Good morning Chapter 13 part one and two together
 There is a sample test on WebCT.
 Number and point distribution
 30 multiple choice
x 1 = 30
 15 True-False
x 1 = 15
 10 Fill in the blanks
x 3 = 30
 1 short answer
x5= 5
 2 essay questions
x10= 20
Exam related?
 You will be able to choose among two
 (for short answers, and essay questions)
 The exam time is 100 minutes
 If you submit the exam late a red flag will tell me how late you were. Do not
panic but accept that you may loose points if you go over time more than five
minutes.
Exam related
 Please remember that exams are part of the learning process. They are not all
about checking your knowledge.
 There are some questions in the sample exam only intended to expose you to
those issues and teach you while you are exercising.
 Many detail questions will not come in the exam.
Language and communication
 NB!Miller Ch. 13
Language
 Language is our primary means of communication.
 Anthropologists study language in its social and cultural context.
The KEY Questions
 What aspects of communication do linguistic anthropologists study?
 How do culture, society and communication interact?
 What are some important
factors affecting language
change?
Linguistic anthropology
 Linguistic anthropology is integral to cultural anthropology since the language
is the primary (but not only) means for transmitting culture.
Linguistic anthropology
 Explores the relation between culture and language,
 Documents "disappearing" languages of ancient cultures,
 Traces the origin and development of related languages and how they change
over time
Linguistic Anthropology
 Devoted to the study of human communication
 Study of non-Western languages
 Relationship between nationalism and language
 Role of language in mass media
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 Applying research to promote improved language learning
Nonverbal Communication
 Kinesics is the study of communication through body movements, stances,
gestures, and facial expressions.

 Odors also play an important role in nonverbal communication.
Animal Communication
 Call systems:
 Call systems consist of a limited number of sounds that are produced in
response to specific stimuli (e.g., food or danger)
 Although primates use call systems, their vocal tract is not suitable for speech.
Vocal apparatus
 http://www.ablongman.com/html/anthro/phys/databank/ad13.6.html
Origins of language
 The human capacity for language developed over hundreds of thousands of
years, as call systems were transformed into language.
 Language is a uniquely effective vehicle for learning that enables humans to
adapt more rapidly than other primates to new stimuli.
Origins of Language
 Verbal language developed around
50 000 years ago
 Using calls, body postures and gestures
 Emergence of writing associated with emergence of the state
 Proto-Indo-European language
Key characteristics of human language
 Blending (not in the book)
 Duality of patterning (not in the book)
 Conventionality (not in the book)
 Productivity/open-ness (in the book)
 Displacement (in the book)
Key characteristics
 blending (breakfast- lunch: ?)
 duality of patterning (bench, bunch… ?)
 conventionality: the notion that, in human language, words are only arbitrarily
or conventionally connected to the things for which they stand. E.g. book, bok,
buch, livré, kitap, kniga,
Key characteristics
 Productivity/openness:
 The idea that humans can combine words and sounds into new meaningful
utterances they have never before heard (e.g. compact disk, virtual reality).
Productivity/openness:
 e.g. Pink spotted cow which was a contestant in Big Brother-four sat on Arnold
Schwarzenegger's motorcycle during the Golden Globe ceremony.
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Key characteristics
 Displacement:
 The capacity of all human languages to describe things not happening in the
present (despite remoteness in time and
space).
Key characteristics
 Displacement:
 e.g. “Bronislaw Malinowski is generally considered the "father" of participant
observation because he first placed it in the centre of cultural anthropology
methods given his experiences when studying the people of the Trobriand
Islands in the South Pacific during the World War I.”
(Miller, Esteric & Esteric: 2001:33)
Types of languages (just listen)
 Agglutinating -Turkish: Cekoslavakyalilastiramadiklarimizdanmisiniz?
 Are you also one of those people that we did not manage to turn into a
Czechoslovakian?
Types of languages (just listen)
 Syntehetic-Inuktituk: qasuirrsarvigssarsingitluinarnarpuq
 "Someone did not find a completely suitable resting place".
Formal properties of language
 The Structure of Language
 The scientific study of spoken language involves several levels of organization:
 phonology,
 morphology,
 lexicon,
 syntax.
 grammer
Formal properties of language
 Phonology is the study of the sounds use in speech.
 Phonetics is the study of human speech sounds;
Formal properties of language
 Morphology studies the forms in which sounds are grouped in speech.
 Morphemes are the smallest units of speech that have a meaning.
Formal properties of language
 Lexicon
A language's lexicon is a dictionary containing all of the smallest units of speech
that have a meaning (morpheme).
 Syntax
refers to the rules that order words and phrases into sentences.
Formal prop.
Grammar
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Morphology + syntax (combination of sounds into sequences that carry
meaning).
Language, Thought, and Behaviour
 Chomsky argues that the universal grammar is finite, and the fact that any
language is translatable to any other language is taken to be evidence
supporting this claim.
Thought, Language and Society
 Sociolinguistics is the study of the relation between linguistic performance
and the social context of that performance.
 i.e. culture and society and person's social position determine the content and
form of language.
Thought, Language and Society
 Sapir-Whorf
– language determines how we see the world and behaviour
– reality is filtered through language categories
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
 Strong version: Language determines the way people experience the world.
 Weak version: Language presents a range of options for interpreting peoples'
experience.
Language and social stratification
 In situations where social stratification exists, the dialect of the dominant strata
is considered "standard" and valued more than the dialects of the lower strata
(Labov - Saks versus Macy's)
Dialects
 A way of speaking in a particular place
 e.g. Cockney
 Speakers are sometimes considered less intelligent
 Ebonics - dialect or language
Dialects and status
 Sociolinguistic studies have indicated that status-linked dialects affect the
economic and social prospects of the people who speak them acquired.
Paralanguage
 Silence
 Kinesics
– body movement, expressions
– some cultures are more touch-oriented
– eye-contact in some cultures is rude
 Dress and appearance
Mass Media
Codes
 The ethnic and class diversity of societies is mirrored by linguistic diversity.
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 Particular subcultures have distinctive ways of speaking (vocabulary,
grammar, intonation).
 These are called codes.
Codes
 Codes are age, gender, occupation, class, region etc.
Code switching
 Single individuals may change the way they talk depending upon the social
requirements of a given setting, (depending on topic, attitude, and coparticipants) —this is called code switching.
Language and Change
 Colonialism was a major force of change
 Pidgins
– usually limited to trade
 National policies of assimilation
– residential schools for First Nations
– Quebec language policies
Gender speech contrasts
 In America and England, there are regular differences between men's speech
and women's speech that cut across subcultural boundaries
(Tannen 1990)
Women's talk
 Rapport,
 community,
 affiliation,
 interdependence,
 accomodation,
 flow of support sparring.
Men’s talk
 Reporting,
 contesting,
 competition,
 independence,
 conflict,
 verbal. (D. Tannen 1990).
Men’s talk Women’s talk, universal?
 Cross-linguistic research challenges such generalizations.

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