CHAPTER 16

Language and Communication

Chapter Preview

What Is Language? How Is Language Related to Culture? How Did Languages Change?

What Is Language?

The single most important symbol in culture is language- without the ability to communicate and share one’s culture there would be no culture.

Most all intelligent organisms have some form of communication with other members of their species.

Language is a system for the communication using sounds or gestures that are put together in meaningful ways according to set rules.

Through language, people can transmit their culture from one generation to the next.

A signal is an instinctive sounds or gesture that carries a natural or self evident meaning. Often signals can be used with languages but they are not learned they are innate. Coughing, screaming

The Nature of Language

All languages not matter which one use no more than about 50 sounds and they are all used to communicate information to one another.

There are approximately 6,500 languages worldwide today.

Linguists (those who study all aspects of language) have found that all languages are organized in the same basic manner.

 Linguistics

The study of linguistics is divided into three main components.

1.) Descriptive

2.) Historical

3.) Sociolinguistics

Descriptive Linguistics

This branch of linguistics involves unraveling a language by recording, describing, and analyzing all of its features. These linguists focus on:PhonologyMorphologySyntaxGrammar

Phonology

Phonology is the study of language sounds.Phonetics is the study of the

production, transmission, and reception of speech sounds.

In linguistics, phonemes are the smallest classes of sound that make a difference in meaning.Example: Butter vs. Budder

Morphology

Morphology is the study of the patterns or rules of word formation in a language (including such things as rules concerning verb tense, pluralization, and compound words).Morphemes are the smallest units of

sound that carry a meaning compared to phonemes which can alter meaning but have no meaning by themselves.

• Example: Cow(s) the “s” carries a meaning of plural.

Syntax & Grammar

As mentioned each language has patterns or rules by which the symbols are used. This is known as syntax- the rules or principles of phrase and sentence making.

To best understand the entire formal structure one must analyze the grammar of the language.

Grammar- the entire formal structure of a language consisting of all observations about the morphemes and syntax.

To recap: studying a Language

The descriptive linguist must:1. Isolate the phonemes, or the smallest

classes of sound that make a difference in meaning.(phonology)

2. Determine all groups or combinations of sounds that seem to have meaning. (morphology)

3. See how morphemes are put together to form phrases or sentences. (syntax & grammar)

Historical Linguistics

Historical linguists study not only historical or dead languages but also current languages because languages change as culture changes.

Specialists in this field investigate relationships between earlier and later forms of the same language, study older languages for developments in modern ones, and examine interrelationships among older languages.

How Do Languages Change? Languages are constantly transforming

— new words are adopted or coined, others are dropped, and some shift in meaning.

Languages change for various reasons:selective borrowing by one language

from anotherthe need for new vocabulary to deal

with technological innovations or altered social realities.

Historical Linguistics

In trying to determine language relationships a classification must be developed to better track similarities and close/distant relationships from one language to the next.

Language families are the best way to organize these relationships. They are groups of languages descended from a single ancestral language.

Each language family shows the linguistic divergence of a language to the next over several thousand years. Better described as the development of different languages from a single ancestral language.

English and the Indo-European Language Family

Glottochronology

While describing changes that have occurred within languages linguists have gone as far to determine the dates for divergence. This method known as glottochronology is a method for identifying the approximate time that languages branched off from a common ancestor.

It is based on analyzing core vocabularies.

Core Vocabularies

In language, pronouns, lower numerals, and names for body parts and natural objects are known as core vocabularies.

This method is based on the assumption that certain core words change slowly over time and at a constant rate. By the comparison of two related languages it can be calculated, mathematically, when the two diverged.

Linguistic Nationalism

Similar to dramatic cultural change is the change of languages. These can change or become entirely lost in the presence of a more dominant language.

To secure a limited change in a nations language is linguistic nationalism-the attempt by ethnic minorities, and even countries to proclaim independence by purging their languages of foreign terms.

Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and society, examines how social categories (such as age, gender, ethnicity, religion, occupation, and class) influence the use and significance of distinctive styles of speech.

Gendered speech is distinct male and female syntax exhibited in various languages around the world.

Dialects

Sociolinguists are also interested in dialects-varying forms of a language that reflects particular regions, occupations, or social classes and that are similar enough to be mutually intelligible.

Geographical boundaries can often create a dialects as can economics. One of the most significant dialects in recent history is the emergence of AAVE (Ebonics, black English) “African American Vernacular English”

AAVE

Having a negative misconception of what AAVE is in the United States by non-AAVE speakers is that the language is lazy and incorrect English.

AAVE is highly structured mode of speech with rules of sounds and sequences similar to that of any other dialect or language.

To better adjust in mainstream society those who use AAVE might practice code-switching.

Code Switching

This is having and using the ability to change from one level of a language to another as the situation demands. This could be from one language to another or from one dialect to the next.

People speaking minority based dialects may be forced to better adapt if they code switch into the standard dialect from their own personal dialect choice.

Scotland has had similar issues with “Scots English” which is also now recognized as a formal dialect.

Ethnolinguistics

The study of the relation between language and culture or ethnolinguistics uses the idea that distinctions encoded into one language are unique to that language (linguistic relativity).

Languages are known to divide the color spectrum differently. While some may divide based on 7 like in the English others such as the Northern Mexico Native Indians combine the colors green and blue.

Linguistic Determinism

This is the idea that language to some extent shapes the way in which we view and think about the world around us. Sometimes called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis after its originators Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf.

Gesture-Call System

Gestures are facial expressions and bodily postures and motions that convey intended as well as subconscious messages. Human speech is apart of the gesture call system.Gesture component consists of body

motions used to convey messages.

Inherited from and shared with primates, humans too use this system. It consists of extra linguistic noises involving various voice qualities and vocalizations.

The study of this body languages is known as kinesics.

Gestures

A division of kinesics known as Proxemics is the cross-cultural study of humankind’s perception and use of space.

Founded by Edward Hall who coined the term, he found that different cultures have unique ways of dividing and utilizing space.

He identified four categories of spatial use.

Proxemics

Intimate (0-18 in) Personal-Casual (1.5-4 ft) Social-Consultive (4-12ft) Public (12+ ft)

Paralanguage

Another aspect of the gesture call system is that of paralanguage which describes voice effects that accompany language and convey a meaning perhaps apart from the spoken word. They are extralinguistic noises that accompany language.Example:crying,laughing, signing,

grunting, moaning.

Tonal Languages

Languages in which the sound pitch of a spoken word is an essential part of its pronunciation and meaning are known as tonal languages.

Roughly 70% of the world’s languages fall into this category.

English is a non-tonal language however, tones in English can convey an attitude or ask a question but not change the meaning of the words.

Whistled Speech

Another traditional system of communication and used to expand acoustic space is whistled speech, or whistled language, an exchange of whistled words using a phonetic emulation of the sounds produced in spoken voice.

The whistled sound can far outreach the human voice and can be picked up far as 8 kilometers.

More than likely begin in response to music making through whistling. It is also a dying practice.

Origin of Language: One Theory It is difficult to accurately determine when and

how language began. However new research can possibly help to narrow down the question.

One theory is that early hominines, began using gestures to communicate intentions within a social setting.When Homo erectus moved out of the tropics, they needed to plan and communicate to survive seasons of cold temperatures.

By the time archaic Homo sapiens appeared, finely controlled movements of the mouth and throat had given rise to spoken language.

Another theory is that Neanderthals (as discussed in chapter 4) had the gene for language known as FOXP2. Other scientists argue there is no 1 gene for language.

It is know that by the time archaic Homo sapiens appeared, finely controlled movements of the mouth and throat had given rise to spoken language.

Displacement

Primatologists have been able to teach and communicate with both chimpanzee’s as well as orangutans after teaching these apes sign language.

Most interesting is the phenomenon of displacement- the ability to refer to things and events removed from time and space. “In a week I will go to the zoo”

This refers to a place, activity, and time not in the near future.

Speech to Writing

The oldest “known” writing systems are those of cuneiform at 5,500 yrs ago and hieroglyphics at 3,500 yrs ago.

Recent discovery suggests 8,600 yrs ago in China.

Writing Systems are set(s) of visible or tactile signs used to represent units of language in a systematic way.A set of visible or tactile signs used to represent units of language in a systematic way.

Many writing systems will be recorded by an alphabet which is a series of symbols representing the sounds of a language arranged in a traditional order