Anthropological Linguistics
Definition: The evolution of language in human society and its role in the formation of
culture is studied in anthropological linguistics. This is another aspect of language,
society and culture.
The structure of language has a social and cultural basis in the same way as other
customs, conventions, and codes such as those related to dress and food. Each culture
organizes its world in its own way giving names to objects, identifying areas of
significance or values and suppressing other areas. Language becomes a way of
embodying the world view and beliefs of a culture and the things that culture holds
sacred.
A culture with family relationships most significant will have many kinship terms. Each
relationship will have a particular term. Compare kinship terms in English with those in
Urdu. Example: Grandfather, Grandmother etc. Similarly terms for colours, emotions,
natural phenomena, and so on are differently organized in every culture, and reveal a lot
about that culture.The study of these cultural elements is called ‘ehtnography’ of a
culture.A specific way of communication in a culture is studied as the ethnography of
communication.
Anthropological studies have explored the relation between language and
culture.Language is invented to communicate and express a culture.The language begins
to determine the way we think and see the world.
We cannot go beyond this language – it is the very means by which we understand and
think about the world. The above idea was given by the linguist B.L. Whorf
Whorf gave hypothesis: We dissect nature along the lines laid by our native language.
Literary Stylistics:
Definition: The study of the style of literary texts. Taking the view of register (language
used in different fields – religious sermons, sports commentary, law etc), we can study
the styles of literary texts. We may describe its features at levels of phonology, syntax,
lexis, etc.We distinguish one text from the other and appreciate how it achieves some
special features and effects through the use of language. This kind of study is termed as
‘Literary stylistics’.
Techniques of poets
Literary writers use the system of language in their own way- by deliberate choice (out of
the whole range of words they choose one which is effective).Some techniques used are:
deviating from or violation of the rules of grammar (eg. ‘He danced his did’ in
Cummings’ poem).
Inverting the normal order of words in a sentence is another technique (e.g. ‘Home is the
sailor…’)
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Another technique is to creating a pattern by repeating some items (e.g. the sound /f/ in
‘the furrow followed free)
By such techniques they manipulate language to convey themes forcefully & effectively
In stylistics texts are read carefully with attention to the features of language
used.Particular features are identified and listed under headings of ‘lexis’, ‘grammar’,
‘phonology’, & ‘sound patterns’. After getting details, they are co-related or brought
together for interpreting a text.
The writers try to link ‘what’ is being said with ‘how it is being said’.It is through the
latter that writers can fully convey their complex ideas and feelings. Stylistic analysis
also helps in better understanding of how metaphor, irony, paradox, ambiguity etc.
operate in literary texts (they are effects of language and building up of a coherent
linguistic structure).
Neurolinguistics
Neurolinguistics is the study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the
comprehension, production, and acquisition of language.
As an interdisciplinary field, neurolinguistics draws methodology and theory from fields
such as neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science, neurobiology, communication
disorders, neuropsychology and computer science.
One of the first people to draw a connection between a particular brain area and language
processing was Paul Broca, a French surgeon.He conducted autopsies on numerous
individuals who had speaking deficiencies, and found that most of them had brain
damage (or lesions) on the left frontal lobe, in an area now known as Broca’s area.
Broca's research was possibly the first to offer empirical evidence for such a relationship,
and has been described as "epoch-making" and "pivotal" to the fields of neurolinguistics
and cognitive science. Later, Carl Wernicke, after whom Wernicke’s area is named,
proposed that different areas of the brain were specialized for different linguistic tasks.
Broca's area is specialized at handling the motor production of speech, and Wernicke's
area in handling auditory speech comprehension.
Neurolinguistics as a discipline
 Neurolinguistics is closely related to the field of psycholinguistics
 Much work in neurolinguistics involves testing and evaluating theories put forth by
psycholinguists and theoretical linguists.
 In general, theoretical linguists propose models to explain the structure of language and
how language information is organized.
 Psycholinguists propose models and algorithms to explain how language information is
processed in the mind.
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 Neurolinguists analyze brain activity to infer how biological structures (populations and
networks of neurons) carry out those psycholinguistic processing algorithms.
Subfield
Description
Research questions in neurolinguistics
Phonetics
study of speech sounds
how the brain extracts speech sounds from an acoustic signal,
how the brain separates speech sounds from background noise
Phonology
the study of how sounds are organized in a
language
how the phonological system of a particular language is
represented in the brain
Morphology the study of how words are structured and
stored in
and
lexicology the mental lexicon
Syntax
the study of how multiple-word utterances
are constructed
Semantics
the study of how meaning is encoded in
language
how the brain stores and accesses words that a person knows
how the brain combines words into constituents and sentences;
how structural and semantic information is used in understanding
sentences
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