Linguistic Anthropology Midterm

Situation/scene/setting

Where is this communicative event happening?

Participants

•Who are the speakers? Audience?

Ends

What is the purpose (what are the purposes) of this speech event? The goals? The intended outcomes?

Acts

What is the sequence of speech acts making up the event?

Key

What are any clues that establish the "tone, manner, or spirit" of the event?

Instrumentality

Through what channels does this communicative event take place? What is the method of communicative, the language, dialect, register? What are the forms and styles of speech?

Norms

What are the social rules governing the event and the actions/reactions within it?

Genre

What kind of speech event is this? Gossip? Joke? Story-telling?

Robbins Burling: "Smiles, Winks, Words"

human and animal communication, Digital vs. Analog;
Reference, Propositions, Emotions; Heredity and Environment; Massive Vocabulary and Duality of Patterning; Arbitrariness; Syntax & Productivity;
Voluntary Control; Immediacy & Displacement;
Audible & Visible Mediums; Quotable Gestures & Vocalizations; Gesticulation, Intonation, Instrumental Acts

digital means of communication

have sharp boundaries, allow for contrast. Phonemes are typically digital

analog means of communication

have no boundaries, gesture-calls like laughing, giggling, and guffawing are too similar

Gesture-calls

smiles, laughs, frowns, and screams. They vary on a continuous scale

Human vs animal communication

Robbins Burling argues that the human mind is the only thing capable of language because animals do not use it. Animals can use gesture-calls though

Linguistic Anthropology

the study of language as a cultural resource, and...
speaking as a cultural practice

How cultural anthropologists see language

A system of classification and representation,
Uses language as labels for independently established meanings

How linguistic anthropologists see language

Language as a set of practices,
Plays an essential role in mediating between material and ideational aspects of human existence,
Brings about particular ways of being-in-the-world

representations of the social order

interpsychological(between individuals) and intrapsychological(in the same individual)

constitutive

Having the power to establish or give organized existence to something

ethnography

Long-term, qualitative research providing detailed, in-depth description of everyday life and practice;
Its aim is cultural interpretation (constructing theories of culture), not just reporting events and details;
Ethnographers generate understandings of culture through representation of an emic perspective (insider's point of view)

Mikhail Bakhtin

Russian philosopher, semiotician, and literary scholar; says that 'words have the 'taste' of a profession, a genre, a tendency, a party, a particular work, a particular person, a generation, an age group, the day and hour.'

Ferdinand de Saussure

One of founders of modern linguistics; underlying system of language; Two tiers of reality in language: first, the abstract system (or structure), second, the actual use of language in real life; Concept + Sound Image;

Langue

social, a set of conventions and rules, shared by all speakers of a language

parole

individual, individual performance of language, in speech or writing

Takeaways from Saussure

1. langue (idealized abstraction of language) vs. parole (language as actually used in daily life)
2. A sign is made up of "signifier" and "signified"
3. Signs are arbitrary ("milk" vs. "leite")
4. Meanings of words are relational and contrastive and get their meaning from those contrasts ("blue" is not "pink" or "green")
5. Language constitutes our world: because language exists, thought exists

icon

resembles what it stands for

index

implies or points to referent

symbol

arbitrary

multimodality

how we use multiple modes to construct and co-construct meanings; Not just speaking, but also gestures, eye contact, our facial expressions, our body posture and movements, as well as written forms of language, material objects, etc

heteroglossia

the multiplicity of socially tinged ways of speaking in any given society - some of high status, some low

double-voiced discourse

The embedding of others' voices into one's own voice, either through direct or indirect quotation, or more subtly through mimicry or tone

animator

Person who serves as the voice box; who animates the words being spoken, whether they are their own words or not: the speaker

author

Person who composed the words

principal

Person who stands behind what is said; has decided what to say, and is responsible for its being said

metaphorics

Gestural representations of abstract concepts

Deictics

Pointing, usually; Connecting speech to another idea, object, or location

Beats

No semantic meaning, but generally are with the rhythm of speech; Pounding a fist, for example, or flapping your hands and arms around like Dr. Watson as she talks

Pidgins

contact languages, generally related to trade or work. Generally simplified languages used by people of different languages to communicate

Creoles

hybrid languages (pidgins, for example), when they become native language of a new generation; can become standardized languages (Afrikaans, made up of Dutch, English, Bantu; first pidgin, then creole, now standardized language)

Sign languages

They are real languages, not pidgins, and do have grammar; Not only iconic; and anyway, spoken languages have iconic elements too; There are many sign languages; ASL is just one; and they are not necessarily closely related to the area's spoken language

common methods for data collection

Participant observation
Interviews (more on this with Briggs on Friday!)
Surveys and questionnaires
Naturally occurring conversations (this was Assignment A!)
Experimental methods
Matched guise tests
Written texts

5 basic components of language

Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics
Pragmatics

phonology

the study of language sounds

phonetics

identifies and describes language sounds; Seeks to catalog all the sounds language speakers make and how they are made

phonemics

analyzes the way sounds are arranged in languages; Seeks to understand how variations of sounds are grouped with which other sounds, and where sounds appear in words

phone

Any distinct speech sound

phoneme

the smallest unit of sound that causes a change in meaning in a language.

vowels

have less constriction in their air flow (i.e. you shape your mouth and lips to make them, but you don't do anything like touching your tongue to your teeth or putting your lips together)

consonants

have more constriction in their air flow (i.e. you do all kinds of things with the parts of your mouth, lips, tongue, teeth, etc.)

Monophthongs

'pure' vowel sounds, where the mouth doesn't really move around much in making it (in English, short vowels are generally monophthongs)

Diphthongs

The mouth changes during the making of the vowel, with two different sounds smooshed together into one (in English, long vowels are generally diphthongs)

morphology

The analysis of words and how they are structured

morphemes

the smallest unit of meaning in a language, free & bound

syntax

The area of linguistic anthropology that examines and describes the ways that words are arranged into phrases and sentences

deep structure of grammar

the underlying grammar that allows people to produce sentences

surface structure of grammar

the actual sentences that are produced in language

stages of language development for babies

babbling (6-8 months); One-word stage (9-18 months); Two-word stage (18-24 months); Telegraphic/multiword stage (24-30 months); Later multiword stage (30 + months)

the language gap

people who don't have the means to learn language properly

enculturation

The process of learning culture; internalizing and mastering the values, ideals, behaviors, norms, symbols, worldview, etc. of a culture