Chapter 9-10: words and culture & ethnographies

Whorfian hypothesis

Strong version: language determines culture

Weak version: language at least influences culture

Languages act as a filter through which we understand and perceive the world

Cultural relativism

Recognition of different cultural perspectives being equally valid

Taboos

Socially unacceptable words

Euphemism

Socially acceptable replacement of taboos, socially specific and reflect local social practices and values- culturally specific

English taboos

focused on sex, bodily functions, aging & death, race, gender, class, disability

Have polite and politically correct terms for talking about them

Ethnography of communication

Studies factors that determine how a certain utterance/communicative event achieves its objective and social purpose, culturally specific

Communicative competence

Being able to understand factors in communication and communicate effectively in a particular setting

Largely subconscious, hard to teach explicitly

Features of a fully competent native speaker

• Choosing the right code (bilingual)

• Choosing the right style

• Exploit socio-symbolic aspects of language to construct a social identity

• Recognition of others’ social/regional background based on how they use language

• Management of conversations

• Emotional expression

• Can talk to different audiences

• Can communicate in different media

• Can use the right language for communicative function at hand

Cultural anthropology vs. linguistic anthropology

Cultural anthropology tells us that cultures vary around the world, and linguistic anthropology tells us that languages also vary around the world (different verb systems, cases, etc.)

Possible linguistic differences with cultural implications

Grammatical gender- how biological sex is reflected in language

Kinship terms- how we categorize & label family members

Taxonomies and prototypes- how we categorize the world around us

Color terms- how we divide and label the color spectrum

Numbers- different languages treat counting and plurality differently

Criticisms of Whorf

Do our languages actually prevent us from understanding other cultures, and how can we determine or verify this?

Eskimo vocabulary hoax

It is assumed that people who experience snow frequently in their culture have more words to describe snow, however English has many words for snow as the language moved to regions with more snow- asks how language could evolve independently of culture if the Whorfian Hypothesis is true

General consensus on Whorfian Hypothesis

The opposite is more likely- culture determines language, and reflects and reinforces culture rather than determines it

French Canadian taboos

Related to the Catholic Church, swear worlds repurpose liturgical vocabulary

Euphemism cycle

euphemisms lose value over time due to overuse or social changes and are replaced in a cycle as languages consistently have taboos

Hymes (1974) acronym

SPEAKING

SPEAKING: S

Setting and scene- when and where communication happens

SPEAKING: P

Participation- who is involved

SPEAKING: E

Ends- goals of communication

SPEAKING: A

Act sequence- discourse/ conversation analysis

SPEAKING: K

Key- tone, manner, spirit

SPEAKING: I

Instrumentalities- channels, different media, codes, etc.

SPEAKING: N

Norms- of interaction and interpretation

SPEAKING: G

Genre- type of utterance (poems, essays speeches)