Language and Communication Anthropological / sociological interest in

language

How is Language Related to Culture?

Mini-Exam #1 on April 9, 2014

True/False Multiple-choice Short answer

Multiple Choice Culture

1. is predominantly transferred through genes

2. is more developed in Shanghai than in Tibet

3. is being destroyed by globalization

4. None of the above

TRUE/FALSE

Research in cultural anthropology is mainly based on ethnographic fieldwork, although other methods may be used that do not involve fieldwork.

Short 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 _________ ________

Getting 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. Gore’s “wooden” body language

Getting 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)

Properties of Human Language 人类语言的属性 13 design features (Charles Hockett 1960)1) Multimedia potential - Linguistic messages transmitted through a variety

of media (writing techniques; ASL; Morse code, Internet, etc.)

2) Discreteness - Combine discrete units according to rules. 3) Arbitrariness (the relationship between sounds

and meanings of words) Ex: I love you (Te amo; Je tai me;)

4) Productivity - Speakers’ ability to create totally novel

sentences and a listener’s ability to comprehend them

5) 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

Nonverbal forms of communication

Is 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?

Chinese Sign Language

Seeing Voices

What Really HappensCommunicationMethods

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”(听人 )

“Natural Sign Language”

自然手语

CSL (Chinese SignLanguage)

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

What 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”

The 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)

Culture 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

The arbitrary relationship between the signifier and the signified

RED and GREEN

Traffic light (stop / go)

Christmas

Fashion statement

Colors of a European Flag

The arbitrary relationship between the signifier and the signified

Objectives

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 people’s use of language)

Language 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”

Language & 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)

Language & 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

Color Terms Counting Words

English terminologies: 11

African and Latin American terminologies: 2, 3, or 4 basic color terms

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

Chinese 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.

Prosperous EIGHT “8”

What 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 people’s 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.

LANGUAGE & 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

EX. 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.

Language 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).

P. 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

Case: 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.”

Language and Power

1) "A dialect is a language with a losing army.”Ex. Shanghainese & Cantonese dialects2) 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 Israel’s first language (vs. Yiddish).

Words 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

New Words in English Affluenza (affluence + influenza) App Bromance (brother + romance) Geek Netizen (Net + Citizen)

Selfie

Code switching The process of changing from one level of

language to another or from one dialect of a language to another.

Ex. Martin Luther King’s

skill at code switching

between Standard English

& Afro-american vernacular

English.

Ex. The complexity of Navajo language and its use as code by U.S. Marines in the Pacific during

WWII.