Language and Linguistic Anthropology Flashcards

KAI NOTES

WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

• Linguistic Anthropology:

  • Language possesses abstract, cognitive, and biological dimensions.

  • Reducing language solely to these dimensions neglects its richness and complexity.

  • Language is inherently social.

  • Language is a cultural resource, enabling various actions.

  • Linguistic and communicative competence are crucial aspects.

• Key Questions:

  • How are meanings created?

  • How does language function?

  • If language is inherently cultural, what implications does this have for "meaning-making"?

  • Is language uniquely human?

  • Do animals communicate? Do they possess the capacity for language?

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand Ferdinand De Saussure’s theory of “the sign.”

• Understand the objections to De Saussure.

• Understand Charles Peirce’s approach to meaning-making.

• Understand why this more complex understanding of signs is important to linguistic anthropology.

• Know and understand Hockett’s design features.

• Understand the examples that might challenge some of these design features.

• Understand the debates surrounding animal’s capacity for language.

• Understand how animals like Washoe and Nim illustrate these debates.

Historical Linguistics

• Examples of related words in different languages:

  • French: Père, Mère, Main, Rouge

  • Spanish: Padre, Madre, Mano, Rojo

  • English: Father, Mother, Hand, Red

  • German: Vater, Mutter, Hand, Rot

• Language viewed as a warehouse of vocabulary for comparison.

• Goal: To discover the proto-language, rather than studying derived languages or their speakers.

Ferdinand De Saussure

• Father of modern linguistics.

• Focus on the system and structure of language as it exists now (synchronic), instead of historical connections (diachronic).

• Language is like a game of chess. Symbolic objects derive meaning from their function and position in the game.

Saussure as a Structuralist

• Interested in the structure of language, not its usage.

• Distinction between langue (language) and parole (speech).

  • Langue: the abstract system of rules.

  • Parole: the concrete usage of language.

• Language exists perfectly only within a collectivity.

The Arbitrariness of the Sign

• Sign:

  • Signifier: The form the sign takes (e.g., the word

MY Notes

Objectives

•Understand De Saussure’s theory of “the sign”

•Understand the objections to De Saussure

•Understand Charles Peirce’s approach to meaning-making

•And understand why this more complex understanding of signs is important to linguistic anthropology

•Know and understand Hockett’s design features

•Understand the examples that might challenge some of these design features

•Understand the debates surrounding animal’s capacity for language.

•Understand how animals like Washoe and Nim illustrate these debates.

Key People

De Saussure

Charles Peirce

Hockett

Washoe and Nim

Reading Summary

Nature of the

Can Animals Learn languge like human do?

Do A

nimals Use Language?.pdf

Others

What is Language

• It is Cultural and Social

  • we can do things with language.

  • How are meanings made

  • Is it uniquely human

  • Do animals have the capacity of language

• TO know a language you must have

  • Linguistic and Communicative Competence

What brought us to studying linguistics

• We compared vocabulary po find an hypothetical PROTO-Language.

• NOT to study the people who spoke the language nor the languages where the word originates

Ferdinand De Saussure (Father of modern linguistics) a structuralist

Asked the question

• What matters to Speakers

  • It is what is spoken now, the new trend. (Synchronic)

  • NOT what was spoken (Diachronic)

• He believed in Structure not Usage of the language.

How do we make sense of sound?

Is there another form of language animals use that doesn’t follow our rules

My own question

What are the components of sign to Ferdinand de sesuues and the reform of charles peirce