Chapter 11: Language and Culture

Whorf hypothesis

Whorf hypothesis

essentially states that the language someone speaks affects how they perceive the world.

Kinship terms

In English, organizes relationships by blood and marriage, as well as gender.

T V distinction

distinguishing second- person pronouns in terms of social distance or intimacy.

Politeness

normative or expected linguistic and extralinguistic strategies culturally agreed to be interactionally appropriate for a given situation.

Linguistic anthropology

the study of the relationship between language and culture.

Fieldwork

going to specific communities where a language variety is spoken in order to gather information about the speech community and language itself.

Communicative competence

the ability to interact and communicate according to cultural norms.

Linguistic relativity

________ has been investigated through color and spatial relationships.

Off-record FTA

indirect speech acts that avoid making any explicit or unequivocal imposition on the hearer.

Honorifics

grammatical markers of respect and deference.

Negative politeness

oriented towards the hearers desire to be left alone.

Linguistic determinism

hypothesizes that speakers of a language can think of things only in the way that their language expresses them.

Ethnography

a description of everyday life in the community.

Turn taking rules

alternation of turns and pausing before responding.

Greetings

different greetings are appropriate for different receivers of the greeting.

Speaker roles

________: different roles have different expectations.

Politeness

different politeness strategies are used in different languages and cultures, ranging from lexical, pragmatic, and morphological levels.

English

daughter, mother, son, father, step-sibling, etc

Politeness

different politeness strategies are used in different languages and cultures, ranging from lexical, pragmatic, and morphological levels

Speaker roles

different roles have different expectations

Turn-taking rules

alternation of turns and pausing before responding

Greetings

different greetings are appropriate for different receivers of the greeting

Face

positive self-image (to lose face)

Face-threatening acts (FTA)

speech acts that may threaten ones positive or negative face

Bald on-record FTA

no politeness strategy is used

Positive politeness

oriented toward positive face wants

Negative politeness

oriented towards the hearers desire to be left alone

Off-record FTA

indirect speech acts that avoid making any explicit or unequivocal imposition on the hearer