Language

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Chapter 6

• Language

2
What We Will Learn

• How does human language differ from forms of
  communication in other animals?
• How do children acquire language?
• How do languages change?
• Are some languages superior to others?
• What is the relationship between language and
  culture?
• How do people communicate without using words?

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The Nature of Language

• Found in all cultures of the world.
• Symbolic system of sounds that conveys meaning
  when put together according to a set of rules.
• Meanings attached to any given word in all
  languages are totally arbitrary.

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Diversity of Language

• There are as many as 6,000 discrete languages.
• 95 of the worlds people speak fewer than 100 of
  approximately 6,000 languages.
• Mandarin accounts for about 1 in every 5 people
  on earth.
• English, Hindi, Spanish, and Russian, accounts
  for about 45.

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Major Languages of the World
Language Primary Country Number of Speakers
Mandarin China 874,000,000
Hindi India 366,000,000
English UK/USA 341,000,000
Spanish Spain/South America 322,000,000
Bengali Bangladesh 207,000,000
Portuguese Portugal/Brazil 176,000,000
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Major Languages of the World
Language Primary Country Number of Speakers
Russian Russia 167,000,000
Japanese Japan 125,000,000
German Germany 100,000,000
Korean Korea 78,000,000
French France 77,000,000
Wu China 77,000,000
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Characteristics of Human Communication Systems

• Capable of sending an infinite number of
  messages.
• Humans are only animals that speak of events from
  the past or in the future (displacement).
• Language is transmitted largely through tradition
  rather than experience alone.

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Structure of Human Languages

• Phonological structure includes rules of how
  sounds combine to convey meanings.
• Each language has a grammatical structure that
  governs
• How morphemes are formed into words (morphology).
• How words are arranged into phrases and sentences
  (syntax).

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Morphemes Make Up Words
10
Language Change

• Language is constantly changing.
• When linguists study how languages change over
  time, they are engaged in diachronic analysis.
• Historical linguists may study changes in a
  single language, such as changes from Old English
  to modern English.
• Comparative Linguists can look at changes that
  have occurred in related languages.

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Language Families

• A language family comprises all of the languages
  that derive from its common protolanguage.
• The English language is part of the family known
  as the Indo-European language family.
• Germanic is the mother of English.
• French and Spanish are sister languages.
• Russian, Bulgarian, and Polish share a common
  Slavic mother.

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Language Families

• Linguists generally agree that there are more
  than 250 different language families in the world
  today.
• Of these 150 are found in the Americas, 60 in New
  Guinea, 26 in Australia, 20 in Africa, and 37 in
  Europe and Asia.

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14
Colloquialisms From Baseball

• She threw me a curve.
• Youre way off base.
• Youre batting 1,000 (500, zero) so far.
• I want to touch all the bases.
• He went to bat for me.
• He has two strikes against him.
• Thats way out in left field.
• He drives me up the wall.

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SapirWhorf Hypothesis

• Language influences perception.
• Language establishes mental categories that
  affect the ways people conceptualize the real
  world.

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Diglossia

• The situational use of language in complex speech
  communities.
• A linguistic situation where two varieties of the
  same language (such as standard form, dialect, or
  pidgin) are spoken by the same person at
  different times and under different social
  circumstances.

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Examples of Diglossia
High Form Low Form
Religious service Marketplace
Political speeches Instructions to subordinates
Legislative proceedings Friendly conversations
University lectures Folk literature
News broadcasts Radio/TV programs
Newspapers Cartoons
Poetry Graffiti
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Nonverbal Communication

• Most messages are sent and received without
  words
• Facial expressions
• Gestures
• Eye contact
• Touching
• Posture

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Quick Quiz
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• 1. The language characteristic of ________
  allows humans to speak of things or events that
  have happened in the past, or may occur in the
  future.
• displacement
• frame substitution
• glossolalia
• morphology

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Answer a

• The language characteristic of displacement
  allows humans to speak of things or events that
  have happened in the past, or may occur in the
  future.

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• 2. _______ involves the study of the basic
  building blocks of a language.
• Linguistics
• Phonology
• Phonology
• Grammar

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Answer b

• Phonology involves the study of the basic
  building blocks of a language.

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• 3. The ________ is a combination of phonemes
  which convey some meaning.
• morpheme
• allomorph
• phoneme
• grammar

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Answer a

• The morpheme is a combination of phonemes which
  convey some meaning.

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• 4. The rules of a language which controls how
  people speak and make themselves understood make
  up its
• phonemes.
• syntax.
• grammar.
• morphemes.

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Answer c

• The rules of a language which controls how people
  speak and make themselves understood make up its
  grammar.

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• 5. _______ suggests that language actually
  establishes mental categories that predispose
  people to see things in a certain way.
• Diachronic analysis
• Historical linguistics
• Descriptive linguistics
• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

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Answer d

• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that language
  actually establishes mental categories that
  predispose people to see things in a certain way.