Linguistic Anthropology and Languages

Language

Source of humanity, literally shapes your brain, written, spoken, signed, preconscious action, deep symbolic power

Linguistic anthropology

Combines methods of linguistics, sociolinguistics, and cultural anthropology, came about because of Native American genocide, helps protect endangered languages

World Languages

Around 7,000 languages in use today, 6,700 of those languages are threatened, ½ languages have less than 3,000 speakers

Death of Language

Around 3,000 languages will be gone by the end of the century, ex.Yiddish, Seneca, and others with around 50 or less speakers, languages die because of trauma not globalization

Paralanguage

Anything beyond spoken word, voice effect, pitch speed, tone, etc., facial expressions, eye contact, etc. 60% of total communication, culturally specific

Contact Languages

Creole languages (trade languages), start off as mixtures of certain languages, simplistic to start, can be come “real”, recognized languages, ex. French Creole

“Universal” Constructed Languages

Ex.Esperanto, easy to learn, politically neutral, transcend nationality, grammatically consistent, theory is, if you destroy language barriers it might create peace

Historical Linguistics

Deciphering dead languages, figuring out when languages were connected and how they evolved

Sociolinguistics

Power relations and language, how social categories influence the use and significance of distinctive styles of speech, gendered speech

Language Change

New words due to trends and technology, disappearance of old words, changes in meaning, imported concepts from other languages and cultures

Ethnolinguistics

Relationships between languages and culture, regional dialects

Dialects

Varying forms of language that reflect particular regions, occupations, and social classes, similar enough to be mutually intelligible

Immigrant Paradox

Notorious decline in physical, mental, and behavioral health in 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants relative to 1st gen. ones, related to poor inter-family communications

Shared language erosion 

Loss of shared communication and co-construction of worlds negatively affects how children navigate the world, a cause of the immigrant paradox

Diglosia

Code-switching, situational use of language, switching between 2 or more languages, or varieties of one language (dialect, style, etc.)

Symbol

Shared understandings about the meaning of certain words, attributes, or objects, made meaningful by a group of people through collective history and culture

Langue

Language, store house of knowledge, the objective language, dictionary definition

Parole

Speech, the individual use of language, arbitrary, conventional, shared

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis 

The language one speaks creates the world they live in, people who are in the same situation may perceive the situation completely differently because of the languages they speak