Title: Language and Communication
1Language and Communication
- Anthropological / sociological interest in
language - How is Language Related to Culture?
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2Mini-Exam 1 on April 9, 2014
- True/False
- Multiple-choice
- Short answer
3Multiple Choice
- Culture
- is predominantly transferred through genes
- is more developed in Shanghai than in Tibet
- is being destroyed by globalization
- None of the above
4TRUE/FALSE
- Research in cultural anthropology is mainly based
on ethnographic fieldwork, although other methods
may be used that do not involve fieldwork.
5Short Answer
- On the basis of his experience in the Trobriand
Islands during WWI, B. Malinowski is generally
considered to be the father of the method
called _________ ________
6Getting Started
- - the structure and nature of animal
communication and how it differs from human
communication. - the nonverbal forms of communication like
gestures, expressions, and movements. - Ex. Facial expression of Bush vs. Gores wooden
body language
7Getting started
- Language as key element in the development of
culture as an attribute of human existence. In
other words, without language, human culture
cannot exist. - Language and worldview Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
(words worlds) - Language as an element of cultural process
- - Socio-linguistics of identity
- Classification of social cultural reality
- - Inventories of social and cultural resources
- Tools of linguistic analysis as tools for
cultural analysis during field research (the way
people communicate what is meaningful or what is
not meaningful)
8Properties of Human Language ???????
- 13 design features (Charles Hockett 1960)
- Multimedia potential
- - Linguistic messages transmitted through a
variety of media (writing techniques ASL Morse
code, Internet, etc.) - Discreteness
- Combine discrete units according to rules.
- Arbitrariness (the relationship between sounds
and meanings of words) - Ex I love you (Te amo Je tai me)
9- Productivity
- Speakers ability to create totally novel
sentences and a listeners ability to comprehend
them - Displacement
- Ability to talk about objects, people, things,
and events that are remote in time and space
(E.T., ghost, ancestors, goblins) - Human language as the most precise and complete
system of communication
10 Nonverbal forms of communication
11Is our interpretation of stated and implied
language inherent or derived from our culture?
- real vs. implied meanings of hand gesture while
driving. - Example Giving someone the finger in U.S.
culture has specific connotations (road rage),
but does the same gesture have similar meaning in
China?
12Chinese Sign Language
13Seeing Voices
14What Really Happens
Communication Methods Context Field Settings Linguistic Forms
Sign Languages used by the real deaf people Used for communication between the deaf Or between the deaf and those who could hear(??) Natural Sign Language ????
CSL (Chinese Sign Language) For those who could hear only Ex. Television News Showcases such as Expo Official Chinese Sign Language
CSL Oral Expression People who could hear but could barely use CSL CSL Oral Expression
Written Language Those who have no knowledge of CSL Written Chinese
15What Really Matters
- The discrepancies between two systems of
knowledge - The official CSL as a standardized form of
linguistic communication - A form of paralanguage that is
- 1)extremely context-dependent
- 2)facial expression body languages
- 3)flexible and improvising
- 4) Strong indication of adaptive wisdom
16The validity of soft data
- participant observation
- immersing oneself in the local community
(long-term residence) - working through the native language
- the goal of ethnographic fieldwork is to
- grasp the native point of view, his relation to
life, to realize his vision of his world - (Malinowski 1922 25)
17Culture is SYMBOLIC
- As is true of all symbols, such as flags, the
association between a symbol (water) and what is
symbolized (holiness) is arbitrary and
conventional. - Language is based on arbitrary, learned
association between words and the things for
which they stand
18The arbitrary relationship between the signifier
and the signified
- RED and GREEN
- Traffic light (stop / go)
- Christmas
- Fashion statement
- Colors of a European Flag
19The arbitrary relationship between the signifier
and the signified
20Objectives
- Language and Context
- Be familiar with the central argument of the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or the theory of
linguistic relativity - Know what sociolinguists study gender speech
patterns how social stratification manifests
itself in language how social variables
influence peoples use of language)
21Language and World
- The limits of our worlds are the limits of our
words. Wittgenstein - Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
- language structures the cognition of reality and
contributes to cultural differences - Ex. your are what you speak/write
22Language Thought Processes
- linguistic relativity (as a form of cultural
relativism) - Example problems of word-for- word translation
(Eskimo words for snow) - Strong version linguistic determinism
- Example patterns of thought and culture as
patterns of grammar (Gender marked nouns)
23Language Thought Processes
- Some interesting examples
- Color terminology number of basic/key color
terms a language might have is highly variable. - Calendars (solar vs. lunar calendars)
- Naming practices
- English Counting Words
-
24Color Terms Counting Words
- Quantity / units used for uncountable nouns
(liquid, seed, food, etc) - Specific quantity/unit words used with
predetermined countable nouns a of lions, a
of geese, a of pheasants, a of oxen
a of sheep a of birds, a of cattle a
of fish a of kittens
- English terminologies 11
- African and Latin American terminologies 2, 3,
or 4 basic color terms
25Chinese Lunar Calendar
- 12 animals represent a 12-year cycle based on the
lunar calendar Rat, Cattle, Tiger, Rabbit,
Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog
and Pig. Each animal has different underlying
personalities that it passes to people born
during that year.
26Prosperous EIGHT 8
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28What shall we make of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
- Can it be tested?
- If a language shapes the way we perceive and
think about the world, we would expect a peoples
worldview to change at a rate roughly comparable
to the rate their language changes. - The weaker version of linguistic relativity can
help us understand the relationship between
language, thought, and culture.
29LANGUAGE POWER
- Sociolinguistics study of the relation between
linguistic performance and the SOCIAL CONTEXT of
that performance - Linguistic Diversity
- Gender Speech Contrasts
- - Stratification and Symbolic Domination
30EX. Japanese Honorifics
- A complicated set of contextual norms governs the
degree of formality and politeness people
normally use to show respect to those of higher
social position. For instance, verbs and personal
nouns have several alternative forms that
speakers must choose between in addressing
others. Women often address men with the
honorific verb forms that symbolically express
male superiority. - Different forms of personal nouns to reflect the
relative status of the parties.
31Language and Status Position
- Status-linked dialects affect the economic and
social prospects of the people who speak them, a
situation to which Bourdieu applies the term
symbolic capital (ex. a form of cultural
capital).
32P. BOURDIEU 1984 DISTINCTION
- Two forms of capital
- Economic
- Symbolic (Social CULTURAL)
- The value of a dialect its standing in a
linguistic market depends on the extent to
which it provides access to desired positions in
the labor market. - EX My Fair Lady
33Case My Fair Lady
- Professor Higgins teaches Eliza how to speak like
an English aristocrat (the acquisition of
cultural capital. - The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
34Language and Power
- 1) "A dialect is a language with a losing army.
- Ex. Shanghainese Cantonese dialects
- 2) Black English Vernacular (BEV) the Great
Ebonics Controversy (discussed in the Haviland
Book) - 3) Linguistic Nationalism (an attempt by whole
countries to proclaim their independence by
purging their vocabularies of foreign terms). - Ex. Former colonial countries of Africa, French
attempt to purge Americanism, revival of Hebrew
as Israels first language (vs. Yiddish).
35Words borrowed into English
- Chinese tea/chai, ketchup, ginseng, lichee,
typhoon, fengshui, kowtow - Japanese tsunami, geisha, judo, sake, kimono,
karaoke, sushi, tempura, and WALKMAN! - Turkish yogurt
- Malay bamboo
- Scots Gaelic whisky
- Norwegian ski Finnish sauna
- India curry, punch (drink), cashmere, shampoo
36New Words in English
- Affluenza (affluence influenza)
- App
- Bromance (brother romance)
- Geek
- Netizen (Net Citizen)
- Selfie
37Code switching
- The process of changing from one level of
language to another or from one dialect of a
language to another. - Ex. Martin Luther Kings
- skill at code switching
- between Standard English
- Afro-american vernacular
- English.
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39Ex. The complexity of Navajo language and its use
as code by U.S. Marines in the Pacific during
WWII.