This years topics

1
This years topics

• Saussure - linguistics, signs, semiology,
  structure, phonemes, language as system
• Peirce - sign (icon, index, symbol), semiotics,
  language and culture/society
• Whorf - language and mind, languaculture,
  categories, perception, cultural epistemologies
• Tedlock - oral narratives, performance, style,
  sound and silence, poetry/lines
• Hymes - oral narratives, performance, style,
  poetry, patterning, lines, lexical grammatical
  markers
• Language shift and endangerment, revival
  maintenance

2
3 Essays

• Presentation counts
• Intro, argument, conclusion
• Evidence you know what you are talking about and
  you are talking about linguistic anthropology
• Connect Names to ideas
• Arrange ideas in a linear argument to make points

3
Define the term phoneme and discuss its
importance for anthropology

• def - minimal contrast in sound that produces
  meaning, a meaningful difference in sound
• ex. minimal pair bit and bid but not tap vs.
  thap, although such a difference (aspirated vs.
  not) is a meaningful difference in other
  languages, like Hindi
• Not the qualities of the elements but the
  systematic contrasts among elements that define
  the system
• Developed structuralism, Levi-Strauss, his theory
  of kinship, myth, meaning
• A change of any part of the system leads to a
  systemic change throughout
• Cons difficult to explain change, closed system
  not connected to use externalities