Linguistic Anthropology

1. Chapter 1:introduction to linguistic anthropology

1.1. Anthropology consists of four interconnected disciplines including; physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology

1.2. It is the study of human Kind, linguistics anthropology allows us to study language and how it changes over time, and crosses cultures

1.3. “Language is involved in a wide variety of human situations… If something permeates every aspect of human life, and is so complex that we cannot fathom its influence, we should study it.” (Salzmann et al. P.13).

2. Chapter 3: Phonetic and phonology

2.1. Phonology is the study and description of the sound system of language. Vowels are a speech sound with no significant constriction in the breath channel. Consonants are a sound in which the vocal tract is either blocked or constricted to the point of producing audible friction

2.2. Phonetics is the study of the production of speech sounds by the vocal organs. Not all languages have the same speech sounds. This is why English can sound different depending on where you live

2.3. “Each language has a structure of its own that cannot be analyzed or grasped in terms of the investigators own language” Salzmann et al., p.43).

3. Chapter 4: Morphemes and Morphology

3.1. A morpheme is the smallest contrastive unit of grammar. Most morphemes are “free” because they can occur on their own

3.1.1. Example: Unhappy; un is one morpheme, and happy is another

3.2. “Just as languages differ in their phonemic systems, they differ in their morphologies. Some morphological processes, however, are quite common throughout the world even though they may be applied differently in specific languages” (Salzmann et al., P.69).

4. Chapter 6:The development and evolution of language

4.1. Communication channels cross species. There are four different types of communication channel; acoustic channel(speech, whistling , talking) optical Chanel ( writing, gestures, pictures), tactile channel ( sense of touch), and olfactory (smell).

4.2. It is unclear when language first began. Anthropologists believe language to be a product of evolution. Homo habilis is the first human we have been able to trace back to. This was between 1.9-1.6 maya.

4.2.1. The theory of continuity states that speech developed from primitive forms of communication. Also that communication today can be compared to lower animal sounds

4.3. “ One of the several pheromones the queen of a honeybee colony secretes is ingested by bees that constantly attend and groom her. These bees subsequently spread the pheromone throughout the beehive to suppress the ovarian development of the worker bees and thus prevent the rear of new queens” ( Salzmann et al., P.89)

5. Chapter 7:Acquiring language

5.1. In early childhood language first begins as reflexive, then becomes vocal, and then they begin the babble

5.1.1. There is the crcritical age where children are more capable of learning a language

5.2. Once language is learned depending on what region you are from, code switching is something many cultures become aware have to depending on the setting they are in. Code switching is the switching between language or dialects in conversation.

5.3. “Innatist theory argues that there are at least some aspects of language which must already be present in the child at birth.”( Salzmann et al., p.122)

6. Chapter 12: Language, culture, and thought

6.1. Linguistic Determinism: the way that an individual thinks is determined by the language they speak. Linguistic relativity: structural differences among languages are reflected in the world views held by their speakers

6.2. Whorf determined there to be a difference in speech communites perception of the world. That the expansiveness of our native languages vocabulary alters the way we recognize things.

6.3. Chomsky was opposed to relativism. He believed language to be instinctual, and coded in our genes. That all languages share a universal grammar

6.4. " In all languages, there were at least two, but no more than eleven or twelve, color terms that could be considered as basic. Not every language has the same number of basic color terms, though all languages have many sets of culture specific secondary color terms"Salzmann et al., P.243)

7. Chapter 14: Language and Ideology

7.1. William M. O'Barr and Bowman K. Atkina developed the social power theory which beleives that the difference in man and womens speech is a reflection of the power each gender holds in society. Language is dependent on hierarchy

7.2. AAVE is a highly criticized language variety. It is a language associated with black people in the ghetto. The negative perceptions of this language result in school, and work place discrimination

7.3. "Language planning encompasses even the invention of artificial international language such as Esperanto or Interlingua. Supranational languages such as these are expected to promote understanding and peacful coexistence among people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds" (Salzmann et al., P.292).

8. Chapter 2:Methods of Linguistics

8.1. There’s three paradigms of anthropological linguistics; 1st paradigm of anthropological linguistics, 2nd paradigm of sociolinguistics, and 3rd paradigm of social constructivism

8.2. It is important to study linguistics beyond just grammar. How language exists in a social context and how it is spoken allows us to understand cultural patterns

8.3. …the interest of the linguistic anthropologist is in speech use and the relations that exist between language on the one hand and its users on the other.” ( Salzmann et al., p.29).

9. Chapter 5: Non-verbal communication

9.1. A form of communication without speaking any words. This includes body gestures, facial expressions, touch, smell, spacing etc. anything where your actions can be interpreted.

9.2. “ The plain Indians of North America used an elaborate sign language to communicate with members of other plains tribes whose languages they could not understand” (Salzmann et al., P.97).

10. Chapter 8:Language through time

10.1. There is currently about 2-6 thousand languages. There are language isolates p, which have no gentle tic relationship to other languages

10.1.1. Examples are Japanese and Korean

10.2. Language is not isolated, and orthographic and sounds often mix together. Some languages are intentional with their borrowing from other languages

10.3. Language can change because of convenience, reducing the effort in the language or how parents pass the language down to their children

10.4. “Anyone who knows Spanish will tell you that other languages such as Portuguese or Italian, seem to be related to Spanish. This is due to their common origin from Latin.”( Salzmann et al., P.141)

11. Chapter 9: Language in variation

11.1. Idolect is what makes someone’s voice distinct and Dialect is the way people say things. Often has to do with geographic location.

11.2. There are 5 distinct styles of dialect in America. This includes; frozen, formal, consultative, casual, and intimate

11.3. Pidgins is a form of spoken communication with reduce grammatical structure. It’s normally not the primary language, but derived from the language they are in contact with.

11.4. “ trade travel, migration, war, intermarriage, and other non linguistic cause have forced different languages to come into contact countless times throughout history. When this happens… languages can die, new languages can develop, or languages in contact can become mixed” ( Salzmann et al., P.172).

12. Chapter 10: language and culture

12.1. Linguistic competence is the knowledge of the grammatical rules governing your original language. Communicative knowledge enables a person to communicate in different sociocultural environments

12.2. You can live in different countries with different languages and still share the same rules for speaking , this is known as a speech area

12.3. The components of communication include intended participants, setting, purpose, channels, and genres

12.4. "Modern linguistics and philosophy now have a more nuanced view of semantics,realizing that meaning is not something isolated from the rest of language, but is intrinsic to it"(Salzmann et al., P.206)

13. Chapter 11: Culture and cognition

13.1. Anthropology is not classifyed as a science, becuase it restricts culture into a singular understanding. It does not factor in non verbal behaviors, and other non lexical phenomena. There are too many outside factors to classify it as a science

13.2. Ethnoscience focues on the lexical classifiction of the social and physical environment of the people a language is native to. This is done through vocabulary as oppose to the relationships of grammatical categories

13.3. "Modern linguistics and philosophy now have a more nuanced view of semantics,realizing that meaning is not something isolated from the rest of language, but is intrinsic to it"(Salzmann et al., P.206)

14. The Lexical Nature of concepts: Polysemy-single lexeme that carries more than one meaning. Homonymy-two different lexemesthat have similar appearance. Connotation-meanins associated with a word in addition to its literal meaning. Denotation-relationship between a lexeme and that in which the lexeme refers to

15. Chapter 13: Language and gender

15.1. Men tend to use less descriptive language, and womens language tends to be more dynamic

15.2. Gender is a construct. It is learned, it is not something we are, but rather something we perform at. Gendered performances often become second nature from childhood.

15.3. "Speech differences can characterize different economic or social status. In the most extreme situations, such as the castes of India, hereditary social classes restrict the association of their members with members of other classes, and this is often reflected in classes" (Salzmann et al., P.258).