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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