Exploring Linguistic Diversity Midterm
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What caused the lack of linguistic diversity in Virginia in the 1950s?
Immigration policies
What was the effect of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act removal?
Immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America
Who did the economic globalization and education exchange attract?
Chinese, Hindi/Urdu, etc
What were some linguistic generational shifts?
Effects of language competition
Education effect
Adaptation
What are the effects of language competition?
Deciding which language to speak because you cannot speak two languages at a time
What is linguistic adaptation?
Without thinking about it, speaking the common language to fit in
What is linguistic diversity?
Exploring the many forms language and communication assume
occurs across history, individuals, and groups
includes inter- and intra- personal variation
What are the manifestations of linguistic diversity?
Within one person
Within and between communities
Between languages
Structurally
Perceptually
How is linguistic diversity manifested within one person?
variation by context and age
How is linguistic diversity manifested within and between communities?
Families, professions, regions
How is linguistic diversity manifested between languages?
Contact and influence
How is linguistic diversity manifested structurally
Phonology, syntax, semantics
How is linguistic diversity manifested perceptually?
Public perception and hierarchy
Linguistic diversity refers to…
The coexistence and use of multiple languages, dialects, or language varieties within a society, community, or even within a single individual
What does linguistic diversity include?
Differences across speakers (multilingualism) and differences within speakers (regional dialect/standard language)
What is code mixing?
Speaking more than one language in one utterance. Ex. Tengo mucho to tell you
What is code switching?
Changing between two languages in different utterances
What is the significance of the Tower of Babel?
Divine punishment for human pride, where God made it so everyone was speaking different languages, and no one could understand each other
What is considered the original language in medieval Europe?
Hebrew
What is an old term for linguistics?
Philology
At the base, what is the definition of linguistics?
The study or comparison of languages
What is structuralism?
Languages as self-contained (structural) systems (Saussure)
What is sociolinguistics?
Language influenced by social factors
What is anthropological linguistics?
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: the language you speak affects the way you interpret reality
What linguistic phenomena were discovered after the 20th century?
structuralism
sociolinguistics
anthropological linguistics
What is language preservation and revitalization?
Languages die - the act of preserving language
What is the understanding of language from a linguistic standpoint?
All human languages are equal
Languages are a result of…
communities
What is (language) ideology?
The set of beliefs and attitudes about language that people develop, often unconsciously
How are language ideologies shaped?
Power relations, media, education systems, and historical narratives
What is typically at the top of language hierarchies?
Global or national languages with economic, political, or military clout
(education systems, government institutions, international commerce)
How can language shift and language death occur?
Speakers of less prestigious languages may experience linguistic insecurity, leading them to abandon their mother tongues or stop transmitting them to the next generation
What is intra- speaker variation?
Linguistic diversity within individuals (inner monologue)
Explain the situational variation of intra-individual linguistic diversity.
Individuals often adjust their language depending on the social context or interlocutor (register shift or style shifting)
What is multilingualism?
The ability of individuals or societies to use more than one language is both a cause and consequence of linguistic diversity
What is linguistic profiling?
The practice of judging people’s social characteristics — such as ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or nationality based on their use of speech and language
Linguistic profiling reveals how linguistic diversity intersects with…
power, prejudice, and systemic inequality
What is language genocide?
Any deliberate act committed with intent to destroy the language, religion, or culture of a national, racial, or religious group on grounds of national or racial origin or religious belief
What is the vergonha system?
The French state implemented a policy of shaming and punishing children for speaking regional languages in schools
What is a demographic?
Who uses which languages, where, and how? Which languages are used the most? In daily communication? In business? In commerce?
What is a synchronic study of demographics and language?
“present-day” and how language is structured and used today
What is a diachronic study of demographics and language?
Language over time (language as systems change — growth and extinction)
What is attrition?
When language STARTS to disappear
can be when you move and start speaking a language less and less
What are language policies?
If something is happening (institution, government), they influence language dynamics and processes
dealing with linguistic diversity
seeking and preventing changes
What is a hard policy?
A language policy where laws state which languages to use, where and when (and which languages — or variants — not to use)
What is a soft policy?
Which (variant of) language is used in the media
How did the understanding of language change during the Age of Enlightenment?
The Enlightenment (17th-18th centuries) emphasized reason, empirical evidence, and natural laws.
Thinkers sounght to explain language’s origin through natural, rather than supernatural, causes
What is the monogenesis theory?
The theory that all present languages go back to one original’s tribe’s language
one proto-human language
Who believed in the monogenesis theory?
Johann Gottfried Herder
Who believed in the polygenesis theory?
Dietrich Tiedemann
What is the polygenesis theory?
A theory that says languages are different and cannot have a single common source
the same cognitive-linguistic organization that allows the emergence of languages causes the birth of languages in separate communities around the world
What did Joseph Greenberg do?
developed a classification system for the languages of Africa (language universals)
What did Umberto Eco do?
Indicated the philosophical assumption that some languages are “better”, i.e. are a better tool for thought
the myth of the perfect language (desire for clarity and universality)
What did Condillac believe about language?
That it has evolved from a primitive system of cries and gestures
What did Rousseau believe about language?
It developed in southern warm climates and then migrated northwards to colder climates
What did Darwin believe about language?
Human language evolves from earlier forms of animal communication, which some interpret as a possible argument for monogenesis
What is the “Out of Africa” theory?
a theory that posits that modern Homo sapiens evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago and migrated out of Africa 60-70,000 years ago spreading across the globe
What did René Descartes do regarding Umberto Eco and his project?
Advocated for a philosophical language based on rational principles ‘the radical failure of language rather than its role in the advancement of knowledge’ (assumption of the universality of language)
What did John Wilkins do regarding Umberto Eco and his project?
Developed a “universal character” system meant to categorize all knowledge systematically
Why does the search for a perfect language not make sense?
Languages are not purely logical tools
They are changing all the time (and creating variation)
We should rather try to understand how they change
What are intra-language dynamics?
Language over time (its dispersal, diversification, branching off, and extinction)
What are inter-language dynamics?
Multiple languages in contact with each other (borrowing, loan words, language shifts, language wars)
What is Esperanto language?
The 19th-century attempt at a universal language (which had limited success) was a constructed universal language)
What is pidginization?
The start of a new proto-language (if two languages come together)
if two different language speakers live together and pick up some words from each to mix languages
What is creolization?
The mixed language (pidginization) matures into a real language
When do languages stop being variations of the same language?
Mutual intelligibility (or lack thereof)
Linguistic divergence (phonetic changes, vocabulary, syntax)
Standardization
Political and cultural factors
Self-identification by language users
What are the ways to look at language?
individually, socially, culturally, and societally
How are languages different?
the phoneme inventory, tones, semantics (even if cognates), and intonational pattern
What is language shift?
The process whereby members of a community in which more than one language is spoken abandon their original vernacular language in favor of another
What is contact linguistics?
The study of language contact (between speaker of two or more languages or varieties)
What are the forces leading to language dominance?
economic power
Political influence
colonization and imperialism
cultural prestige
What are the forces leading to language extinction?
Globalization
urbanization and migration
intergenerational transmission
cultural assimilation and educational policies
What is perceptual typology?
Value ranking of languages
prioritizing languages
comfort level of language use
loyalty or disloyalty sentiments
What are cognitive biases?
Errors in thinking that arise when people are processing complex information about the world around them
Categorizing people based on race in order to simplify the world and make it feel safer automatically
What is the social identity theory?
individual’s self-concept is defined by the groups to which they belong to, such as ethnicity, social class, and family
What are the roles of group perception in language importance?
Cultural identity and belonging
Historical narratives and shared experience
Social cohesion and group solidarity
How do emotional and psychological attachments impact an individual’s perception of language?
Personal attachment to one’s native language can create a deep emotional connection that influences how individuals perceive its importance
What are the influences of group expectations on language?
conformity to group norms, peer influence and group expectations, communal expectations in educational settings,
What are the influences of individual perception on language importance?
personal identity and self-expression, perceived social status and opportunities, educational and professional aspirations, emotional and psychological attachments
What is globish?
A simplified version of English that’s used by non-native speakers in international business. “It's based on a subset of standard English grammar and 1,500 English words and is idiom-free.”
What is linguicism?
Linguistic discrimination: unfair treatment of people based on their language use and speech characteristics
linguistic profiling is a product of this
How can linguistic diversity be described from a synchronic perspective?
as a snapshot looking at which languages are present in communities and what their demographic representation is (i.e., how many language users they are.
How can linguistic diversity be described from a diachronic perspective?
as a changing configuration of languages used in a community and how the demographic participation changes