Course Title: General Linguistics II

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Course Title General Linguistics II

• Source The Study of language (2)( 3rd ed.)
• Author George YuleUnits 2Prepared by
  Belghais Rovshan

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The Study of Language

• Contents
• Pragmatics
• Discourse analysis
• Language and the brain
• First language acquisition
• Second language acquisition/learning
• Gestures and sign languages
• Language history and change
• Language and regional variation
• Language and social variation
• Language and culture

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The Study of Language (2)

• Objectives
• The main objectives of this course are
• To familiarize the students with the
  interdisciplinary sciences such as
  neurolinguistics and sociolinguistics.
• To provide them with some information about
  linguistic changes in the course of history.

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The Study of Language (2)

• Status
• The students of English translation and English
  language and literature, in their listening,
  speaking, reading and writing courses deal with
  the language. So they should have some conscious
  knowledge about this mental system and how it
  works.

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11 Pragmatics
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The Study of Language (2)

• Pragmatics is the study of 'intended speaker
  meaning. The meaning of linguistic units are
  studied in given contexts of situation.

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• Pragmatics is the study of 'invisible' meaning ,
  example

SALE
BABY TO DDLER
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• Different types of context
• 1. Linguistic context or co-text
• ??? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ?????
• 2. Context of situation or physical context
• ??? ?? ??? ?? ?? ????????

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• Deictic expression The word whose exact meaning
  is revealed in given physical contexts , example
  here, this, now, she.

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• Deictic expressions
• 1. Person deixis me, you, him, them
• 2. Place deixis there, yonder, here.
• 3. Time deixis then, today
• - ????? ???? ???? ????.

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• Reference is the act by which a speaker uses
  language to enable a listener to identify
  something.

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• We can refer to things and people we don't know.
• ?? ????? ????? ?? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????
  ??? ????.

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• An inference is any additional information used
  by the listener to connect what is said to what
  must be meant.

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• Referential relationship
• Tom bought a book. It was interesting.
• book antecedent
• It anaphora (ie deictic expression)

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• Presupposition is what a speaker assumes is true
  or known by the hearer.
• ???? ????? ??? ????? ???.
• ??? ??? ??? ????? ????.

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• Constancy under negation is the test for
  presupposition.
• 1. ????? ??? ????? ???. (??? ????? ????.)
• 2. ????? ??? ????? ????.
• (??? ????? ????.)

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• Speech act (??????)
• 'Actions' like 'requesting', 'commanding',
  'questioning' and 'informing'.
• Types of speech act Direct and Indirect.

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• Examples of direct speech acts
• 1. Did he go to school yesterday?
• (???? ???? ????? ???? ????)
• 2. Please don't make so much noise.
• (????? ???? ?????? ????? ?????)

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• Politeness is showing awareness on another
  person's face.
• Our face is our public self- image.
• What we say might be a face-threatening or
  face-saving act.

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• Different types of face
• 1. Negative face (ie you want to be independent
  and free)
• 2. Positive face (ie you want to be connected
  with others)

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12 Discourse Analysis
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• Discourse analysis deals with the ways people
  make sense of what they read, understand what
  speakers mean and recognize connected (ie
  coherent) discourses.

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• Discourse analysis also deals with the way people
  successfully take part in conversation.

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• Text structure This structure differs from that
  of a single sentence since it depends on
  particular factors.

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• Some of the factors related to text structure are
  described in terms of cohesion, or visible ties
  and connections existing within text.

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• A Cohesive and coherent text
• John bought an expensive car. He did it by
  working day and night. However, he sold it very
  soon.

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• Coherence is the factor which leads us to
  distinguish connected texts which make sense. The
  key to this concept is something which exists in
  people.

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• To understand a given text, we should fill in a
  lot of 'gaps' which exist in the text.
• ???? ???? ??? ???? ???.
• ????? ???? ?????? ????.

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• Conversational interaction
• 1. We should take turn at speaking.
• 2. By signaling a completion point, we should
  indicate that we have finished.

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• The co-operative principle
• In most conversational exchanges the participants
  co-operate with each other.
• Example -Are you coming to the party tonight?
• - I've got an exam tomorrow.

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• Grice's maxims(1)
• Quantity Make your contribution as informative
  as is required, but not more, or less, than is
  required
• Relation Be relevant

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• Grice's maxims(2)
• Quality Do not say that which you believe to be
  false or for which you lack evidence
• Manner Be clear, brief and orderly.

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• Hedges
• We use certain types of expressions, called
  hedges, to show that we are concerned about
  following the maxims while being co-operative
  participants in conversation.

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• Hedges can be defined as words or phrases used to
  indicate that were not really sure that what
  were saying is sufficiently correct or complete.
• Example
• As far as I know,
• Now, correct me if Im wrong, but
• Im not absolutely sure, but

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• Implicatures
• When we try to analyze how hedges work, we
  usually talk about speakers implying something
  that is not said.
• Example
• CAROL Are you coming to the party tonight?
• LARA Ive got an exam tomorrow.

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• Background knowledge
• We have conventional knowledge, in our culture,
  about different phenomena, objects, places, etc.

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• Schema A general form for a conventional
  knowledge structure which exists in memory.
• E.g. supermarket schema
• A number of conventional features.

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• Script A dynamic schema, in which a series of
  conventional actions take place.
• ???? 1) ??? ?????? 2) ?? ????? ???? ????? 3)
  ???? ???? ????

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13 Language and the brain
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• The relation between language and the brain is
  studied in neurolinguistics. It is an
  interdisciplinary science.

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• Parts of the brain responsible for the production
  and comprehension of speech
• 1. Brocas area speech cortex.
• 2. Wernickes area posterior speech cortex.

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• Other parts involved in speech production
• 1. Motor cortex which controls movements of
  muscles.
• 2. The arcuate fasciculus a bundle of nerve
  fibers connecting the two areas.

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• The localization view holds that specific aspects
  of language ability can be accorded specific
  location in the brain.

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• Linguistic processes dont provide direct
  physical evidence and there is no access to
  language system. Therefore, we infer its
  properties from its transitory malfunctions.

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• Transitory malfunctions
• 1. The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.
• 2. The slip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
  (Spoonerism).
• 3. The slip-of-the- ear phenomenon.

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• The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
• You feel some word is just eluding you.
• - malapropisms Near-misses.

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• The slip-of-the-tongue It often results in
  tangled expressions
• Long shory stort (??? ? ???? ? ?????)
• (?? ?? ???? ? ??? ????)
• - Tips of the slung black bloxes.

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• Aphasia is the impairment of language function
  due to localized cerebral damage.
• There are different types of aphasia.

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• Types of Aphasia
• 1. Brocas Aphasia is characterized by difficulty
  in speech production.
• 2. Wernickes Aphasia is characterized by fluent
  speech which doesnt make sense.

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• Types of Aphasia
• 3. Conduction Aphasia is characterized by
  disrupted rhythm because of pauses and
  hesitations.

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• Dichotic listening test This technique uses the
  fact that anything experienced on the right-hand
  side of the body is processed in the left brain.

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• What does the left hemisphere of the brain do?
• Among other things, it handles language sounds
  and does analytic processing.

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• What does the Right hemisphere of the brain do?
• Among other things, it handles non-verbal sounds
  and does holistic processing.

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• The Critical period It is the period when human
  brain is most ready to receive and learn a
  particular language.

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• Genies Case
• She was thirteen years old and spent most of her
  life tied to a chair in a small closed room.

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• The relation between language and the brain is
  studied in neurolinguistics. It is an
  interdisciplinary science.

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• Genie was unable to use language when she was
  first brought into care. However, within short
  period of time, she began to respond to the
  speech of others.

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• When Genie was beginning to use speech, it was
  noted that she went through some of the same
  early stages found in normal child language
  acquistion.

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14 First Language Acquisition
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• First language acquisition is remarkable for the
  speed with which it takes place.

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• Long before a child starts school, he or she
  has become an extremely sophisticated language
  user, operating a system for self -expression and
  communication.

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• First language acquisition occurs without overt
  instruction.
• There is some innate predisposition in the
  human infant to acquire language.

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• Basic requirements of language acquisition
• 1. The child should be exposed to a given
  language.
• 2. The child needs interaction with other
  language users.

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• 3. The child must also be physically capable of
  sending and receiving sound signals in a
  language. A child who doesnt hear or is not
  allowed to use language will learn no language.

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• The acquisition schedule
• All normal children develop language at roughly
  the same time, along much the same schedule.

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• Caregiver speech has the following features
• 1. Simplified speech style.
• 2. Frequent questions with exaggerated
  intonation, extra loudness and a slower tempo
  with longer pauses.
• 3. Baby talk in early stages.

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• Cooing and babbling
• 1. Cooing the first recognizable sounds
  (k,g,i,u)
• 2. Babbling Syllable type sounds recognizable
  intonation patterns.

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• The holophrastic stage
• A single form is used to function as a phrase or
  sentence.
• ???? ?? 1) ?? ??????? ? 2) ??? ?? ???
• 3) ?? ???? ???? ....

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• Telegraphic stage Strings of lexical morphemes
  are produced e.g. cat drink milk.
• ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ? ??? ???? ???
• - Grammatical inflections begin.

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• By the of two-and-a-half years, the childs
  vocabulary is expanding rapidly and the child is
  initiating more talk.

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• The acquisition process
• This process takes place without (direct)
  instruction. Correction is of no use.

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• Acquisition of different Linguistic levels
• 1. Morphology
• 2. Syntax
• 3. Semantics

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• Morphology there is an order in the acquisition
  of different morphological phenomena. E.g. 1)-
  ing form 2) plural morpheme (-s) and over
  generalization
• 3) Genetive form (-s),etc.

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• Syntax (1) It is not acquired by means of
  imitation.
• There are identifiable stages in the formation of
  questions and negatives .

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• Syntax(2)
• 1. Questions (1) where kitty?/ see hole?/ (2)
  what book name?/ (3) Can I have this?
• 2. Negatives (1) no mitton/no fall/ (2) I dont
  know/ (3) she wont go.

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• Semantics(1) During the holophrastic stage
  single words refer to a large number of unrelated
  objects.
• ???? ??? ??? 1) ???? 2) ??? ????
• 3) ?????? ????

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• Semantics(2)Children overextend the meaning of a
  word on the basis of similarities of shape, sound
  and size, and sometimes of movement or texture.

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• Semantics(3) Childrens semantic development
  begins with the process of overextension and is
  followed by narrowing down the application of
  each term.

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• Semantics(4) lexical relations
• - Regarding hyponymy, the middle level term is
  acquired first (e.g. dog).
• - Antonymous relations are acquired fairly late.

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• It is normally assumed that, by the age of five,
  the child has completed the greater part of the
  basic language acquisition process.

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• According to some, the child is in a good
  position to start learning a second (or foreign)
  language by the age of five.

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15 Second Language Acquisition/Learning
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• Second language learning
• A distinction is sometimes made between learning
  in a foreign language setting and a second
  language setting.

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• Learning in a foreign language setting means
  learning a language that is not generally spoken
  in the surrounding community. But learning in a
  second language means learning a language that is
  spoken in the surrounding community.

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• Acquisition and learning
• -The term acquisition is used to refer to the
  gradual development of ability in a language by
  using it naturally in communicative situations
  with others who know the language.

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• The term learning, however, applies to a more
  conscious process of accumulating knowledge of
  the features typically in an institutional
  setting.

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• Acquisition Barriers
• Barriers in second language learning reduce the
  speed of learning in adults.
• The affective factors describe a kind of barrier
  to acquisition/ learning resulting from negative
  feelings or experiences.

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• Focus on method
• Methods aimed at fostering L2 learning
• 1) The grammar-translation method, 2) audio
  lingual method, 3) communicative approaches.

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• - In the grammar - translation method Vocabulary
  lists and sets of grammar rules are used to
  define the target of learning, memorization is
  encouraged, and written language rather than
  spoken language is emphasized.

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• The audiolingual method was strongly influenced
  by a belief that the fluent that the fluent use
  of a language was essentially a set of habits
  that could be develop with a lot of practice.

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• Communication approaches are all based on a
  belief that the functions of language (what is
  used for) should be emphasized rather than the
  forms of the language ( correct grammatical or
  phonological structures).

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• Focus on the learner
• 1. Errors should be tolerated. They indicate that
  acquisition process is in action and that there
  is creative construction.
• 2. Errors may be due to transfer.

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• Transfer it means using sounds, expressions or
  structures from the L1 when performing in the L2.
• Transfer might be positive or negative.

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• Interlanguage
• It is an in-between system used in L2
  acquisition/ learning.

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• Fossilization
• If some learners develop a fairly fixed
  repertoire of L2 expressions, containing many
  forms that do not match the target language, and
  seem not to be progressing any further, their
  interlingua is said to have fossilized.

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• Motivation
• There are several factors that combine in a
  profile of a successful L2 learner. Obviously,
  the motivation to learn is important.

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• - Many learners have an instrumental motivation.
  That is , they want to learn the L2 in order to
  achieve some other goals but not really for any
  social purposes.

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• - In contrast, those learners with an integrative
  motivation want to learn the L2 for social
  purposes. Motivation may be as much a result of
  success as a cause.

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• Foreigner talk simpler structures (input)
  provided by natives for foreigners.
• Negotiated input L2 material acquired in
  interaction by requesting for clarification.

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• Communicative competence is defined in terms of 3
  components
• 1. Grammatical competence
• 2. Sociolinguistic competence
• 3. Strategic competence

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• Grammatical competence involves the accurate use
  of words and structures.
• Sociolinguistic competence is the ability to use
  appropriate language.
• Strategic competence is the ability to organize a
  message effectively and to compensate, via
  strategies, for any difficulties.

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16 Gestures and Sign Languages
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• Sign language is naturally acquired by deaf
  children.
• American sign language (ASL) is a natural
  language. So is the Iranian sign language.

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• Gestures
• Although both sign and gestures involve the use
  of the hands (with other parts of the body), they
  are rather different.

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• Sign is like speech and is used instead of
  speaking, whereas gestures are mostly used while
  speaking.

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• In the study od non-verbal behavior, a
  distinction can be drawn between gestures and
  emblems. Emblems are signals such as thumbs up (
  things are good) or shush ( keep quiet0 that
  function like fixed phrases.

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• Emblems are conventional and depend on social
  knowledge. In Britain, the use of two fingers
  raised in a V-shape traditionally represents one
  emblem ( victory )

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• Type of gestures
• Iconics , 2) deictics, 3) beats.
• Iconics are gestures that seem to be a reflection
  of the meaning of what is said.
• Deictics as noted in chapter 11, the term
  deictic means pointing and we often use gestures
  to point to things or people while talking.

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• Beats are short quick movements of the hand or
  fingers. These gestures accompany the rhythm to
  talk and are often used to emphasize parts of
  what is being said.

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• Alternate sign language is a system of gestures
  developed by speakers for limited communication
  in a specific context where speech can not be
  used.

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• Primary sign language is the first language of a
  group that does not have access to a spoken
  language, e.g. ASL.

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• Oralism emphasizes that students practice English
  speech sounds and develop lipreading skills.

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• The structure of signs
• There are four key aspects of visual information,
  i.e shape, orientation, location and movement.
• These are called articulatory parameters.

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• The articulatory parameters of ASL can be
  analyzed in to a set of primes in order to
  produce a full feature analysis of each sign.

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• Spoken words are linear sequences of sound
  segments, while a sign is a combination of
  simultaneous components within spatial
  dimensions.
• ASL forms have iconic base.

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• Representing signs
• Strictly speaking, the only way to write
  Ameslan is to use motion pictures.( Lou Fant ,
  1977)

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17 Language History and Change
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The Study of Language (2)

• Historical development of languages is studied to
  characterizes the regular processes involved in
  language change.

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• Investigating the features of older languages,
  and the ways in which they developed into modern
  languages, involves us in the study of language
  history and change, also known as philology.

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• In the nineteenth century, philology dominated
  the study of language and one result was the
  creation of family tree to show how language were
  related.

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• Family trees during the 19th century
  philologists tried to describe proto-Indo-European
  and trace the branches of her family tree.

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• Some branches of proto-Indo-European

Germanic
Italiac
Hellenic
Indo- Iranian
Latin
German English Danish
Indic Iranian Kurdish
Pashto
Hindi Punjabi
(Sanskrit)
Italian Spanish
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• Family connections
• One way to get a clearer picture of how languages
  are related is through looking at records of an
  older generation like Latin and Sanskrit, from
  which the modern language involved.

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• Cognates Regarding the possible family
  relationship between different languages, a word
  in one language may have a similar form in
  another, used with a similar meaning.

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• Examples of cognates
• 1. Mother is the cognate of???? and Mutter.
• 2. Father is the cognate of Vater.

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• Comparative reconstruction is a procedure whereby
  the original, or proto form of the common
  ancestral language is reconstructed mainly on the
  basis of cognates.

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• Different stages of the English language
• 1. Old English
• 2. Middle English
• 3. Modern English

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• Historical changes of languages
• 1. External changes Borrowing
• 2. Internal changes 1) Sound changes 2)
  Syntactic changes
• 3) Lexical changes.

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• Internal changes(1)
• Sound changes
• 1) Metathesis acsin ? ask.
• 2) Epenthesis timr ? timber.
• 3) Prothesis schola ? escuela.

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• Internal changes(2)
• Syntactic changes word order.
• ME S V O vs non-extant order like VS (ferde he).

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• Internal changes(3)
• Lexical changes
• 1. Some words are no longer used foin
• 2. Broadening of meaning dog.
• 3. Narrowing of meaning hund

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• The most pervasive source of change in language
  seems to be in the continual process of cultural
  transmission.

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• Diachronic vs synchronic studies of language
• In diachronic studies the changes are considered
  from the historical perspective while in the
  synchronic one they are considered at the same
  time.

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• The distinction between diachronic and synchronic
  studies was first mentioned by Ferdinand de
  Saussure.

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18 Language and Regional Variation
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• A way of doing linguistic geography is to
  investigate aspects of language variation based
  on where that language is used.

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• Language varieties Every language has more than
  one variety, especially in the way in which it is
  spoken.

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• The standard language This is actually an
  idealized variety, but exists for most people as
  the version that is accepted as the official
  language of their community or country.

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• Accent vs dialect
• The form accent is restricted to the description
  of aspects of pronunciation ,while dialect
  describes features of grammar and vocabulary as
  well as pronunciation.

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• A regional dialect has some consistent features
  of speech found in one geographical are rather
  than another.

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• Isogloss An isogloss is the line on a map which
  represents a boundary between the areas with
  regard to one particular linguistic item.
  (e.g.paper sack/bag)

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• Dialect boundary is formed when a number of
  isoglosses come together. (e.g. paper sack/bag
  pail/bucket)

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• The dialect continuum
• Regional variations exist along a continuum
  there is no sharp break from one region to the
  next.

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• The bidialectal Those who speak two dialects.
• The bilingual Those who speak two distinct
  languages.

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• Bilingualism
• In many countries regional variation is not a
  matter of two dialects of a single language, but
  a matter of two quite different languages.

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• A rather special situation involving two distinct
  varieties of a language, called diglossia, exists
  in some countries. In diglossia, there as a law
  variety, acquired locally and used for everyday
  affairs, and a high or special variety, learned
  in school and used for important matters.

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• Language planning involves the question Which
  varieties of the language spoken in a country are
  to be used for official business?

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• Processes of language planning
• 1) selection 2) Codification
• 3) Elaboration 4) Implementation.
• These processes are ordered.

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• Pidgins A pidgin is a variety of language which
  developed for some special purpose among people
  who did not know each others languages.

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• A pidgin is described as an English pidgin if
  English is the lexifier language, that is, the
  main source of words in the pidgin.

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• Creoles When a pidgin becomes the first language
  of a social community, it is in fact a creole.
  Creoles are natural language systems.

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• The post-creole continuum(1)
• Decreolization
• Basilect mesolects acrolect
• Ie the range of varieties evolving after the
  creole has been created.

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19 Language and Social Variation
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• A speech community is a group of people who share
  a set of norms and expectations regarding the use
  of language. The study of the linguistic features
  that have social relevance for participants in
  speech communities is called sociolinguistics.

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• Sociolinguistics, like neurolinguistics, is an
  interdisiplinary science.
• It deals with the inter-relationships between
  language and society.

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• Social dialects
• The traditional study of regional dialects tended
  to concentrate on the speech of people in rural
  areas, while the study of social dialects has
  been mainly concerned with speakers in towns and
  cities.

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• In the social study of dialect, it is social
  class that is mainly used. The two main groups
  are generally identified as middle class, and
  working class. When we refer to working-class
  speech, we are talking about a social dialect.

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• when we look for other examples of language use
  that might be characteristic of social dialect,
  we treat class as the social variable and the
  pronunciation or word as the linguistic variable.

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• Idiolect
• An individual way of speaking or a personal
  dialect is known as idiolect.

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• Social markers
• A social marker is a feature that occurs
  frequently in your speech (or not) and marks you
  as a member of a particular social group, whether
  you realize it or not.

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• Speech style
• - The most basic distinction in speech style is
  between formal uses and informal uses. Formal
  style is when we pay more careful attention to
  how were speaking and informal style is when we
  pay less attention.

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• Style-shifting
• - A change from one style to the other by an
  individual is called style-shifting.

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• Prestige
• 1. Overt prestige The positively valued ways of
  speaking in social communities.
• 2. Covert prestige A hidden status of a speech
  style that has positive value.

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• Speech accommodation
• It is defined as our ability to modify our speech
  style toward or away from the perceived style of
  person (s) were talking to.

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• We can adopt a speech style that attempts to
  reduce social distance, described as convergence,
  and use forms that are similar to those used by
  the person were talking to.

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• In contrast, when a speech style is used to
  emphasize social distance between speakers, the
  process is called divergence.

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• Register
• another influence on speech style that is tied
  to social identity derives from register. A
  register is a conventional way of using language
  that is appropriate in a specific context, which
  may be identified as situational, occupational
  or topical.

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• Jargon
• One of the defining features of a register is the
  use of jargon, which is special technical
  vocabulary ( e.g. plaintiff, suffix ) associated
  with a specific area of work or interest.

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• Slang
• Slang, or colloquial speech, describes words or
  phrases that are used instead of more everyday
  terms among younger speakers and other groups
  with special interests.

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• like clothing and music, slang is an aspect of
  social life that is subject to fashion,
  especially among adolescents.

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• The use of slang varies within the younger social
  group, as illustrated by the use of obscenities
  or taboo terms. Taboo terms are words and phrases
  that people avoid for reasons related to
  religion, politeness and prohibited behavior.

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• Social barriers
• in much the same way as large geographical
  barriers between groups foster linguistic
  differences in regional dialects, social barriers
  such as discrimination and segregation serve to
  create marked differences between social dialects.

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• Vernacular language
• The form of African American English (AAE) that
  has been most studied is usually described as
  African American Vernacular English (AAVE).

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• The vernacular is a general expression for a
  kind of social dialect, typically spoken by a
  lower-status group, which is treated as
  non-standard because of marked differences from a
  socially prestigious variety.

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• The sounds of a vernacular
• A pervasive phonological feature in AAVE and
  other English vernaculars is the tendency to
  reduce final consonant clusters, so that words
  ending in two consonants ( left hand) are often
  pronounced as if there is only one ( lef han).

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• The grammar of a vernacular
• It is typically in aspects of grammar that AAVE
  and other vernaculars are most stigmatized as
  being illogical or sloppy. One frequently
  criticized element is the double negative
  construction, e.g. He dont know nothin.

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• Anthropologists have used language as a source of
  information in the general study of culture.

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• Culture
• The term culture refers to all the ideas and
  assumptions about the nature of things and people
  that we learn when we become members of social
  groups. It can be defined as socially acquired
  knowledge.

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• People of different cultures have different
  world views reflected in their languages.

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• Categories
• A category is a group with certain features in
  common and we can think of the vocabulary we
  learn as an inherited set of category labels.
  These are the words for referring to concepts
  that people in our social world have typically
  needed to talk about.

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• It is tempting to believe that there is a fixed
  relationship between the set of words we have
  learned ( our categories ) and the way external
  reality is organized. However, the organization
  of external reality actually varies to some
  extent according to the language being used to
  talk about it.

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• Some languages may have lots of different words
  for types of rain or kinds of coconut and other
  languages may have only one or two.

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• We can say that there are conceptual distinctions
  that are lexicalized (expressed as a single word
  ) in one language and not in another.

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• Linguistic relativity it seems that the
  structure of our language, with its predetermined
  categories, must have an influence on how we
  perceive the world.

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• Linguistic determinism
• As we learn a language, the way our language is
  organized will determine how we perceive the
  world being organized.

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• This idea is restated as language determines
  thought, meaning that we can only think in the
  categories provided by our language.

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• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
• Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf produced
  arguments that the languages of native Americans,
  such as the Hopi, led them to view the world
  differently from those who spoke European
  languages.

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• According to Whorf, the Hopi perceive the world
  differently from other tribes (including the
  English- speaking tribe) because their language
  leads them to do so.

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• Whorf claimed that the Hopi believe that clouds
  and stones are living entities and that it is
  their language that leads them to believe this.
  Unlike Hopi, English does not mark in its grammar
  that clouds and stones are animate.

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• Cognitive categories
• As a way of analyzing cognition, or how people
  think, we can look at language structure for
  clues, not for causes.

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• - The fact that Hopi speakers inherit a language
  system in which clouds have animate as a feature
  may tell us something about a traditional belief
  system, or way of thinking, that is part of their
  culture and not ours.

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• Classifiers
• We know about the classification of words in
  languages like Yagua because of grammatical
  markers called classifiers that indicate the type
  or class of noun involved.

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• For example, in Swahili (spoken in east Africa),
  different prefixes are used as classifiers on
  nouns for humans ( wa- ), non-humans (mi-) and
  artifacts ( vi- ) as in watoto, mimea and visu.

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• Social categories
• Words such as uncle or grandmother, provide
  examples of social categories. These are
  categories of social organization that we can use
  to say how we are connected or related to others.

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• Address terms
• When a man on the street asks another, Brother,
  can you spare a dollar?, the word brother is
  being used as an address term ( a word or phrase
  for the person being talked or written to.)

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• More typically, an interaction based on an
  unequal relationship will feature address terms
  using a title ( Doctor ) or title plus last name
  ( Professor Bucking-ham ) for the one with higher
  status, and first name only for the one with
  lower status.

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• In many languages, there is a choice between
  pronouns used for addressees who are socially
  close and those who are distant. This is known as
  the T/V distinction, as in the French pronouns tu
  ( close ) and vous ( distant ).

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• Gender
• There are three uses of the word gender
• Biological gender
• Grammatical gender
• Social gender

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• Biological ( or natural ) gender is the
  distinction in sex between the male and female of
  each species.
• Grammatical gender is the distinction between
  masculine and feminine, which is used to classify
  nouns in languages such as Spanish ( el sol, La
  luna).

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• 3. Social gender is the distinction we make when
  we use words like man and woman to classify
  individuals in terms of their social roles.

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• Gendered words
• In Sidamo, spoken in Ethiopia, there are some
  words used only by men and some used only by
  women, so that the translation of milk would be
  ado by a man, but gurda by a woman.

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• These examples simply illustrate that there can
  be differences between the words used by men and
  women in a variety of languages.

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• There are other examples, used to talk about men
  and women, which seem to imply that the words for
  men are normal and the words for women are
  special additions.

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• Paris such as hero-heroine or actor-actress
  illustrate the derivation of terms for the
  womans role from the mans

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• Gendered speech
• Men typically speak in a lower pitch range
  (80-200 Herz) than women ( 120-400 Herz ).

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• In contemporary American English, there is also
  generally more use of pitch movement, that is,
  more rising and falling intonation.

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• The use of rising intonation at the end of
  statements, the more frequent of hedges and tag
  questions have all been identified as
  characteristic of womens speech.

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• Gendered interaction
• One effect of the different styles developed by
  men and women is that certain features become
  very salient in cross-gender interactions. In
  this kind of interactions, men are much more
  likely to interrupt women.