Linguistic Anthropology

Language

A system of communication using sounds, symbols, or gestures to convey meaning and facilitate interaction among individuals within a culture.

Linguistic Anthropology

The ways in which people negotiate, contest, and reproduce cultural forms and social relations through language.

Endangered Languages

Languages that are at risk of disappearing as their speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages.

Exploring Multilingualism

The study of how individuals and communities navigate multiple languages, highlighting its effects on identity and cultural interaction.

Analyzing Digital Media

The examination of language use, discourse, and communication across various digital platforms and formats, focusing on how they influence societal behaviors and cultural practices.

Names and Meaning

How names and their meanings reflect cultural identities, social roles, and linguistic practices within a community.

Popular Culture and Semiotics

The analysis of signs, symbols, and meanings in popular culture, exploring how they shape social norms, values, and collective identities.

Language and Ethnicity in the Context of Immigration and Globalization

The exploration of how language practices are intertwined with ethnic identity, particularly in immigrant communities affected by globalization. It examines how language serves as a marker of cultural heritage and social connection.

How Language Intersects with Identity and Power

The relationships between language use and individual or group identity, particularly in contexts of social power dynamics, highlighting how language can reflect and reinforce societal hierarchies.

Language Change

The evolution of language over time, encompassing changes in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. This process often reflects social, cultural, and political influences.

Language Learning

• Language is transformed as it is transmitted from one generation to the next. 

• Individuals re-create grammar and vocabulary based on input received from parents, older siblings and other members of their community. 

• Each individual is different, and the process of linguistic replication is imperfect, so that the result is variable across individuals.

Lexical Change

The processes that result in changes to the vocabulary of a language, including the introduction of new words, the loss of old ones, and shifts in word meanings.

Semantic Change

The process by which words change their meanings over time, often influenced by social context, cultural shifts, or language contact.

Language Contact

The interaction between speakers of different languages that leads to borrowing of vocabulary, grammatical structures, and phonetic features, often resulting in linguistic change.

Language Contact in Canada

The interaction between English and French speakers in Canada, leading to the borrowing of terms and influences on grammar and pronunciation.

Social Differentiation

Different social groups relate to and define themselves in contrast to one another, often influencing language use and variation within a community. Can be achieved through vocabulary, pronunciation, morphological processes, syntactic constructions.

Language Variation

Languages are not fixed. Language evolves and is changed by users across time and space.

Dialects

Variations of a language that are specific to a particular region or social group, differing in vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar but mutually intelligible.

Dialects and Social Class

Reflect and perpetuate social class divisions, affecting language use and perception within a community.

Media and Common Dialects

Can influence the spread and acceptance of common dialects, shaping language usage and identity among different communities.

Register

Refers to differing levels of formality in speaking. It changes based on our audience, what we are speaking about, our purpose, and the location.

Speech Communities

Groups of individuals who share a common language or dialect, often characterized by unique linguistic norms and practices that reflect their social interactions and cultural backgrounds.

Language and Culture

Deeply intertwined, influencing each other in various ways. Language shapes cultural identity, while cultural practices can affect language use and development. It is impossible to understand a culture without first understanding the language.

Symbol

Anything that serves to refer to something else but has a meaning that cannot be guessed because there is no obvious connection between the symbol and its referent. 

Arbitrariness

There is no inherent connection between the signs and what they represent, meaning that the relationship between a word and its meaning is based on social convention.

Icons

A type of symbol that has a direct resemblance or connection to its referent, often representing it visually or auditorily.

Edward Sapir

Known for his work on language and culture, emphasizing the relationship between language, thought, and social life. Each culture is reflected in and influences its language.

Benjamin Whorf

Known for his hypothesis on linguistic relativity, which suggests that the structure of a language influences its speakers' worldview and cognition. A language affects culture by actually influencing how its speakers think.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The theory that language shapes thought and perception, suggesting that speakers of different languages experience the world differently.

Linguistic Relativity

The structure and vocabulary of a language influence how its speakers perceive and think about the world.

Metaphor

Figure of speech that describes an object or action in a way that isn't literally true but helps explain an idea or make a comparison.

Lexicon

The complete set of words and phrases in a language, including their meanings and usages.

Linguistic Determinism

The principle that language and its structures determine the way individuals think and perceive reality, suggesting that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories.

Semanticity

The property of language that relates to the meanings of signs, symbols, or words and their interpretations.

Pragmatics

The study of language in context, focusing on how context influences the interpretation of meaning and the use of language in social interactions. All signs serve a useful purpose.

Interchangeability

Allows individuals to both send and receive messages, enabling speakers to communicate and respond to one another.

Cultural Transmission

Language is passed from one generation to the next, enabling cultural knowledge and linguistic skills to be inherited and learned within a community.

Discreteness

Allows us to break down speech into distinct units, such as sounds or words, which can be combined to create different meanings, “p”, “b”, “t”.

Duality of Patterning

A principle in language that describes how meaning is formed through a combination of discrete units (sounds) and the rules of their arrangement, allowing for an infinite variety of messages.

Displacement

The ability of language to convey information about things that are not present in the immediate environment, such as past or future events.

First Level

Refers to the discrete units of sound in a language that can be arranged to form meaningful words and sentences.

Second Level

Refers to the way language allows users to talk about themselves and others in a structured way, facilitating complex communication.

Morphemes

The smallest units of meaning in a language, which can be words or parts of words, such as prefixes or suffixes.

Productivity/Creativity

The ability of language users to generate and understand an infinite number of sentences, allowing for novel expressions and ideas.

Variety

Refers to the different forms or dialects of a language that arise from geographical, social, or contextual factors, each with distinct linguistic features.

Biological Factors of Human Language

Larynx, shape of our tongue and palate, and brain.

Kinesics

The study of body movements, gestures, facial expressions, posture, gait, and other nonverbal forms of communication in human interaction.

Emblems

Nonverbal gestures that convey specific meanings, often culturally defined, such as a thumbs up or a wave.

Regulators

Nonverbal cues that control the flow of conversation, such as nodding to indicate agreement or maintaining eye contact to encourage the speaker.

Illustrators

Gestures that accompany speech to enhance, clarify, or emphasize verbal messages.

Affect Displays

Expressions of emotion conveyed through facial expressions, body language, and other nonverbal signals that indicate feelings like happiness, anger, or sadness.

Hand Gestures

Movements of the hands or arms that convey meaning or emphasize spoken language, often enhancing communication in verbal exchanges.

Eye Contact

A nonverbal cue that involves looking directly into another person's eyes, often used to convey attentiveness, interest, or connection during communication.

Proxemics

The study of personal space and the physical distance between people in communication, highlighting how spatial relationships influence social interactions.

Paralanguage

Non-verbal elements of communication, such as tone, pitch, tempo, duration, and volume of voice, that accompany speech and affect its interpretation.

Linguistic Performance

The actual use of language in concrete situations, reflecting an individual's linguistic abilities and choices in context.

Signifier

A word or image that conveys meaning, representing a concept in semiotics.

Signified

The concept or meaning that is represented by a signifier in communication or semiotics.

Language Structures

The patterns and rules governing the formation and use of language, including syntax, morphology, and phonology.

Semantics

The branch of linguistics that studies meaning in language, focusing on how words, phrases, and sentences convey meaning.

Speech Act Theory

Explores how language can be used to perform actions rather than just convey information, emphasizing the intention behind utterances.

Constative

A type of speech act that describes a situation or conveys information, asserting a fact or belief that can be evaluated as true or false.

Failed Constative

A type of constative speech act that does not successfully convey a truth or fact, failing to represent reality accurately. This occurs when a statement is false, misleading, or void of reference.

Performative

A type of speech act that performs an action merely by being uttered, often linked to rituals or social conventions.

Grice’s Cooperative Principle

A conversational principle suggesting that speakers and listeners typically work together to communicate effectively by adhering to conversational maxims such as quantity, quality, relation, and manner.

Grice’s Maxims

Guidelines that inform how people are expected to communicate effectively and meaningfully in conversation, including quantity, quality, relation, and manner.

Maxim of Quality

A guideline that suggests speakers should provide information that is true and avoid saying what they believe to be false.

Maxim of Quantity

Suggests speakers should provide the right amount of information: neither too little nor too much.

Maxim of Relation

A guideline stating that speakers should contribute information relevant to the ongoing conversation.

Maxim of Manner

A guideline that advises speakers to be clear, orderly, and avoid obscurity or ambiguity in communication.

Flouting a Maxim

Deliberately violating one of Grice's maxims to imply additional meaning or create a negative pragmatic effect, as with sarcasm or irony.

Violating a Maxim

The act of not adhering to one of Grice's maxims, typically resulting in the speaker providing less relevant, false, or unclear information, which can cause misunderstandings or humorous effects.

Referential Function

The use of language to refer to objects, events, or states of affairs in the world, focusing on conveying information clearly without emotional or expressive embellishments.

Interpersonal Function

The use of language to create and maintain social relationships, express feelings, and perform social actions, often involving context and emotional tone.

Linguistic Resources

The tools and strategies available in language, including vocabulary, grammar, and discourse practices, that individuals use to communicate effectively in various contexts.

Code-Switching

Alternating between two or more languages or language varieties (register) in conversation or discourse, often reflecting social identity or context.

Indexicality

The way in which language points to or indicates specific social meanings, identities, or contexts, often depending on the usage of words and expressions in different situations.

Features of Indexicality

A particular aspect of speech is selected as meaningful, noticeable. A certain meaning is associated with that aspect of speech (either with positive or negative value). Positive or negative values are attributed to the speaker and all members of the group.

Intertextuality

The relationship between texts and how they reference or relate to each other, shaping meaning through these connections.

Heteroglossia

The presence of multiple voices or styles within a single text or discourse, reflecting a diversity of perspectives and social contexts. We each have ways of conceptualizing, categorizing and evaluating our world and this is reflected in language

Transgressive Speech

Disrupting social norms and expectations, creating new indexical associations, or violating the rules of what is appropriate or conventional.

Standard Language

A variety of language that is given special prestige in a society, often used in formal contexts, education, and media, and serves as a model for language use.

Idealized Form

A theoretical or perfect version of a language or speech pattern that serves as a reference point for evaluation and comparison against actual language use in society.

Vernaculars

The everyday language or dialect spoken by a particular group of people, often reflecting their unique cultural identity and local expressions.

Prestige

The status or respect associated with a particular language or dialect within a society, often influencing social identity and power dynamics. No language variety is inherently better or worse than any other one.  It is due to social attitudes that people label some varieties as “better” or “proper,” and others as “incorrect” or “bad.”

Grammatical Language

A system of communication that adheres to specific structural rules and conventions for syntax, morphology, and phonology, enabling effective expression and comprehension.

Ungrammatical Language

A form of communication that does not follow standard grammatical rules, resulting in nonconventional structure or usage. Such varieties may be stigmatized but are valid forms of expression in their contexts.

Non-Standard

A variety of language that does not conform to the established norms of syntax, morphology, or pronunciation, often considered to have less prestige but still holding communicative value within specific communities.

Language Ideologies

The beliefs and assumptions about language that shape how individuals perceive and interact with different linguistic varieties, often influencing social attitudes and power dynamics.

Vocal Fry

A speech pattern characterized by a low, creaky voice quality that is often used in casual conversation, particularly among younger speakers, and may convey authority or confidence.

Up Speak

A speech pattern in which the speaker ends statements with a rising intonation, making them sound like questions, often associated with uncertainty or a desire for affirmation.

Linguistic Prejudice

The negative attitudes and beliefs about specific languages or dialects that can lead to discrimination or social stigma against speakers of those varieties.

Raciolinguistics

The study of how language and racial identities intersect and influence each other, examining the social implications of language use in racially diverse communities.

Linguistic Resources

The various linguistic tools, languages, and dialects available to individuals and communities, often reflecting their cultural and social identities.

Language Acquisition

The process through which individuals learn and develop their language skills, including the understanding and production of speech. It encompasses both first and second language learning.

Linguistic Market

A concept that describes the social value of different languages and linguistic varieties within a specific community, influencing access to resources and power dynamics.

Language is Representation

Language reflects and preserves the values and prejudices of society,and is a powerful means of perpetuating inequalities. 

Linguistic Diversity

The range of different languages and dialects spoken within a particular area or among a group of people.

Language Diversity

The inclusion of various languages in a society, showcasing differences in culture, identity, and communication practices. The great majority of the world’s languages are spoken by people with minority status in their countries. 

Multilingualism

The ability to speak and understand multiple languages, often leading to enhanced cultural exchange and communication within diverse communities.