Language and Culture Study Guide: A Comprehensive Study Guide

The Importance of Human Language to Human Culture

• Language and culture are inseparable; language encodes culture and provides the mechanism through which culture is shared and passed between generations.

• Humans do all cultural activities and thinking through lan7.u guage, yet often do not notice its immersion, similar to a fish in water.

• Definition of Culture (Six-Point Thumbnail):   - 1. An integrated system of mental elements (beliefs, values, worldview, attitudes, norms), behaviors motivated by those elements, and material items created by those behaviors.   - 2. A system shared by members of the society.   - 3. $100$ percent learned, not innate.   - 4. Based on symbolic systems, with language being the most important.   - 5. Humankind’s most important adaptive mechanism.   - 6. Dynamic, constantly changing.

• Arbitrariness: A feature of human language where there is no obvious connection between a symbol and its referent.   - Color Symbolism Example: In the United States, black symbolizes death, while in China, white symbolizes death. White represents purity for North American brides, while Chinese brides wear red for good luck.   - Phonetic Example: The sound /key/ means "key" in English, "who" (qui) in French, and "tree" (ki) in Japanese.

The Biological Basis of Language

• Evolutionary Timeline: Human ancestors became bipedal (walking on two feet) approximately $6$ to $7$ million years ago.

• Anatomical Adaptations for Speech:   - Bipedalism moved the skull's attachment to the spine toward the center of the base of the skull.   - The Larynx (Voice Box): Positioned lower in the throat in humans than in other great apes.   - The Pharynx (Throat Cavity): Serves as a resonating and amplifying chamber for speech sounds.   - Articulators: The tongue, lips, and jaw produce speech sounds. The rounded shape of the human tongue and palate enables a greater variety of sound production.   - Sound Production Process: Humans exhale air from the lungs through the larynx. Vibration of vocal folds (tighter folds create higher pitch) creates sound waves that pass through the pharynx and out the mouth or nose.

• Neurological Basis:   - The modern human brain is among the largest in proportion to body size of all animals.   - Two specific areas in the left brain are dedicated to language processing:     - Broca’s Area: Located in the left frontal lobe near the temple.     - Wernicke’s Area: Located in the temporal lobe behind the left ear.

Language Acquisition in Childhood

• Universal Grammar (UG): Proposed by Noam Chomsky, suggesting all languages share a basic template embedded in human genes, hard-wiring children to acquire language.

• Developmental Milestone: Normally developing infants master the basics of language by age $3$ or $4$ without formal instruction.

• Critical Age Range Hypothesis: If a child is not exposed to language before puberty, they lose the biological ability to attain native fluency.   - Case Study of "Genie": Found at age $14$, Genie had been isolated since age $2$. Despite five years of intensive work by linguists, her competence never exceeded that of a $2$-year-old.   - Second Language Acquisition: Post-puberty learners rarely achieve native fluency, particularly in pronunciation.

Non-Verbal Communication Systems

• Gesture-Call Systems: Human communication is an "open system" (capable of creating new meanings), whereas animal systems are "closed" (innate and limited). Great apes use combinations of sound, body language, and scent.

• Kinesics: The study of all forms of human body language (gestures, movement, facial expressions, eye contact).   - Eye Contact: Highly valued in the U.S. as a sign of respect/attention; in Japan, lower-status individuals avoid eye contact with higher-status individuals to show respect.

• Proxemics: The study of the social use of space (the "space bubble").   - Depends on relationship, status, gender, age, attitude, and culture.   - In Brazil, people interact in close physical space with frequent touching. In Japan, people prefer greater distance and minimal touching.

• Paralanguage: Characteristics of speech beyond the actual words (pitch, loudness, tempo, duration).   - Example: Holding a syllable in "It’s beauuuuu-tiful!" intensifies the impact.   - Includes non-verbal sounds like "hm," "oh," "ah," and "um."

Hockett’s Design Features of Language

• Shared with all species:   - 1. Mode of Communication: Vocal-auditory, visual, tactile, etc.   - 2. Semanticity: Signs carry meaning.   - 3. Pragmatic Function: Signs serve a useful purpose (survival, influencing behavior).

• Shared with some species:   - 4. Interchangeability: Ability to both send and receive messages (Honeybees lack this; only workers dance).   - 5. Cultural Transmission: Some aspects must be learned (e.g., songbirds learn specific songs).   - 6. Arbitrariness: No logical relation between sign and meaning.

• Unique to humans:   - 7. Discreteness: Language is made of meaningless discrete sounds that can be isolated.   - 8. Duality of Patterning: Phonemes (sounds) combine to form morphemes (meaningful units), which combine via syntax to form infinite messages.   - 9. Displacement: Ability to communicate about things outside the "here and now" (past, future, fiction).   - 10. Productivity/Creativity: Ability to produce/understand spontaneous, never-before-heard messages.

Universals of Language

• 1. All cultures have language and use it to communicate.

• 2. All languages change over time.

• 3. All languages are systematic, rule-driven, and equally complex. There are no "primitive" languages.

• 4. All languages are symbolic systems.

• 5. All languages have a basic word order (Subject-Verb-Object variations).

• 6. All languages have basic grammatical categories (nouns, verbs).

• 7. Spoken languages consist of discrete sounds (vowels and consonants).

• 8. All languages utilize duality of patterning.

Descriptive Linguistics: The Structure of Language

• Phonology: The study of phonemes (minimal units of sound that differentiate meaning).   - English has approximately $36$ or $37$ phonemes (including $11$ vowels).   - Hawaiian has $5$ vowels and $8$ consonants.   - International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA): A system where each symbol represents only one specific sound.

• Morphology: The study of morphemes (minimal units of meaning).   - Unbound Morphemes: Words that stand alone (e.g., dog, happy).   - Bound Morphemes: Units that must be attached (e.g., prefixes like un- or re-, suffixes like -ly or -s).

• Syntax: Rules for combining morphemes into phrases and sentences.   - English: Relies heavily on word order.   - Russian: Relies on bound morphemes (endings) to indicate subject/object. Word order is more flexible. Example: koshka (subject cat), sobaku (object dog).

• Semantics: The study of the meanings of words, morphemes, phrases, and sentences.

• Pragmatics: The study of how social/cultural context affects meaning.   - Speech Act: The goal of an utterance (e.g., "Can you pass the salt?" is a request, not a question of capability).

Language Variation and Sociolinguistics

• Dialect vs. Language:   - There are between $6,000$ and $7,000$ languages.   - Distinctions are often political. Chinese "dialects" are often mutually unintelligible but called dialects for national unity. Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are mutually intelligible but called separate languages for political identity.

• Standard Variety: The variant given prestige because it is spoken by those with power and wealth.   - Standard English was shaped by the printing press ($16th$ century) and grammarians following Latin/mathematical rules (e.g., banning double negatives).

• Labov’s /r/ Study (1972): Found that New Yorkers in upscale stores pronounced the /r/ in "fourth floor" more than those in discount stores, correlating pronunciation with social class and context.

• Code-switching: Using multiple language varieties (registers) in a single interaction.

• Causes of Dialect Variation:   - Settlement patterns, migration routes, and geographical factors (e.g., Appalachian isolation).   - Language Contact: Mutual borrowing (e.g., "Spanglish," "Franglais," "Chinglish").

The Whorf Hypothesis (Linguistic Relativity)

• Concept: Language affects culture by influencing how speakers think and behave.

• The "Empty" Drum Example: Whorf observed fire hazards caused by workers being careless around gasoline drums labeled "empty," despite the presence of flammable fumes.

• Hopi Perception of Time:   - No past, present, or future tenses.   - Manifested Domain: Physical universe, including present and immediate past/future.   - Unmanifest Domain: Remote past/future, desires, thought, and life forces.

• Abenaki Perception: Day = "a sleep"; Year = "a winter"; Month = "a moon."

• Lexicon and Cultural Importance:   - In Palau, there are approximately $1,000$ fish species described in detail by local terminology.   - Caroline Islands: otolol (night before new moon) means "to swarm."

• Metaphor (Lakoff): Expressions where one thing is understood in terms of another.   - American Metaphor: ARGUMENT IS WAR (e.g., "He shot down my point").

Language and Identity

• Social Class: Dialects closer to the "standard" reflect higher education levels.

• Ethnicity:   - African-American Vernacular English (AAVE): A rule-driven, grammatically consistent variety.   - Pidgin: A simplified language with no native speakers, created for communication between groups lacking a shared language.   - Creole: A complex language that develops when children learn a pidgin as their first language.

• Gender:   - Tannen’s Research: Women use cooperative styles to emphasize equality; men use competitive styles to establish hierarchy.   - Madagascar: Men use flowery, indirect talk (proverbs/riddles); women speak bluntly and control the marketplace.

• Deaf Culture:   - Identifies as a linguistic minority using signed languages (over $200$ globally).   - American Sign Language (ASL): A true language independent of English.   - Oralist Approach: Forcing deaf children to lip-read/speak; viewed by the community as a threat to Deaf culture.

Historical Linguistics

• Language Families: Languages are classified into taxonomies (e.g., Romance languages are "sisters" derived from Latin).

• History of English:   - Old English (up to $1066$ AD): Germanic tribes (Angles/Saxons), some Celtic and Latin influence.   - Middle English ($1066$ to $1500$ AD): Began with Norman Invasion (William the Conqueror); added nearly $10,000$ French words.   - Modern English ($1500$ to Present): Influenced by the printing press (standardization) and the Great Vowel Shift.

Globalization and Language Change

• Dominance: $10$ languages are spoken by half the world’s population (e.g., Mandarin, English, Spanish).

• Language Death: Predicted that up to $90$ percent of current languages will be extinct by the end of the century.

• Language Shift: The abandonment of a language in favor of a dominant one.

• Revitalization Efforts:   - Wampanoag: Jessie Little Doe Baird reconstructed the language using $17th$ and $18th$ century documents (including a Wampanoag Bible).   - Anishinaabemowin: Using social media (Facebook/Twitter) to encourage younger speakers.

• Digital Age:   - Digital Natives: Young people raised with computers.   - Digital Immigrants: Adults who learned technology later in life.