Language and Culture

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Language and Culture

• Scott A. Lukas, Ph.D.
• Lake Tahoe Community College

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Definitions

• Language "A system of communication using
  sounds or gestures put together in meaningful
  ways according to a set of rules" (Haviland)

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Language Origins
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Definitions

• Signs
• Charles Sanders Pierce's basis of the sign is
  related to three elements the Sign Vehicle,
  which represents something in some way, the
  Object, which the sign vehicle represents, and
  the Interpretant, a new sign created within the
  interpreter's mind composed of the sign vehicle
  plus the object it is this element which is the
  farthest removed from semiotic apprehension.

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Definitions
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Definitions
Modes of Semiotics The Icon - a motivated
connection (usually physical similarity) The
Index - a co-occurrence or association in space
and time (where theres smoke, theres
fire. The Symbol - is not a motivated
association (and is developed through learning)
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Language and Biology

• A. Where and when did language evolve?
• 1. Anthropologists discuss four attributes that
  define humans
• a. Upright posture
• b. The making of tools
• c. High levels of intelligence
• d. The use of language

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Language and Biology

• The question that remains is what can we infer
  about language origins in early humans?

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Language and Biology

• a. A number of chicken and egg questionslanguage
  before tools or tools before language or
  simultaneously

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Language and Biology

• b. Was language necessary for social organization
  and the emergence of what we now call "culture?"

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Language and Biology

• c. One of the major difficulties is much of the
  inference required to make assumptions about
  language, such as the lack of soft tissue in the
  archaeological record.

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Language and Biology

• d. Some studies have taken fossil skulls of early
  humans, added clay to reconstruct the vocal areas
  and then used a computer to map the possible
  sounds that such an "inferred" vocal tract could
  produce.

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The Creative Revolution

• 3. The Creative Explosion
• a. Around 50,000 b.p.
• b. Presence of ritualistic elements in graves and
  dwellings of such early humans
• c. Possible connection of morality and language
  (the inwardness that seems to be present in both
  human language and religiosity)

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The Creative Revolution
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Nonhuman Language

• 1. Animals do have language, but its nature
  differs from human language.

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Nonhuman Language

• Examples from honeybees..and what is called
  animal semiosis.

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Nonhuman Language

• 3. Much of animal language is subtle and
  low-key, though some non-human primate languages
  do exhibit more complex characteristics like the
  signals being gradeda particular vocalization
  will vary in intensity through changes in volume
  and/or duration.

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Nonhuman Language

• 4. Much of non-human linguistics remain
  speculative because of the inferences that the
  researcher has to make in order to infer
  higher-level language and thought.

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Nonhuman Language

• 5. Some too suggest that such studies or
  "attempts to impose human language on nonhuman
  primates...are...a 'thoroughly anthropocentric
  enterprise'' (Hickerson p. 32).

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Nonhuman Language

• 6. Misconceptions about animal languagesuch as
  in wolves howling at the moon.

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Characteristics

• A. In addition to the specific biological and
  cognitive requirements of human language See
  Figures 1.1 and 1.3, there are specifics of
  human language that mark its uniqueness.

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Characteristics
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Characteristics
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Design Features

• Charles Hockett's Design Features of Language

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Design Features

• 1. Vocal-auditory Channel
• humans communicate via speech, out of mouth,
  into ear
• advantages compared with other forms touch,
  odor, visual

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Design Features

• 2. Broadcast transmission and directional
  reception
• anyone in broad range can hear speech
• also get information regarding direction and
  timing of sound

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Design Features

• 3. Rapid fading (transitoriness)
• speech signal is transitory, so gone quickly
  this is generally a disadvantage

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Design Features

• 4. Interchangeability
• any human can say what any other human can say

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Design Features

• 5. Total feedback
• hear and feel our speech, so able to adjust
  compensate for loss of hearing or motor speech
  skill

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Design Features

• 6.Specialization
• Communication mode (speech) is only used for
  communication unique structures

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Design Features

• 7. Semanticity association of linguistic
  signals with aspects of the social, cultural and
  physical world of a speech community (some
  features of the world are highlighted, others are
  downplayed)
• human language is able to convey very specific,
  detailed messages
• words have stable relationships to the
  objects/events they represent

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Design Features

• 8. Arbitrariness open nature of the link
  between sound and meaning Saussure's notion

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Design Features

• 9. Discreteness
• language is limited to a small number of sounds
  
• relatively small differences between sounds

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Design Features

• 10. Displacement the ability to refer to some
  thing or event that is not present. Many animal
  vocalizations often occur in the presence of
  stimuli, as when the sight of a predator elicits
  a danger call.

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Design Features

• 11. Productivity a system that can grow.
  Human language is creative and one can create new
  messages. Human language is thus an "open"
  system while animal language is "closed," such as
  in the case of only being able to relate to
  hunting, danger situations, etc.

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Design Features

• 12. Traditional transmission perhaps the most
  significant of the 4 , this is what links
  language to culture. Specific languages are
  taught and learned. They are passed on from one
  generation to the next. In turn, language
  enables humans to learn other things, through
  tradition rather than through direct experience.
  Such learning has a great survival value.

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Design Features

• 13. Duality of patterning presumably the most
  recent development, this illustrates a system of
  phonemes (sounds) and morphemes (meaningful
  units). Language is patterned on a level of
  sound and on a level of meaning. All modern
  languages with this system have a virtually
  limitless capacity for expression.

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Non-Linguistic Features
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Language and Reality

• A. Sapir-Whorf recall the notion of the
  Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis namely, the suggestion
  that language has the power to shape the way we
  see the world.

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Language and Reality
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Language and Reality

• B. Anthropological connections to language and
  reality.

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Language and Anthropology

• A. Language is of interest to anthropologists
  because,

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Language and Anthropology

• 1. Anthropologists often have to learn a foreign
  tongue in the field with little formal
  instruction.
• 2. In learning a language in the field, the
  anthropologist can learn it in its context and
  thus learn something about language and culture.

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Language and Anthropology

• 3. Influenced by linguistics.
• 4. All people use language and so through the
  process of learning a language, we learn
  something about that culture and our own language
  and culture (reflexive project).

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Fieldwork

• 1. Direct Eliciting the researcher asks a simple
  question and receives an answer. "What is your
  word for 'cow'?" Such a method has a cultural
  bias, particularly if a language lacks certain
  terms for one elicited by the anthropologist.
  Too, there is no reference to the context of the
  term, specifically as the context (such as word
  changes associated with address) affects the
  linguistic utterance.

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Fieldwork

• 2. Participant-Observation
• 3. Collection of Texts Using recorded texts
  (written or aural) and transcribing them for the
  purposes of understanding the language and its
  specifics.

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Fieldwork
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Language Change

• 1. Internal Reasons
• Making grammars more regular in various ways
  (prescriptive grammarians)

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Language Change

• 2. Social reasons
• Group identity (language is a marker of it)
  speakers introduce change to mark themselves as
  being members of a particular socio-cultural
  group
• Group emulation some groups may emulate the
  language of other groups, perhaps those with
  social prestige

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Language Change

• 2. Social reasons
• Reinterpretation someone may reinterpret a
  saying or phrase and it may catch on
• Declaring independence teens and language
• Dialect differentiation various social reasons
  can lead to major differences in language in
  terms of dialect
• Linguistic revitalization movements the attempt
  to reestablish the prominence of a language in a
  particular place

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Language Change

• 3. Value Assumptions (leading to the dominance of
  one language and the possible elimination of
  other languages)
• Linguistic inequality passing judgments about
  other peoples speech (ExampleSouthern speech
  is slow so the people speaking it must be stupid)
• Linguistic ethnocentrism one language is taken
  to be the standard by which all others are judged
  (Spanish in the United States)

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Language Change

• (4) Language Simplification

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Language Change

• External Reasons
• Contact
• Borrowing one language is influenced by the
  other. Generally a long term effect like the
  influence of French on the English language.
  Referred to as loanwords.
• Substratum interference occurs if you have
  individuals learning a second language
  (bilinguals) and they influence native speakers
  to speak in a divergent way difficult to
  document and often has a quick effect
• Pidgin a language that arises out of culture
  contact it involves a simplified grammar and
  alterations of vocabulary. The pidgin usually
  reflects terms of the dominant language. When a
  pidgin becomes established we use the term
  creole, where standardization leads to
  complicated grammar and more expansive
  vocabulary.

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Pidgin
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Language Change

• Social (global) change
• Linguistic extinction the necessity to know a
  world language, perhaps due to trade, leads to
  the lessening of interest in speaking a minor
  one. There are obvious (and unfortunate)
  economic and political benefits to speaking one
  language over another.

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Language and Politics
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Language and Politics

• Bilingualism

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Language and Politics

• Politics of language (Quebec) and linguistic
  nationalism

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Language and Politics

• What is English First?
• English First is a national, non-profit
  grassroots lobbying organization founded in 1986.
  Our goals are simple
• Make English America's official language.
• Give every child the chance to learn English.
• Eliminate costly and ineffective multilingual
  policies.
• Over 150,000 concerned Americans have joined
  English First. They believe this nation of
  immigrants must be able to talk to each other.
  They believe that the English language unites
  America. They are tired of seeing the government
  use their tax money to divide Americans on the
  basis of language or ancestry.
• English First is based in Springfield,
  Virginia--just outside the Washington, D.C.
  Beltway. This location allows English First easy
  access to Congress to advance our lobbying goals
• English First is not only YOUR voice on Capitol
  Hill but English First is also active in keeping
  you aware of developments that affect America's
  common language in your state capital, the
  federal and state bureaucracy and even in other
  nations.

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Language and Politics

• Ebonics controversy (Oakland, CA)

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Language and Politics
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Language and Politics

• Irony of such controversies (English First).

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Language and Politics

• Political Correctness

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Language and Politics

• Language and Gender

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Language and Politics
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Language and Politics

• Language and War
• Weapons of Mass
• Destruction

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Language and Culture

• Conclusions