1. ------------------------------------- Lesson Title: MIND MAP 2 & Final Mind Map 3 CLASS: ANTHO104
2. Five Compontents of Communication
2.1. SENDER
2.1.1. Definition:Identifies the source or origin of the message.
2.1.2. Ex:A person writing a message on a piece of paper, encoding their thoughts into words.
2.1.3. "People can send messages in many different ways. These ways are not just through sounds, like talking, or through things we can see, like facial expressions or hand movements. However, talking and using gestures are the ways people usually communicate"(Stanlaw et.al,117).
2.2. MESSAGE
2.2.1. Definition:Refers to the content or information being transmitted.
2.2.2. Ex:If someone says "Hello, how are you?" to you the words "Hello, how are you?" constitute the message.
2.2.3. "Touching animals, like petting or holding them, often works better than just talking to them. When a dog wags its tail and rubs its nose against a person's knee, it clearly shows that it feels happy and content, and is sending a message to its owner that it's happy by gestures" (Stanlaw et.al,117).
2.3. CHANNEL
2.3.1. Definition:Describes the means used to deliver the message, such as spoken words, written text, or visual images.
2.3.2. Ex:The path the message travels, such as face-to-face, email, or a phone call.
2.3.3. "Writings, gestures, and pictorial signs make use of the optical channel, relating to vision. Braille, a writing system for the blind that uses characters consisting of raised dots, is received by the sense of touch, the tactile channel"(Stanlaw et.al,118).
2.4. RECEIVER
2.4.1. Definition:Specifies the intended audience or individuals receiving the message.
2.4.2. Ex:The receiver is the individual who decodes the message and tries to understand the source of the message.
2.4.3. "The means of sending messages clearly vary and are not limited to sounds (as in speech) or visible signs (as in looks or hand gestures),although these two channels, or media selected for communication, are the means humans most frequently employ" (Stanlaw et.al,117).
2.5. EFFECT
2.5.1. Definition:Analyzes the impact or consequences of the message on the reciever, including changes in behavior, knowledge, or attitudes.
2.5.2. Ex:The receiver's response to the message, which confirms understanding and provides the source with information about the effectiveness of their communication.
2.5.3. "He would point to strange objects with an extended index finger, sometimes accompanying such pointings with vocal signals and visual checking; he would also lead his teachers by the hand to where he wanted them to go, pulling on their hands if he wanted them to sit down.On occasion, Kanzi expressed frustration by fussing and whining. If we judge from the behavior of the small sample of pygmy chimpanzees at the center and elsewhere, they appear to be better able to comprehend social situations than common chimpanzees can, and communicate correspondingly." (Stanlaw et.al,120).
3. Communications And Its Channels
3.1. Acoustic:Speech, whistling
3.2. Ex:human speech, animal vocalizations, and various sounds like sirens or doorbells.
3.3. "The most common and effective channel of human communication is the acoustic channel, used whenever people speak to each other as well as in so-called whistle speech" (Stanlaw et.al,118).
3.3.1. Optical:Gestures,Writing
3.3.2. Ex:Guided channels, like optical fiber, use physical wires to carry light signals, while unguided channels, like free-space optical communications, transmit light signals through the air or space.
3.3.3. "Writings, gestures, and pictorial signs make use of the optical channel, relating to vision" (Stanlaw et. al,118).
3.3.3.1. Tactile: Braille
3.3.3.2. Ex:range from simple handshakes to intricate tactile sign languages used by deaf-blind individuals. It's a crucial communication channel for many species, including humans and animals.
3.3.3.3. "Braille, a writing system for the blind that uses characters consisting of raised dots, is received by the sense of touch, the tactile channel" (Stanlaw et.al,118).
3.3.3.3.1. Olfactory:Pheromones (e.g.,insects)
3.3.3.3.2. Ex:the use of scents for communication, involves various examples like using perfume to create a first impression, employing strong scents to create a positive or negative emotional response in a space, and even using body odor to communicate emotional states or detect potential mates.
3.3.3.3.3. "The olfactory channel is chosen whenever one wishes to communicate by the sense of smell: people sometimes use room deodorizers before receiving guests and put perfume or deodorant on themselves when they expect to spend time with other individuals at an intimate distance" (Stanlaw et.al,118).
4. Communication among Nonhuman Primates
4.1. Birds
4.2. Ex:Songs-Mating, territory (learned or innate)
4.2.1. Ex:Calls-Alarm,feeding,distress
4.3. " A male hawfinch touches bills with a female, and during courtship the male bowerbird builds a chamber or passage decorated with colorful objects that will attract a mate" (Stanlaw et.al,118).
4.3.1. Cetaceans (Dolphins & Whales)
4.3.2. Ex:Vocalizations Show emotion or dialect (regional songs)
4.3.3. "Large whales can communicate over huge distances (across entire ocean basins) using very low frequencies. Dolphins and porpoises however, usually use higher frequencies, which limits the distance their sounds can travel. In general, dolphins make two kinds of sounds,“whistles” and “clicks”(Whales & Dolphines Conservation USA)
4.3.3.1. Primates
4.3.3.2. Ex:Kanzi (Savage-Rambaugh): Used gestures, pointed to communicate
4.3.3.3. "lists some of the most important ape-language experiments, giving the name and species of the animal, the name of the investigator, the experimental technique used, and the alleged achievement of the ape in terms of number of signs learned or other measures of language ability" (Stanlaw et.al,119).
5. When Does communication Become A Language
5.1. Key Signals: Vocalizations, grooming, facial expressions.
5.2. "The visual signals, or gestures, would have been made by various parts of the body, including the face"(Stanlaw et.al,122).
5.2.1. Prelanguage: Early humans likely had stages before full language
6. Human Evolution & Language
6.1. Evolutionary Milestones
6.2. Australoithecus afarensis (Lucy)-Ethiopia,bipedal
6.3. Homo habilis- Used tools, group cooperation
6.4. Homo erectus- Tools,hunting,spread widely
6.5. Homo sapiens- Modern humans evolved-300,00 years ago
7. Design Features of Language (Charles F. Hockett)
7.1. Displacement: Talk about past/future
7.2. "Displacement. Humans can talk about (or write about, for that matter) something that is far removed in time or space from the setting in which the communication occurs" (Stanlaw et.al,125).
7.2.1. Productivity: Create new sentences
7.2.2. "Humans can say things that have never been said before, and they can understand things they have never heard before" (Stanlaw et.al,125).
7.2.2.1. Refexiveness: Talk about language itself
7.2.2.2. "Reflexiveness. Humans can use language to talk about language, or communication in general, and indeed do so all the time" (Stanlaw et.al,126).
7.2.2.2.1. Learnability: Learn any human language
7.2.2.2.2. " Learnability. Any human speaker can potentially learn any human language" (Stanlas et.al,126).
8. Theories on Language Evolutions
8.1. Continuity Theory (lenneberg):Language evolved from simpler animal communication
8.2. "speech must have ultimately developed from primitive forms of communication used by lower animals and that its study is likely to reveal that language evolved in a straight line over time"(Stanlaw et.al,127).
8.2.1. Discontinuity Theory: Human language is unique, no evolutionary antecedent.
8.2.2. "human language must be recognized as unique, without evolutionary antecedents. Its development cannot be illuminated by studying various communicative systems of animal species at random and then comparing them with human language"(Stanlaw et.al,127).
8.2.2.1. Ghould's Spandrel Theory:Language as by product of other adaptions.
8.2.2.2. "Likewise, for example, the feathers of birds may have originally evolved as a mechanism for regulating heat and body temperature (as seen, say, in modern-day penguins). Over time, however, feathers seem to have taken on another use—flight. If true, this co-opting of feathers for use in flight would be an example of a spandrel" (Stanlaw et.al,128).
9. Monogenesis vs Polygenesis
9.1. Monogenesis:One origin, spread globally.
9.2. "The theory of monogenesis may take two forms: radical (or straight-line) or, to use Hockett’s term, fuzzy. Of the two, the fuzzy version of monogenesis appears more realistic. Although it presupposes a single origin of traits essential for language, it allows for the further development of the incipient capacity for speech to take place in separate groups of hominids within an area" (Stanlaw et.al,129).
9.2.1. Polygenesis: Multiple origins; criticized.
9.2.2. "The theory of polygenesis, with its implication that languages spoken today ultimately derive from several unrelated sources in the remote past, is not easy to defend"(Stanlaw et.al,128).
9.2.2.1. Bickerton:Protolanguage emerged from a mutation; innate acquidition ability.
9.2.2.2. "language was abrupt and the result of a single crucial mutation. However, it is difficult to accept that a system of communication as unique and complex as human language could have been the consequence of a single mutation"(Stanlaw et.al,129).
10. Language Death & Preservstion
10.1. Causes
10.2. Epidemics, wars, colonization, schooling policies
10.3. Ex:Native American children punished for native language use.
11. Chapter 7:Acquiring and Using Language(s): Life with First Languages, Second Languages, and More
11.1. First Steps in Language Acquisition Infants
11.1.1. Infants
11.1.2. Discriminate sounds early (e.g. "p" vs. "b")
11.1.3. Prefer mother's voice by 3 day's old.
11.1.4. High-amplitude sucking experiments
11.1.4.1. Stages:
11.1.4.2. Reflexive (crying, cooing)-8-10 weeks
11.1.4.3. vocal Play-6 months
11.1.4.4. babbling 6-12 months
11.1.4.4.1. "To reproduce the speech sounds of any particular language when they begin to talk, infants must learn to discriminate among sounds that may be quite similar"(Stanlaw et.al,146).
12. Theories of Language Acquisition
12.1. Behaviorist Theory (B.F. Skinner)
12.2. Language learned via stimulus-response-reward
12.3. "According to this theory, the human environment (parents, older peers, and others) provides language stimuli to which the child responds, largely by repetition of what he or she is hearing. If the response is acceptable or commendable, the learner is rewarded (by praise or in some other way)"(Stanlaw et.al,147).
12.3.1. Innatist Theory (Noam Chomsky)
12.3.2. Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
12.3.3. "Poverty of Stimulus" argument.
12.3.4. "innatist theory argues that there are at least some aspects of language that must already be present in the child at birth" (Stanlaw et.al,147).
12.3.4.1. Sociocultural Theory (Ochs & Schieffelin)
12.3.4.2. Language tied to cultural practices (e.g., Anglo-American vs. Kaluli infants)
12.3.4.3. "language acquisition was treated as if it were unaffected by sociocultural factors; correspondingly, the process of children’s learning their culture was usually studied without giving attention to the role language plays in the process"(Stanlaw et.al,149).
13. Language and the Brain
13.1. Neurolinguistics:Study of how brain processes language.
13.1.1. "how the brain encodes and decodes speech; and whether the controls of such aspects of language as sounds, grammar, and meaning are neuroanatomically distinct or joint" (Stanlaw et.al,151).
13.2. Broca’s Aphasia: Speech production problems
13.2.1. "Broca’s aphasia, also referred to as expressive or motor aphasia, is caused by a lesion"(Stanlaw et.al,151).
13.2.2. Wernicke’s Aphasia: Comprehension and nonsensical speech issues
13.2.2.1. "Wernicke’s aphasia, also known as sensory or receptive aphais, result form a lesion"(Stanlaw et.al,151).
14. Bilingual and Multilingual Brains
14.1. L1 vs L2 Acquisition:
14.1.1. L1 (first language) acquisition is different than L2 (second language)
14.1.2. "This privileging of the “native language’ led to many popular misconceptions, such as believing that children of bilingual parents would never fully acquire either. language, remaining somehow linguistically disadvantaged"(Stanlaw et.al,152).
14.1.3. Stages of Bilingual Development:
14.1.3.1. Word learning from both languages
14.1.3.2. Sentence formation mixing both languages
14.1.3.3. Clear separation of languages later
14.1.3.4. " “Bilingual” or “multilingual” can mean a variety of things. Some people may learn two languages natively as children and be equally proficient and comfortable in both. Others may have only full competence in one language and just get by in the other. Some people may be passive or receptive bilinguals, having the ability to understand a second language but not being able to speak it" (Stanlaw et.al,153).
15. Code-Switching, Code-Mixing,Diglossia
15.1. Code-switching: Switching languages within a conversation (e.g., Spanglish)
15.1.1. "Code-switching is the mixing of words, phrases and sentences from two distinct grammatical (sub) systems across sentence boundaries within the same speech event" (Stanlaw et.al,154).
15.2. Code-mixing: Mixing words from different languages
15.2.1. "code-mixing is the embedding of various linguistic units such as affixes (bound morphemes), words (free morphemes), phrases and clauses from a co-operative activity where the participants, in order to infer what is intended, must reconcile what they hear with what they understand.”(Stanlaw et.al,154).
15.3. Diglossia: Using two languages for different social functions
15.3.1. "Of the two varieties, the colloquial typically is learned first and is used for ordinary conversation with relatives and friends or servants and working persons, in cartoons, on popular radio and television programs, in jokes, in traditional narratives, and the like" (Stanlaw et.al,155).
16. Chapter 8: Language Through Time
16.1. How Languages Are Classified
16.1.1. Language Families
16.1.1.1. Indo-European (Germanic, Romance, Celtic, etc.)
16.1.1.2. **"for example, consists of almost a dozen branches (some of which have sub-branches; note: not all the languages and subfamilies are given in this simplified chart)"(Stanlaw et.al,160).**
16.1.2. Indo-Iranian:Hundreds of languages
16.1.2.1. "Some branches are represented by a single language, for example, Albanian, Armenian, and Hellenic or Greek. Indo-Iranian, with its Indic and Iranian sub-branches, consists of several hundred languages and dialects spoken mostly in southwestern Asia. Some branches of Indo-European, for example, the Tocharian and Anatolian branches, are no longer represented by spoken languages"(Stanlaw et.al,160).
16.1.2.2. Language Isolates
16.1.2.2.1. Basque (Europe)
16.1.2.2.2. Many Native American examples
16.1.2.2.3. "Yet some languages do not appear to be related to any other; these are referred to as language isolates. The Americas have been more linguistically diversified than other continents; the number of Native American language families in North America has been judged to be more than seventy, including more than thirty isolates"(Stanlaw et.al,160).
16.1.2.2.4. Super Families:
17. Internal and External Language Changes
17.1. Internal Changes:
17.1.1. Assimilation ("ten bucks" -> "tem bucks"
17.1.2. "Assimilation is the influence of a sound on a neighboring sound so that the two become similar or the same"(Stanlaw et. al,164).
17.1.3. Dissimilation ("February" → "Febyuary")
17.1.3.1. "Another process of this type is dissimilation, which works the other way around: one of two identical or very similar neighboring sounds of a word is changed or omitted because a speaker may find the repetition of the same articulatory movement difficult in rapid speech"(Stanlaw et.al,164).
17.1.3.2. Metathesis ("ask" → "aks")
17.1.3.2.1. "Still another process producing sound change is metathesis, the transposition of sounds or larger units; for example, the antecedent of Modern English bird is Old English bridd “young bird.”(Stanlaw et.al,164).
17.1.3.2.2. External Changes:
17.1.3.2.3. Loanwords:Robot (Czech), Teepee (Dakota), Boomerang (Native Australian)
18. How and Why Sound Changes Occur
18.1. Lexical Diffusion (Labov):
18.2. Ex:Department stores (Saks, Macy’s, Klein) → pronunciation study Martha’s Vineyard → dialect resistance
18.2.1. "Characteristically, sound changes are gradual. Only some speakers of a dialect or language adopt a particular speech innovation to begin with; others do so later, and ultimately all or most speakers accept the change. To put it differently, a particular sound change initially affects words that are frequently used, and only later is the change extended to other words"(Stanlaw et.al,166).
19. Communication Across Species
20. Reconstructing Protolanguages
20.1. Examples:PIE ("cloud" related words: Sanskrit, Greek, Old Church Slavonic) Bloomfield’s study on Proto-Algonquian
20.1.1. "During the first half of the nineteenth century, a number of major works were published to demonstrate in some detail that relationships existed not only among the several ancient languages that were no longer spoken but also between them and Germanic, Slavic, Romance, Baltic, and other languages spoken in Europe and southwestern Asia"(Stanlaw et.al,169).
20.1.2. Methods:
20.1.2.1. Compare similar words Analyze grammar, sounds
20.1.2.2. "Reconstruction of a protolanguage requires thorough knowledge of historical grammar and good acquaintance with the daughter languages"(Stanlaw et.al,169).
21. Reconstructing the Ancestral Homeland
21.1. Migration Patterns:
21.2. Forced migration, climate changes, wars.
21.2.1. "The main reason for such migrations has been population pressure: whenever the natural resources of an area have become insufficient to support the local population, some of its members have had little choice but to move away. Moving from one locality to another was already true of early humans, who were hunters and gatherers—foragers for game, wild plants, and water. But once animals and plants were domesticated in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago, the need for hunting and gathering diminished in many parts of the world as permanent settlements became established"(Stanlaw et.al,171).
21.2.2. Siebert’s Method:
21.2.3. Used animal names and tree maps to trace Proto-Algonquian origins
21.2.3.1. "The fairly large part of North America that the Algonquian-speaking peoples inhabited at the time of their initial contact with the European immigrants was the result of many centuries of movements by their ancestors away from wherever their ancestral home may have been"(Stanlaw et.al,172).
22. Reconstructing a Protoculture
22.1. Reconstructing a Protoculture
22.2. Marriage customs (patrilocal) Domesticated animals (horses, cows) Cultivated cereals, snow-related vocabulary
22.2.1. "The earliest homeland of speakers of Proto-Algonquian would have had to be in the area that all the significant species shared in common, or at least touched. For Siebert’s ingenious reconstruction of the location of the original home of the Proto-Algonquian people, we can refer to the author’s own discussion and conclusion (Siebert 1967)"(Stanlaw et.al,173).
23. Chapter 9:Language In variation
23.1. Idiolects
23.2. Individual voice features (tempo, pitch, loudness)
23.3. Changes over lifetime
23.4. "It is possible to identify over the telephone people we know well without their having to say who they are; similarly, we recognize familiar television newscasters even when we cannot see the screen. The recognition of individuals by voice alone is possible because of their idiosyncratic combination of voice quality, pronunciation, grammatical usage, and choice of words"(Stanlaw et.al,179).
23.4.1. Dialects
23.4.2. Regional, occupational, social group language variations.
23.4.3. Mutual intelligibility (e.g., Iroquoian language family)
23.4.4. Examples: Cockney, Boston, Texas accents
23.4.5. "The term dialect, then, is an abstraction: It refers to a form of language or speech used by members of a regional, ethnic, or social group. Dialects that are mutually intelligible belong to the same language. All languages spoken by more than one small homogeneous community are found to consist of two or more dialects"(Stanlaw et.al,180).
23.4.5.1. Styles
23.4.5.2. Lexical and phonological distinctions.
23.4.5.3. Formal (Standard) vs. Informal (Nonstandard)
23.4.5.4. Martin Joos’ Five Styles (Frozen → Vulgar)
23.4.5.5. "A stylistic or dialectal variety of speech that does not call forth negative reaction, that is used on formal occasions, and that carries social prestige is considered standard speech; varieties that do not measure up to these norms are referred to as nonstandard or substandard"(stanlaw et.al.181).
24. Languages In Contact
24.1. Language Contact Causes
24.2. Trade, migration, war, intermarriage
24.3. Language death, mixing, and birth
24.4. "Languages must have been in contact as long as there have been human beings. From what can be ascertained from the current and historical ethnographic record, people have also often been in close proximity with those who spoke languages that were mutually unintelligible. Trade, travel, migration, war, intermarriage, and other nonlinguistic causes have forced different languages to come into contact countless times throughout history"(Stanlaw et.al 184).
24.4.1. Pidgins
24.4.2. Simplified grammar and vocabulary for communication.
24.4.3. Not native languages (e.g., Hawaiian Pidgin, China Coast Pidgin).
24.4.4. "Typically, a pidgin originates when speakers of two or more mutually unintelligible languages develop a need to communicate with each other for certain limited or specialized purposes, especially trade. Because pidgins have a much narrower range of functions than the languages for which they substitute, they possess a limited vocabulary, and because they need to be learned rapidly for the sake of efficiency, they have a substantially reduced grammatical structure"(Stanlaw et.al,185).
24.4.4.1. From Pidgin to Creole
24.4.4.2. Creolization: When pidgin becomes native language.
24.4.4.3. Decreolization: Movement toward standard language.
24.4.4.4. Examples: Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea).
24.4.4.5. "The process of grammatical and lexical reduction of a language such as English or Navajo to a pidgin, referred to as pidginization, reflects a limitation on functions the pidgin is expected to serve"(Stanlaw et.al, 187).
25. MODERN LANGUAGE CONTACT
25.1. Japanese English (Wa-sei-eigo)
25.2. Loanwords and invented English terms.
25.3. Cultural shifts in language use (e.g., “My home,” “Privacy”).
25.4. "Nonetheless, the number of English loanwords is extensive. Estimates of the number of commonly used loanwords in modern Japanese range up to 5,000 terms, or perhaps as high as 5 to 10 percent of the ordinary daily vocabulary"(Stanlaw et.al,189).
25.4.1. Lingua Franca
25.4.2. English in India, Native American tribes.
25.4.3. Artificial languages: Esperanto.
25.4.4. "Speakers of mutually unintelligible languages who wish to communicate with each other have a variety of means available to them. One widespread method of bridging the linguistic gap is to use a lingua franca, a language agreed upon as a medium of communication by people who speak different first languages"(Stanlaw et.al,190).
26. WORLD LANGUAGE FACTS
26.1. 6,900+ languages (Gordon 2005)
26.2. Issues: Extinction, dialect classification, remote area studies.
26.3. "The figure of some 6,900 languages is an impressive number when one considers that each language represents a distinct means of communication with its own elaborate structure and unique way of describing the cultural universe of its speakers. However, in terms of the numbers of speakers, the great bulk of today’s world population makes use of relatively few languages. It is obvious that at this point in human history, speakers of some languages have been more successful than speakers of others, whether by conquest, historical accident, or some other circumstance. The greatly uneven distribution of speakers of the world’s languages is graphically represented in Figure 9.1."(Stanlaw et.al, 192).
27. Chapter 10:Ethnography of Communication
27.1. Key Concepts
27.2. Hymes (1966, 1972)
27.3. Social uses of language
27.4. Structure vs Use
27.5. Cultural perspectives on language (ex: Cow metaphors).
27.6. "In an article written in 1966, Dell Hymes (1927–2009) observed that it used to be customary to consider languages as different from each other but the uses to which they are put as closely similar if not essentially the same. Hymes then noted that the opposite view was beginning to prevail: languages are seen as fundamentally very much alike but the social uses of speech as quite different from one culture to the next"(Stanlaw et.al, 199).
28. Speech Community & Related Concepts
28.1. Society and Culture
28.2. Subcultures share unique speech varieties.
28.3. Speech Community: Share language variety & rules.
28.4. Speech Area: Different languages, same speaking rules.
28.5. Language Field: Knowledge of multiple languages.
28.6. Speech Field: Understanding of language rules.
28.7. Speech Network: Combines language and speech fields.
28.8. "However, it is important to remember that people who speak the same language are not always members of the same speech community"(Stanlaw et.al 200).
29. Units of Speech Behavior
29.1. Speech Situation: Context (ex: Birthday, Meeting)
29.2. Speech Act: Greeting, Apology, Question
29.3. Speech Event: Collection of Speech Acts (ex: Interview).
29.4. "(If one were to include nonverbal communication as well, these three terms would need to be broadened and the word speech replaced by communicative; after all, a hand gesture or the wink of an eye can be just as effective as an entire sentence.)"(Stanlaw et.al,202).
30. Components of Communication
30.1. Participants: Age, Gender, Status, Familiarity
30.1.1. "Traditionally, speech behavior was said to involve a speaker and a hearer and include the message transmitted between them. Modern ethnographic descriptions and analyses have shown that many more components need to be taken into account if any particular instance of communicative behavior is to be fully understood"(Stanlaw et.al,203).
30.2. Setting: Time, Place, Psychological mood
30.2.1. "Any communicative act or event happens at a particular time and place and under particular physical circumstances—that is, it is characterized by a particular setting. Settings are likely to vary somewhat from one instance to the next even if the events are of the same kind, but the variation has culturally recognized limits"(Stanlaw et.al,2013).
30.3. Purpose: Sociability, Emotional effect (Phatic communion)
30.3.1. "The purpose of speaking is not always to transmit information or to exchange ideas. Sometimes it is to establish an atmosphere of sociability and is the equivalent of a hug or a hearty handshake. Speech behavior with the goal of bringing about such an emotional effect is referred to as phatic communion"(Stanlaw et.al,204).
30.4. Channels:
30.4.1. Acoustic (spoken)
30.4.2. Visual (signs, gestures)
30.4.3. Codes/Sub-codes (ex: Ashanti drum language)
30.4.3.1. Genres: Style and form of speech (ex: fairy tales, war talk).
30.4.3.1.1. "The term genre refers to speech acts or events associated with a particular communicative situation and characterized by a particular style, form, and content. Ritual or religious occasions, for example, regularly call for such special genres as prayers and sermons. Both sermons and prayers make use of a ceremonial style of speech with special attention to form"(Stanlaw et.al,205).
30.4.3.2. Key: Tone or spirit of speech (serious, mocking)
30.4.3.2.1. "Perhaps more than genre or other components, key varies widely among cultures. By the term key, Hymes referred to the “tone, manner, or spirit in which an act is done” and added that “acts otherwise the same as regards setting, participants, message form, and the like may differ in key, as, e.g., between mock [and] serious or perfunctory [and] painstaking” (Hymes 1972:62). Key may even override another component, such as when a speaker who is presumably praising someone becomes slowly but increasingly so sarcastic that the person spoken of feels hurt or ridiculed"(Stanlaw et.al,206).
30.4.3.3. Rules of Interaction: What's appropriate.
30.4.3.3.1. "When rules of interaction are broken or completely neglected, embarrassment results, and unless an apology is offered, future contacts between the parties may be strained or even avoided"(Stanlaw et.al206).
30.4.3.4. Norms of Interpretation: How communication is understood.
30.4.3.4.1. "The norms of interpretation (just as the rules of interaction) vary from culture to culture, sometimes only subtly but usually quite distinctly or even profoundly. And within a single society, if that society is socially or ethnically diversified, not all members are likely to use the same rules of interaction and the same norms of interpretation"(Stanlaw et.al,206).
31. Chapter 11: Culture as cognition
31.1. Meaning & Language
31.1.1. Semantics: Study of signs & meanings (Bolinger, 1975)
31.1.1.1. Example of Semantics YouTube video
31.1.1.1.1. BOX 11.1 AN EXAMPLE OF HOW MEANING IS DISCOVERED "It is still not definitively clear how we as children learn what words mean. For the most part, words are never explicitly defined for us, even though many times specific examples are pointed out (“Look, there’s a ‘puppy’ coming!”). Still, this process is often equally mysterious, even to adults, when things are explained to them and they have the intellectual maturity to know what to look for and the tools to do so. A case in point is when one of the authors (Stanlaw) was studying Japanese. The first week of language class he learned two important survival words: “eat” (taberu) and “drink” (nomu). When Japanese people would consume tea, beer, or water they would nomu; when they would consume sushi, hamburgers, or pizza they would taberu. There were a few oddities, however (as seen below). Japanese people would nomu chicken soup or aspirin, while Americans would “eat”the soup or “take”the aspirin. If something was dropped on the floor, a dog could “eat”it—or taberu it—in both languages (even if it was an aspirin). Stanlaw chalked this up to just some of the inevitable exceptions to the rules in learning a foreign language and never thought much more about these peculiarities, as about 90 percent of the time he ate and drank in Japanese just fine" (Stanlaw et, al. 214).
31.2. Concepts & Categories
31.2.1. Mental Glue (Murphy, 2002): Words stick to concepts.
31.2.1.1. Example YouTube Video.
31.2.1.1.1. "First, perception is just as much about ignoring stimuli as it is about responding to them. We have an infinity of stimuli coming into our brains at any given moment. A language or culture’s categories allow us to filter out the unimportant from the important. Second, the human brain allows us to react to the world using categories instantaneously. If we had to look at, and uniquely respond to, every desk in the classroom as we walked in, it would take us an hour to take a seat. Classifying them all together as “desks”—where presumably one is the same as any other—allows us to get on with more important things, such as today’s quiz or the person sitting next to us" (Stanlaw et, al. 217).
31.3. Lexical Nature of Concepts
31.3.1. Synonyms & Antonyms: Define boundaries
31.3.1.1. "In the rest of this chapter, we will examine meaning from the point of view of the linguistic anthropologist. That is, we will seek to see how meaning emerges through the interactions of culture, cognition, and categorization. We start with some issues of nomenclature—how we might formally define words, concepts, and categories—and we will make some remarks on how such terms have been thought about in the past. We will then look in some detail at how language meets the real cultural world by examining the lexical, grammatical, and social nature of concepts" (Stanlaw et, al.216).
31.3.1.1.1. "Finally, we should note that some semanticists and linguists use the term lexeme or lexical item—rather than word—when they want to distinguish a word as an abstraction from any of its specific forms or parts of speech. For example, there is some underlying notion of “runningness” in the terms run, ran, running, runs, and so on that would be missed if we considered them to be different terms entirely. We will now look at how concepts become incorporated into language by way of words, grammar, and discourse" (Stanlaw et, al. 218).
31.4. Measuring Meaning
31.4.1. Semantic Differential (Osgood, 1970): Evaluation, Potency, Activity
31.4.1.1. YouTube Video of Semantic Differential.
31.4.1.1.1. The seminal American structural linguist Leonard Bloomfield viewed meaning as a kind of connected series of speakers’ and hearers’ stimuli (S) and responses (R): A person is hungry and, seeing food (S), tells another to bring it, which he does (R). Presenting the food to the hungry person (S) elicits a “thanks” in return (R). Meaning arises from the events that accompany an action. For structural linguistics through the 1950s, such notions were generally sufficient. They relied on these kinds of “differential meaning” to do their phonemic and morphological analysis. For example, to determine phonemes of a language, they would ask informants to differentiate between two words of a minimal pair, say [art] and [ark]. If the two words did not mean the same thing, it would be concluded that [t] and [k] were different phonemes.
31.5. Ethnoscience & Folk Taxonomies
31.5.1. Ethnoscience/New Ethnography:
31.5.1.1. Focus: Lexical classification (emic approach)
31.5.1.1.1. Issues: Ignores non-verbal, oversimplifies culture
31.6. Meaning in Use (Pragmatics)
31.6.1. Presuppositions: Semantic: Assumptions within language structure Pragmatic: Contextual appropriateness
31.6.1.1. "Semantic presupposition is concerned with certain kinds of presuppositions among sentences. A famous example (Levinson 1983:170–173) is The king of France is wise, requires as a prerequisite a sentence like There is at present a king of France"(Stanlaw et, al.222).
31.6.1.1.1. "Pragmatic presupposition, however, deals with the relationships between speakers and the appropriateness of their statements in context. The famous punch line, Do you still beat your wife? is an example. This is really an unanswerable question because even if you adamantly deny it using all the linguistic resources at your disposal, the meaning of the discourse has already been established: you are a wife-beater, and the only question at issue is whether you have done so lately" (Stanlaw et,al.222).
31.7. Speech Acts (5 Types):
31.7.1. Commissives, Directives, Expressives, Declarations, Representatives
31.7.1.1. 1. Commissives, where the speaker commits to some future action (as in promising, threatening, or guaranteeing). 2. Directives, where the speaker tries to get the listener to do something (such as begging, commanding, requesting). 3. Expressives, where speakers indicate their psychological state (such as apologies, congratulations, welcomings). 4. Declarations, where the speaker’s utterance brings about a new state of affairs (such as christening, firing, resigning, marrying, excommunicating). 5. Representatives, where the speaker conveys beliefs about the truth of some proposition (such as asserting, concluding, or hypothesizing). (Stanlaw et,al.223).
31.8. Discourse & Conversation
31.8.1. Conversation Analysis: Data-driven, empirical, patterns across conversations
31.8.1.1. conversational analysis is characterized by the following: 1. Methodologically, conversational analysis examines conversations minutely in great detail; it is rigorous and empirical, and avoids grandiose theory construction. 2. The method is highly inductive. 3. A search is made for recurring patterns in large numbers of naturally occurring conversations (and not just based on single texts). 4. Instead of positing a set of rules that all conversations must theoretically follow, emphasis is placed on the choices and alternatives available to speakers in differing types of conversations, and their interactional and inferential consequences. 5. Emphasis is placed on what is actually in the data rather than on what intuition might tell us about what is or is not acceptable. 6. As many instances as possible of some phenomena under consideration are found across texts. These examples are used to discover the systemic properties of conversations, their structure and organization, and the ways in which utterances are designed and used to manage the sequences of talk (Stanlaw et,al.224).
31.8.1.1.1. Discourse Analysis: Rules of structure beyond the sentence Focus on well-formedness, coherence
32. SPEAKING Model (by Hymes)
32.1. Setting and Scene Participants Ends (goals) Act Sequence Key (tone/mood) Instrumentalities (style/register) Norms Genre
32.1.1. "letters stand for settings, participants, ends (discussed previously as “purpose”), act sequences (the arrangement of components), keys, instrumentalities (discussed previously as “channels,” “codes,” and “message form”), norms (of interaction and interpretation), and genres"(Stanlaw et.al,207).
32.1.2. Frames
32.1.3. Contexts for understanding communication
32.1.4. Influenced by culture, age, class
32.1.4.1. "A concept frequently used in recent years is termed frame (or, to endow it with some dynamic, framing). It is closely related to what Hymes called “key” and to what is referred to in modern folklore as performance"(Stanlaw et.al,207).
32.1.4.1.1. Attitudes Toward Speech Use
32.1.4.1.2. Cultural differences
32.1.4.1.3. Interpretation errors across frames
32.1.4.1.4. "A lack of common frame could be extreme if two (or several) individuals of strikingly different cultural backgrounds were to interact. The purpose of such a discourse might be poorly served, or a serious misunderstanding could even result"(Stanlaw et.al,207).
33. Chapter 12: Language, Culture & Thought
33.1. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
33.1.1. Linguistic Relativity: Language influences thought.
33.1.1.1. YouTube Video.
33.1.1.1.1. Whorf illustrated his notion of linguistic relativity by using as an example the Apache equivalent of the English utterance “It is a dripping spring” (referring to a source of water): “Apache erects the statement on a verb ga: ‘be white (including clear, uncolored, and so on).’ With a prefix nÄ-the meaning of downward motion enters: ‘whiteness moves downward.’ Then tó, meaning both ‘water’ and ‘spring,’ is prefixed. The result corresponds to our ‘dripping spring,’ but synthetically it is: ‘as water, or springs, whiteness moves downward.’ How utterly unlike our way of thinking!” (Whorf 1941a:266, 268). (Stanlaw et,al.234).
33.2. Edward Sapir’s Contributions
33.2.1. Language is historical, not biological. Cultural meaning often preserved in language. Language changes slowly unless there's revolution. Examples: Mount Shasta—Yana vs. Hupa terms. Nootka borrowed ceremonial word from Kwakiutl.
33.2.1.1. YouTube Video.
33.2.1.1.1. This extended version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, then, might look something like this: • Culture, society, and environment interact to produce physical-psychological reality. • People handle this reality through mental models and cultural schemas. • These mental models and cultural schemas are instrumental in the creation of categories. • Languages obtain these categories from the above models and schemas. • Therefore languages have categories. • These categories are encoded in linguistic features. • These linguistic features affect cognition and behavior. (Stanlaw et,al.251)
34. "But even this differentiation into language and prelanguage is extremely rough because it suggests an evolutionary leap from one stage to the next rather than a long series of countless incremental changes that would have been imperceptible to the evolving hominids as they were occurring. Some anthropologists have attempted to reconstruct the evolution of human communication in some detail" (Stanlaw et.al,123).
35. Chapter 14:Language, Identity, and Ideology II: Variations in Class, “Race,” Ethnicity, and Nationality
35.1. Speech Patterns by Gender
35.1.1. Women: more expressive, collaborative Use wider pitch range, descriptive adjectives, tag questions Often use language about relationships, family, emotions
35.1.1.1. Men: more assertive, task-focused Use flatter pitch, simple evaluative words ("great," "damn good") Topics: work, sports, recreation
35.1.1.1.1. . They concluded that speech patterns were “neither characteristic of all women nor limited only to women.” Instead, they found that women who used the lowest frequency of women’s language traits had unusually high social or economic status (e.g., being well-educated professionals with middle-class backgrounds). A similar pattern was found for men (i.e., men with high social or economic status spoke with few women’s language traits). O’Barr and Atkins argued that it was power and status, rather than gender, that accounted for these differences. A powerful position that “may derive from either social standing in the larger society and/or status accorded by the court” allowed speakers—both male and female—certain linguistic advantages(Stanlaw et,al.270).
35.2. Language & Social Factors
35.2.1. Class: speech varies by education, wealth, family background Gumperz (1958): caste & lexical variation in India Labov: phonetic study across department stores; hypercorrection
35.2.1.1. One of the most obvious manifestations of social class is found in language—perhaps more so than personal possessions, style, or place of residence. For our purposes, we will reduce class distinctions to differences in economics, education, familial prestige, and some other ways people might rank themselves in society. Speech differences can characterize different economic or social status(Stanlaw et,al.298).
35.2.1.1.1. Gender: influenced by status, privilege, and social norms Lakoff (1975): tag questions, hedges = "powerless speech" Tannen: rapport vs. report style Fischer (1958): children’s -ing vs. -in’ variation O’Barr & Atkins: social power > gender
35.3. Race, Ethnicity, & Language
35.3.1. Mock Spanish (Jane Hill): covert racism in language AAE / Ebonics: Distinct phonology & grammar Stigmatized, but logical & systematic Oakland controversy: using AAE in education improves learning Historical Origins: Slavery, creole development, Gullah Use of pidgins to prevent unity
35.3.1.1. The study of the complex connections between language, “race,” and ethnicity is theoretically still in flux, even though this has been on the research agenda of many scholars for several decades. However, much of the current work in contemporary linguistic anthropology focuses exactly on these topics, and many particular problems have been examined in great detail. These include language and nationality (which we will discuss later in this chapter), dialectology of multiethnic nations, language maintenance, code-switching, bilingualism and multilingualism in multilanguage nations, and language-politics and nationalism. For example, code-switching between French and English in Canada has been studied in relation to the political power and ethnic identity of Francophone and Anglophone Canadians (e.g., Heller 2013). Puerto Rican social discrimination, and Mexican American code-switching between Spanish and English, has been studied from the aspect of language and ethnic identity (Urciuoli 1996, Zentella 1997), which we will describe in more detail shortly. And, new research on Asian American language issues has now gone well beyond earlier work on language maintenance and heritage language issues. In this regard, then, ethnicity in its broadest sense is often looked at together with other variables such as age, gender, and social class(Stanlaw et,al.302).
35.3.1.1.1. TABLE 14.4 COPULA DELETION BY GEOGRAPHY AND AGE Copula Deletion Copula Deletion Copula Deletion AAE GROUP BEFORE NOUN BEFORE ADJECTIVE BEFORE GON(NA) STUDIED (“HE Ø A MAN”) (“HE Ø HAPPY”) (“HE Ø GON GO” New York City Thunderbirds (teenage gang) 23% 48% 88% Detroit working class (all ages) 37% 47% 79% Los Angeles (all ages) 25% 35% 64% Texas youngsters 12% 25% 89% East Palo Alto, California (allages) 27% 45% 83% Ex-slaves (mainly from South, recorded in 1930s) 12% 29% 100% (Based on Rickford and Rickford 2000:116) And this brings up another issue concerning AAE: What are the necessary and sufficient features that should define it, or which features are the most prominent? If a grammatically “regular” English sentence is spoken using the phonological features of AAE, is it an example of AAE speech? What if the phonological features are largely absent, as in the case of a Signifying President in Box 14.2 mentioned above—does it still qualify as AAE? Can a European American legitimately speak in AAE, say, trying to emulate a favorite comedian or musician? These are questions that are as much political as anything else. This is because AAE entails notions of both language structure and language use. That is, AAE is not only an aggregate of structural features, but also a collection of language ideologies, communicative norms, and linguistic practices (Alim 2004:17).
35.4. Nationality & Language
35.4.1. India: multilingual nation, English as lingua franca Czech Republic: linguistic erasure under Austro-Hungarian rule Canada: bilingualism tensions between French & English Spain: Castilian, Basque (Euskara), Catalan → political tensions
35.4.1.1. BOX 14.4 THE EVERYDAY LANGUAGE OF WHITE RACISM White Americans generally agree that things happen in the world because individuals with beliefs, emotions, and intentions cause them to happen. They consider this understanding to be the most obvious kind of common sense. Yet not everyone approaches the world from this perspective, and it is very interesting to try to think about racism from outside the framework that it imposes. Critical theorists do not deny that individual beliefs figure in racism. But we prefer to emphasize its collective, cultural dimensions, and to avoid singling out individuals and trying to decide whether they are racists or not. Furthermore, critical theorists insist that ordinary people who do not share White supremacist beliefs can still talk and behave in ways that advance the projects of White racism. [R] acist effects can be produced in interaction, in an intersubjective space of discourse, without any single person in the interaction intending discrimination. From Jane Hill, The Everyday Language of White Racism(2008), 7. Used by Permission of John Wiley and Sons Inc. (Stanlaw et,al.321).
35.4.1.1.1. In a country where many languages are spoken but do not all enjoy the same degree of prestige, bilingualism, multilingualism, and diglossia are common. For interethnic oral communication of an informal nature, Hindi or Urdu is used to a varying degree throughout the country (the two are very similar in their colloquial forms, but Hindi is written in the Devanagari script, Urdu in a modified form of Arabic script). For reasons of cultural prestige, there has been some resistance to the use of Hindi as a contact language in the Dravidian-speaking part of the country and in Bengal. For formal and written communication, English (its South Asian variety) is used to a great extent. The importance of Englishcan readily be seen: in 1977, although newspapers and periodicals in India were available in about seventy languages, Hindi- and English-language newspapers and periodicals accounted for, respectively, 26 and 20 percent of the total published, and those in English had the highest circulation. When India became independent in 1947, the official use of English was intended to be only temporary. But the need for English continues and in some respects has even increased. For example, to translate technical and scientific works into Hindi would be a nearly impossible task. Today, more than a half century after India gained independence, knowledge of English is still considered indispensable for high government positions, and although only a very small percentage of the population speaks and reads English, Indians with a knowledge of English tend to be the cultural, economic, and political leaders.(Stanlaw et,al.323).
36. Chapter 13: Language & Gender
36.1. Sex vs. Gender
36.1.1. Sex = biological Gender = social construct Gender = system of status & privilege Language reflects social roles
36.1.1.1. Because sex roles vary from culture to culture, and time and place, how any given male or female might behave is predicated upon numerous cultural expectations, biological options, and individual personalities. Thus, social scientists often restrict the use of the term sex to a person’s biological physiology, while using gender to refer to someone’s social or cultural identity as a male or female(Stanlaw et,al.258).
36.2. Approaches
36.2.1. Difference Approach: Men & women speak differently due to culture Dominance Approach: Language reflects male dominance Contextual View: Situational diversity matters
36.2.1.1. For example, in a sample of children in a semirural New England village studied by Fischer (1958), the girls were more likely to pronounce the present-participle suffix -ing [iŋ] more “correctly” than the boys, who more frequently used the -in’ [in] form.(Stanlaw et,al.260).
36.3. Linguistic Features
36.3.1. Women: Tag questions Hedge words (e.g., “I guess”) Cooperative, polite, formal style Rotation in conversation
36.3.1.1. One of the characteristics of women’s speech—particularly of older women—is the use of a “tag question” in certain contexts. The term refers to a question attached to an utterance to obtain the assent of the addressee, as in “That was a silly thing for them to do, wasn’t it?” Seeking confirmation or validation of a statement may indicate the speaker’s desire to avoid assertiveness. A “tag” in the form of a question may also be attached to an order or a criticism to soften it, as in “Answer the phone, would you?” or “You are drinking a bit too much, don’t you think?” Another purpose of the tag question is to include the person spoken to in friendly conversation by offering the opportunity to respond, as in “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” Today, younger women use tag questions much less frequently. When men use tags, they do so to obtain or confirm information, as in “To get this work done, I would have to leave the car here until sometime tomorrow, wouldn’t I?” On the subject of tag questions, some scholars have argued that “a more sophisticated view of the complexity of both linguistic and social behaviour” is needed (Cameron, McAlinden, and O’Leary 1988:92). (Stanlaw et,al.261).
36.3.1.1.1. Another way women may try to avoid assertiveness is to use so-called hedge words or phrases, such as maybe, rather, perhaps, I guess, sort of, I am wondering, and others. A sentence using a hedge word may even be combined with a tag question, as in the first of the following examples: “You are rather tired, aren’t you?”; “I have been kind of wondering if I should go”; “Well, I guess I might have been right”; and “Maybe we could try adding some seasoning.” Once again, young American women tend to use less of this type of speech behavior or to be free of it altogether(Stanlaw et,al.261)