ANTH 102 - Week 5.1 Lecture Notes: What is Language?

Linguistic Anthropology: Language Structure and Meaning

What is Language?

• Language has cognitive, biological, and social dimensions.
• Reducing language to only cognitive or biological aspects overlooks its richness and complexity.
• Language is inherently social and serves as a cultural resource, enabling various actions.
• Linguistic and communicative competence are vital aspects of language.

Key Questions in Linguistic Anthropology

• How are meanings created through language?
• How does language function as a system?
• If language is inherently cultural, how does this affect the creation of meaning?
• Is language a uniquely human attribute?
• Do animals possess the capacity for language and communication?

Learning Objectives

• Understand Ferdinand De Saussure's theory of "the sign".
• Understand the objections to De Saussure's theory.
• Understand Charles Peirce's approach to meaning-making.
• Understand the importance of a complex understanding of signs to linguistic anthropology.
• Know and understand Hockett’s design features of language.
• Understand examples that challenge these design features.
• Understand the debates surrounding animals' capacity for language.
• Understand how animals like Washoe and Nim illustrate these debates.

Historical Linguistics

• Historical linguistics involves comparing languages to discover their proto-language.
• Examples include comparing French, Spanish, English, and German words.
• French: Père, Mère, Main, Rouge
• Spanish: Padre, Madre, Mano, Rojo
• English: Father, Mother, Hand, Red
• German: Vater, Mutter, Hand, Rot
• Language was seen as a repository of vocabulary items for comparison.
• The goal was to discover the proto-language, rather than studying languages or their speakers.

Ferdinand De Saussure: Structuralism

• Ferdinand De Saussure is considered the father of modern linguistics.
• He focused on the system and structure of language as it exists for speakers at a given time.
• Language is like a game of chess, with pieces having meaning based on their position and function.
• Synchronic (now) analysis is favored over diachronic (through time) analysis.
• Linguistic objects are symbolic and gain meaning from their role in the language system.

Saussure's Structuralist Approach

• Saussure focused on the structure of language, not its actual usage.
• Speech (parole) is considered variable, while language (langue) is the structured system.
• "Language is not complete in any speaker; it exists perfectly only within a collectivity."

The Arbitrariness of the Sign

• Saussure’s theory includes the concept of the sign, composed of the signifier (the form) and the signified (the concept).
• The relationship between the signifier and signified is arbitrary.
• The example given is the word "tree".
• Repeating a word does not inherently create or change its meaning.

Making Sense of Sounds

• Saussure argued for understanding the underlying system that allows communication.
• Words are symbolic and arbitrary.
• Meaning is derived from:
  • The relationship of words to each other.
  • A word’s position within a sentence.
• Meaning is based on position in the structure of language.

Limitations of Saussure's Approach

• Saussure focused narrowly on language, excluding speech and broader cultural contexts.
• The arbitrary nature of symbols doesn't fully account for cultural meanings.
• All words carry a cultural flavor, illustrated by regional terms (e.g., "soda" vs. "pop").
• Examples: regional terms for drinks, social usages like "Du/Sie" in German.

Significance of Saussure's Work

• De Saussure laid the foundation for modern linguistic study.
• His principles continue to influence contemporary linguistics, such as Noam Chomsky’s work.
• The abstract knowledge of the language system is considered paramount.

Indexicality

• Indexicality, introduced by Charles S. Peirce, explores how language and social relations intersect.
• This concept complicates Saussure’s sign relation.
• Semiotics is the study of signs.

Semiosis: Meaning-Making

• Semiosis explains how words and things come to signify meaning.
• Peirce's Tri-Partite Theory of the Sign:
  • The sign (or sign vehicle).
  • The object it refers to.
  • The interpretant.

Three Types of Signs

1. Icon: Signs that resemble their object through similarity (e.g., images, maps, onomatopoeic words).
   • Examples: images, maps, diagrams, words like “meow,” “chop chop,” “buzz”.
   • Even icons can be partly conventional.
2. Index: Signs that point to something via a dynamic or spatial connection.
   • Indexicality: How linguistic forms point to social or cultural contexts and identities.
   • A sign refers to its object because of its dynamic connection with the object and the perceiver (Peirce 1955, 107).
3. Symbol: Signs that refer to an object by convention or habit (most words).
   • Example: The word "cat".

Semiotics of the Tie

• The example used is asking what kind of sign is the tie?

Key Terms

• De Saussure
• Synchronic and Diachronic
• Langue and Parole
• Signifier and Signified
• Chess Game
• Arbitrary Signs
• Peirce
• Index/Indexicality
• Icon
• Symbol

Animal Communication

• The topic of animal language.
• Poll results: Do animals use language?
  • Yes, of course! 59%
  • No, of course not! 7%
  • Maybe? Possibly? I guess? 28%
  • I don't think so, but my dog/cat seems to understand me! 6%

Animal Communication: Key Questions

• Do animals talk or have language?
• Do animals have the capacity for language?
• Animals communicate through scent, posture, color, and facial expressions.
• The question is whether this qualifies as 'language'.

Hockett's Design Features

• Charles Hockett proposed 13 design features to distinguish human language from other communication systems.
• If a system lacks even one feature, it is considered communication, not language.
• Focus on five features: Arbitrariness, Transmission, Productivity, Displacement, Reflexivity.

Arbitrariness in Communication

• Human language uses arbitrary signs or symbols.
• Connections between words and meanings are arbitrary, not inherent.
• Animals communicate through iconic or indexical signs, not conventional symbols.
  • Showing teeth (iconic) and urine marking (indexical).

Dancing Bees

• Bees communicate location, distance, and amount of food through dances.
• This is an arbitrary system of communication, but it is in a limited scope.
• There is no self-evident link between the sign and its referent.

Vervet Monkeys

• Vervet monkeys have different calls for different predators and responses.
  • Eagle: Hide in the middle of the tree.
  • Snake: Stand up on your behind legs.
  • Leopard: Hide high up in the tree.
• The question is whether the monkeys respond correctly even with speakers instead of actual predators.
• This is significant concerning learned or instinctive behavior.

Transmission

• Hockett argued that language is at least partly learned from other users.
• Rather than being purely innate, language is acquired from others.
• Young vervet monkeys make mistakes in their calls which shows how it's learned through transmission.

Productivity

• Speakers can create infinite novel sentences that others understand.
• Hockett argues that animals lack the ability to combine signs to create new calls or signs.

Displacement

• Humans can talk about things not present, past, future events or abstract concepts.
• Animal communication is focused on the "here and now."

Reflexivity

• Language is used to talk about language (metalanguage).
• "Dogs don’t bark about barking" (Yule 2010:11).

Animal Capacity for Language

• Can animals learn human language with enough exposure?
• Is a dog's response to commands based on understanding or conditioning?
• Can we talk with some animals?

Studies with Chimpanzees

• Gua and Vicky: Chimps raised like human children to see if they would learn talk.
  • Gua was raised with Donald, a human child.
  • Vicky's trainers shaped her lips to pronounce words.

Washoe and Koko

• Washoe, a chimpanzee, was taught ASL in the 1970s.
• She learned over 130 signs and used them without prompting.
• Washoe was claimed to demonstrate productivity by making sentences and new words (e.g., "water-bird").

Project Nim

• Nim Chimpsky was raised as a human child and learned sign language rapidly.
• However, analysis showed that Nim rarely initiated signing, mostly imitated teachers, never signed to other chimps, used random combinations of signs, and never learned two-way conversation.
• Apes have good memory but lack syntax understanding.

Kanzi, the Bonobo

• Kanzi uses lexigrams to point to words.
• His choices appear conscious, not just following cues.
• He knows many words and understands complex requests but hasn’t been observed combining words.

Key Terms (Repetition)

• Hockett
• Arbitrariness
• Transmission
• Productivity
• Reflexivity
• Displacement
• Dancing Bees
• Vervet Monkeys
• Washoe
• Project Nim
• Kanzi