Linguistic Anthropology

Ebonics

a version of English that has its roots in West African, Caribbean, and U.S. slave languages

culture

a set of rules or standards shared by members of a society, which, when acted upon by the members, produce behavior that falls within a range of variation the members consider proper and acceptable; the values and beliefs that people use to interpret experience and generate behavior, and which are reflected in their behavior

Society

a group of people who occupy a specific locality and who share a common cultural tradition and language

consultant

the speaker from whom the researcher collects linguistic or cultural information; recognizes the intellectual contribution made to studies by those native speakers who work with anthropologists

ethnocentrism

the belief that one's own culture is superior in every way to all others; looking at another set of cultural beliefs through your cultural lenses.

cultural relativism

the thesis that because cultures are unique, they can be evaluated only according to their own standards and values; looking at another set of cultural beliefs through the eyes of members of that society.

Participant observation

the immersion of anthropological field-workers for an extended period of time in the day-to-day activities of the people whom they study

holistic approach

concern with a system as a whole rather than with only some of its parts; defining feature of anthropology; looking at different aspects of a system as an interconnected whole with the purpose of understanding the subject matter in its full complexity as opposed to looking at different units separately.

ebonics

a name sometimes given to "African American English," combining the words ebony and phonics, meaning "Black English"

reduplication

functional repetition of a part of a word

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

also known as linguistic relativity, this theory is focused on the relationship between language and the mind, and specifically how a language influences the way speakers of a particular language see the world. As there are differences between languages, presumably these differences result in different worldviews.

speech community

individuals who share the same language variety, and who have shared ways of interpreting and using that language

How many indigenous languages or regional dialects are presently found in Mexico?

Over 250

How is social status reflected in the use of Spanish in Mexico?

Speaking Spanish is viewed as a mark of cultural advancement and intelligence.

Hymes (1972)

Communicative competence; grammatical, discourse, strategic and socio-linguistic
Focus on performance

Social framework

phonetics

the study of sound systems of a particular language

What makes a language successful?

Some have more prestige/powerful

culture shock

personal disorientation when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life

accent

a regional variety of speech that differs from other regional varieties in terms of pronunciation, typically alaphones

What are the four fields of anthropology?

1. biological
2. cultural/social
3. linguistic
4. archaeology

vowel

open and voiced sounds - a class of open speech sounds produced by the passage of air through an open vocal tract

phoneme

smallest distinctive sound unit

social evolution

There are 3 assumptions: social forms change over time, rank order societies from high to low on some criterion, rank order is treated as sequence of events.

linguistic anthropology

studies language in its social and cultural context, across space and over time

linguistics

the scientific study of the structure, sounds, and meaning of language

structural linguistics

linguistics defined as the analysis of formal structures in a text or discourse

transformational-generative grammar

Introduced by Chomsky and Jakobson; emphasizes the creativity of human language and states that humans can understand an infinite number of sentences that have never been heard.

Noam Chomsky

1928-present; Field: language; Contributions: disagreed with Skinner about language acquisition, stated there is an infinite # of sentences in a language, humans have an inborn native ability to develop language

critical age hypothesis

The theory that states that there is a window of time between early childhood and puberty for learning a first language, and beyond which first language acquisition is almost always incomplete.

neurolinguistics

the study of the relationship between language and the brain

Broca's aphasias

Usually located in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere, typically deals with speech production

Wernicke's aphasia

Aphasia resulting from damage to the Wernicke's area of the frontal lobe. Affects written and spoken language.

code-switching

the practice of alternating between two or more languages or varieties of language in conversation.

diglossia

language with "high" (formal) and "low" (informal, familial) dialects

morpheme

smallest unit of meaning

morphophonemics

rules that account for alternations among allomorphs

generative grammar

system of grammatical rules that allow speakers to create possible sentences in a language

transformational grammar

rules of syntax for transforming basic underlying thoughts into a variety of sentence forms

syntax

the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language

allomorph

a variant form of a morpheme

lexicon

a dictionary; a specialized vocabulary used in a particular field or place

/s/

plural after voiceless stops

3 most common types of affixes in english

prefixes, infixes, and suffixes

affixes

an additional element placed at the beginning or end of a root, stem, or word, or in the body of a word, to modify its meaning.

phonologically conditioned

shape of allomorph depends on neighbouring sounds

/z/

plural after vowels

/əz/

plural after frickatives

semiotics

study of the properties of signs and symbols and their functions in communication

paralanguage

Characteristics of vocal communication considered marginal or optional and therefore excludable from linguistic analysis

kinesics

the study of body motions as a systematic mode of communication

kineme

a minimal unit of visual expression; now also a meaningful unit of visual expression

proxemics

the study of the use of space

sign language

language developed by members of a deaf community that uses visual rather than auditory communication

cheremes

most basic and visually distinct units of sign language

Protowriting

Systems based on pictures and symbols and no grammatical words of affixes

alphabet

A set of symbols that represent the sounds of a language

Cuneiform

A form of writing developed by the Sumerians using a wedge shaped stylus and clay tablets.

hieroglyphics

An ancient Egyptian writing system in which pictures were used to represent ideas and sounds

voice qualifiers

Speech rate, pitch, articulation, etc.

voice characterizers

-additional sounds we make while speaking
- may be completely unrelated to speech patterns
- Can be placed on continuum of positive to negative

vocal segregates

vocal sounds of language but not words themselves ("uh oh" or "shhh" or "uh huh"). They have meaning but are not words.

prelanguage

communication that proceeded to full-fledged language

nonverbal communication

communication using body movements, gestures, and facial expressions rather than speech

displays

signals patterns familiar to humans

language death

occurs when the last native speakers of a language have died and no new generations speak their ancestors' language fluently

Why is reading verbal

You see the word in your head

Pheromones

biochemical odorants emitted by other members of its species that can affect an animal's behavior or physiology

number of chinese characters

65,000

Glottochronology issues

1. assumtion of constant rate of change
2. lexical selection bias
3. exterenal linguistic influence
4. ethnocentric bias
5. oversimplification of complex phenomena
6. lack of empirical support

protolanguages

a hypothesized ancestral language from which two or more languages seem to have derived

Glottal chronology

method of identifying when languages diverse from their common ancestors
- 14% change in vocab every 1000 years

linguistic drift

process of random change inherent to all languages
- youth are key agents of linguistic drift
- migration can precipitate language change

Lexicostatistics

- classifying and grouping langs based on lexical similarity
- lexicoltaxonomy

edward sapir

anthropologist and linguist of Native Americans. Talked about importance of analyzing vocabulary in order to learn about physical and social environment of people.

language isolate

A language that belongs to no known language family.

Swadesh list

One of several lists of vocabulary with basic (universal) meanings, developed by Morris Swadesh from 1940 onward

Cognates

Words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling, and pronunciation.