spectrum of visible light gets
  subdivided into more categories. 
• As the environment changes, culture and language
  typically respond by creating new terminology to
  describe it.

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Which belong together? The red things and the
blue things Or the strings and the sticks?
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• Carroll and Casagrande looked Navaho Indians
• they place great stress on form and shape,
  rigidity and material from which an object is
  constructed
• they gave three groups of children
• one Navaho speaking
• one English speaking
• one bilingual
• showed them a green stick, a green rope and a
  blue rope
• asked them which objects went together
• Navaho speakers said objects with the same form
  i.e. ropes went together
• English speakers categorize by colour rather than
  form put green stick and green rope together
• confirms the relativity of language hypothesis

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- Alexander Guiora looked at how children in
different cultures develop concepts of
themselves - do children learn to recognize
themselves as boys or girls when their language
emphasizes gender? - looked at children in Hebrew
speaking homes, Finnish, speaking homes and
English speaking homes - Hebrew has the most
gender emphasis of the three languages - nouns
are either masculine or feminine and even second
person and plurals are differentiated by gender -
English emphasizes gender less, only in third
person singular his and hers - Finish emphasizes
gender least, only man and woman convey gender -
Consistent with the idea that language may
influence thought Hebrew speaking children
acquired the concept of gender identity the
earliest on the average and Finnish speaking
children the latest
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Criticisms of Sapir Whorf

• If language determines thought then language must
  precede thought
• - but even pre-linguistic babies can think
• - not all activities involve language but do
  involve thought
• Differences are not in thought but in ways of
  expressing the same thoughts
• if this were not so then it would be impossible
  to translate
• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis not generally accepted
  that language coerces thought
• general view now is that language sets up a
  filter between the human being and the world he
  or she perceives that heightens certain
  perceptions and dims others.