Language, Dialect and Accent (definitions)

What is a Language?
Hockett's Design Features:

Vocal-auditory channel. Refers to the idea that speaking/hearing is the mode humans use for language. When Hockett first defined this feature, it did not take sign language into account, which reflects the ideology of orality that was prevalent during the time. This feature has since been modified to include other channels of language, such as tactile-visual or chemical-olfactory.

Broadcast transmission and directional reception When humans speak, sounds are transmitted in all directions; however, listeners perceive the direction from which the sounds are coming. Similarly, signers broadcast to potentially anyone within the line of sight, while those watching see who is signing. This is characteristic of most forms of human and animal communication.

Transitoriness Also called rapid fading, transitoriness refers to the idea of temporary quality of language. Language sounds exist for only a brief period of time, after which they are no longer perceived. Sound waves quickly disappear once a speaker stops speaking. This is also true of signs. In contrast, other forms of communication such as writing and Inka khipus (knot-tying) are more permanent.

Interchangeability Refers to the idea that humans can give and receive identical linguistic signals; humans are not limited in the types of messages they can say/hear. One can say "I am a boy" even if one is a girl. This is not to be confused with lying (prevarication). The importance is that a speaker can physically create any and all messages regardless of their truth or relation to the speaker. In other words, anything that one can hear, one can also say.

Not all species possess this feature. For example, in order to communicate their status, queen ants produce chemical scents that no other ants can produce (see animal communication below).

Total feedback Speakers of a language can hear their own speech and can control and modify what they are saying as they say it. Similarly, signers see, feel, and control their signing.

Specialization The purpose of linguistic signals is communication and not some other biological function. When humans speak or sign, it is generally intentional.

An example of non-specialized communication is dog panting. When a dog pants, it often communicates to its owner that it is hot or thirsty; however, the dog pants in order to cool itself off. This is a biological function, and the communication is a secondary matter.

Semanticity Specific sound signals are directly tied to certain meanings.

Arbitrariness ** languages are generally made up of both arbitrary and iconic symbols. In spoken languages this takes the form of onomatopoeias. In English "murmur", in Mandarin "mao" (the higher tone) (cat). In ASL "cup", "me" "up/down", etc. There is no intrinsic or logical connection between a sound form (signal) and its meaning. Whatever name a human language attributes an object is purely arbitrary. The word "car" is nothing like an actual car. Spoken words are really nothing like the objects they represent. This is further demonstrated by the fact that different languages attribute very different names to the same object.

Signed languages are transmitted visually and this allows for a certain degree of iconicity. For example, in the ASL sign HOUSE, the hands are flat and touch in a way that resembles the roof and walls of a house.^[3] However, many other signs are not iconic, and the relationship between form and meaning is arbitrary. Thus, while Hockett did not account for the possibility of non-arbitrary form-meaning relationships, the principle still generally applies.

Discreteness Linguistic representations can be broken down into small discrete units which combine with each other in rule-governed ways. They are perceived categorically, not continuously. For example, English marks number with the plural morpheme /s/, which can be added to the end of any noun. The plural morpheme is perceived categorically, not continuously: we cannot express smaller or larger quantities by varying how loudly we pronounce the /s/.

Displacement Refers to the idea that humans can talk about things that are not physically present or that do not even exist. Speakers can talk about the past and the future, and can express hopes and dreams. A human's speech is not limited to here and now. Displacement is one of the features that separates human language from other forms of primate communication.

Productivity Refers to the idea that language-users can create and understand novel utterances. Humans are able to produce an unlimited amount of utterances. Also related to productivity is the concept of grammatical patterning, which facilitates the use and comprehension of language. Language is not stagnant, but is constantly changing. New idioms are created all the time and the meaning of signals can vary depending on the context and situation.

Traditional transmission Also called cultural transmission. While humans are born with innate language capabilities, language is learned after birth in a social setting. Children learn how to speak by interacting with experienced language users. Language and culture are woven together.

Duality of patterning Meaningful messages are made up of distinct smaller meaningful units (words and morphemes) which themselves are made up of distinct smaller, meaningless units (phonemes).

Prevarication Prevarication is the ability to lie or deceive. When using language, humans can make false or meaningless statements.

Reflexiveness Humans can use language to talk about language.

Learnability Language is teachable and learnable. In the same way as a speaker learns their first language, the speaker is able to learn other languages. It is worth noting that young children learn language with competence and ease; however, language acquisition is constrained by a critical period such that it becomes more difficult once children pass a certain age.

Features of Language:

• Exists in a number of varieties
• shared by a community in any number of varieties (show a pattern that can be associated with any number of cultural forces-geography, ethnic group, religion, etc.)
• people apply social evaluation to the variety of speech and who speaks them

• Dialect vs Language
• mutual intelligibility-if we understand each other do we speak the same language?
• single set of norms or group of related norms?
• political implications?

• DIALECT
• variety associated with a literary tradition?
• variety associated with a non(sub)/standard?
• variety associated with differences at all levels of linguistic structure (not just pronunciation)?
• variety associated with social meaning (marked)?

Same Language?---mutually intelligible

• Itialian/Sicilian/Dante Allegari (P)
• Danish/Norwegian/Swedish? (P)
• Serbian/Croatian?---different writing systems (PRS)
• Fanti/Twi? (C)
• Bokmal/Nynorsk (Norway)? (C)
• Kechua/Aimara (Peru)? (C)
• Hindu/Urdu (India/Pakistan)?---different writing systems (PRS)
• Austrian/German? (PC)
• "Chinese" Mandarin/Cantonese (no mutual intelligibility, same writing system)(none)

1. Political Distinctions: "a language is a dialect with an army" (Labov)
2. Religious distinctions
3. script
4. other (socio-economic/subcultural)-POWER

POWER vs SOLIDARITY (interplay and social identity)

• a language is more POWERFUL than any of its dialects
• however, feelings of SOLIDARITY/GROUP IDENTITY will preserve dialectal variation

Norwegians, Danes & Swedes

• claims of mutual intelligibility are based on power relationships
• Denmark long donimated Norway
• Sweden is most powerful country in the region today
• Denmark is least powerful today

Linguistic Claims:

• Danes and Swedes claim to understand Norwegians
• Norwegians claim to have trouble with Danish
• Swedes claim to not understand Danish
• Danes understand Swedes
• Norwegians say they understand Swedish

Thai & Lao

• Laotians understand and read Thai (educated)
• NOT VISA VERSA (prestige is low for Lao and high for Thai)

Italian and Sicilian are the SAME language

• Not really mutually intelligible, but part of the same nation so considered ITALIAN like may other dialects in the nation (important to national unity)

 The problem with ENGLISH:

• many varieties which are not always mutually intelligible
• What is it that UNIFIES English?
• Cockney
• S. African
• Australian
• Ozarks
• Black Vernacular 

How else do we determine the difference between language and dialect?

• STANDARDIZATION
• codification and elaboration
• how do we (a nation) select a NORM of communication to standardize? This may be difficult since varieties are rife with cultural meaning.
• Choices
• ethnic/political/power associations
• choose the elite variety (problems)
• choose lesser variety (problems)?
• THE CASE OF ISRAEL & HEBREW

• What is a standard form and how does it function?
• form with power
• common-ease of communication
• unites people
• form for education (gives standard speakers a higher status from others)
• Case of ACADEMIE FRANCAISE (institutional mechanism)
• eliminates or reduces diversity
• Assertions of Independence:
• Finns (from Swedes & Russians)
• Turks
• Hindi
• Hebrew
• Swahili (Tanzania)

• VITALITY
•  living community of speakers
• alive versus dead
• Latin (dead)
• manx (dead)
• Cornish (revived)
• Hebrew (recreated)
• HISTORICITY
• people find a sense of identity through using a particular language
• AUTONOMY
• language is felt to be unique/separate by the people who speak it
• REDUCTION
• the variety is NOT seen as a separate language because it has low status or limited use (Black English???/ "slangs")
• MIXTURE
• feelings about the degree of purity of the langugae
• DE-FACTO NORMS
• feelings that there are both good and bad speakers, good speakers represent the norms of proper usage 
• Parisian French
• Florentine Italian (Dante Allegari)

LANGUAGES ARE ALL EQUAL STRUCTURALLY, BUT NOT SOCIALLY

DIALECTS

• Regional Dialects (language always varies along a regional continuum)
• social dialects: based on socio-economic status
• styles and registers (developed by people participating in recurrent activities)
• formal
• informal
• social group
• discrete occupation

MULTILINGUALISM: Cultural Groups where more than one language is spoken

• Code Switching 
• Situational: changes according to the situation (no topic change)
• Metaphorical : changes according to the topic (gives an added SENSE)
• Affective: rhetorical effect (emotion, emphasis, etc)

• RULES:
• Intrasentiential Switching (word order remains the same in the languages used)
• Matrix Language Frame: a new language is embedded into the frame of the "matrix" language
• no pattern
• Subconscious constraints with negative values:
• texMex
• Spanglish
• Tuti Fruti (Panjabi English)
• BVE

• DIAGLOSSIA: Where two forms exist side by side and are used in ridgidly defined and separate situation 
• Latin & Italian in the vatican
• Tries to minimize code switching by clearly identifying where it should occur.
• differs from code switching in that code switching is not rigidly defined, but exists on the level of the subconscious to a great extent. Code switchers could not tell you WHY they switch.
• FERGUSON
• stable situations for multilingualism
• tensions between low and high are usually resolved by using an intermediate for (creole mesolect for example)
• High and Low form
• high: prestige form, more beautiful, more logical, better able to express things, special power or ritual value-always seen as superior to low, may make High seem like the only REAL language. Learned in formal education. HAS RULES
• standardized grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary (does not change easily)
• NOT USED as a medium of ordinary conversation
• low: learned through normal acquisition, does not take any special training, language associated with children. NO REAL RULES (perception)
• low levels of standardization leads to great internal variety within low forms.

• Code Mixing: when codes are mixed within the same utterance
• may be motivated by a lack of competence
• MLF

Assignment 2/13: get to know your idiolect

"A man whom, in private conversation, I am on the friendliest terms, sometimes becomes a stranger to me when I haear him speak in public"---Paul Valery

Get to Know Your Idiolect

We are all communicators possessing a complex "repretoire" of codes which we choose from as different circumstances arise. To convince yourself that there are no single speakers, try for an entire day to speak in a SINGLE CODE and NOT VARY the way that you speak as context and circumstances change. 

Then report on the following:

1. Were you successful? If not, explain in detail how and why you failed.
2. How did you feel about what you were doing as your communicative circumstances changed?
3. How did others react to your lack of linguistic acuity?

Then, 

1. Supply AT LEAST TWO brief specific accounts of your linguistic trials. (highlights of your day which illustrate your code fluency)
2. Describe your IDIOLECT (list the codes in your linguistic repertoire-labeling them-that you identified from this exercise AND describe their characteristics in general terms).

Researching Language and Culture: Methodology

Linguistic Anthropologists draw on an eclectic mixture of research methods. 

• Participant Observation
• Interviews
• Surveys and questionnaires
• Naturally Occurring Conversations
• overhearing
• media
• Experimental Methods
• Guising and Matched-Guise tests
• Peer Interviewing and the Observer's Bias
• Linguistic Insecurity Tests (measuring hyper-correction)
• Attitudinal Surveys
• Conversational analysis
• CA
• Goffman
• Ethical Considerations
• ethical obligation to the people that they study
• informed consent
• reciprocity

Human Language Versus Animal Communication: Are we unique?

Great slide presentation from University of Delaware. If you are interested, make sure you watch the examples of animal communication in the links to the slideshow.

Note the DESIGN FEATURES OF LANGUAGE (Hockett). e will be discussing these later in the term, but they represent one descriptive measure of human language.

Here is another link for Koko LINK

LINK TO SLIDE SHOW

Language Acquisition or Learning?

How a child learns a language (ACQUISITION) is dependent upon how that culture views the abilities of the child.

ACQUISITION versus LEARNING (secondary)

General approaches to Language Acquisition

1.       Social interactionism

What are the language behaviors that nature provides innately and what are those behaviors that are realized by environmental exposure, which is nurture.

2.       Relational frame theory

The relational frame theory (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, Roche, 2001), provides a wholly selectionist/learning account of the origin and development of language competence and complexity. Based upon the principles of Skinnerian behaviorism, RFT posits that children acquire language purely through interacting with the environment. RFT theorists introduced the concept of functional contextualism in language learning, which emphasizes the importance of predicting and influencing psychological events, such as thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, by focusing on manipulable variables in their context. RFT distinguishes itself from Skinner's work by identifying and defining a particular type of operant conditioning known as derived relational responding, a learning process that to date appears to occur only in humans possessing a capacity for language. Empirical studies supporting the predictions of RFT suggest that children learn language via a system of inherent reinforcements, challenging the view that language acquisition is based upon innate, language-specific cognitive capacities.^[4]

3.       Emergentism

Emergentist theories, such as MacWhinney's competition model, posit that language acquisition is a cognitive process that emerges from the interaction of biological pressures and the environment. According to these theories, neither nature nor nurture alone is sufficient to trigger language learning; both of these influences must work together in order to allow children to acquire a language. The proponents of these theories argue that general cognitive processes subserve language acquisition and that the end result of these processes is language-specific phenomena, such as word learning and grammar acquisition. The findings of many empirical studies support the predictions of these theories, suggesting that language acquisition is a more complex process than many believe

Language Acquisition: Cultural Considerations

Stages:

1.       Sounding (up to 4 months)

2.       Babbling (up to 1 year)-phonetic system down

3.       One-Word Stage (holophrastic) (1-2 years)-pointing

4.       Syntactic (2-4 years)

By 5 years of age, children possess the basic structures of language. All the rest is learning new vocabulary & complex grammatical structures.

5.       Conversational Rule Acquisition (beginning, maintaining ending) Age 5-16

a.       Sensitive to context, topic, interests of communicators, etc (social variables)

                                                               i.      Depend upon COGNITIVE, LINGUISTIC & SOCIAL maturation

Universal Sequence: cross culturally

·         Consonants

o   Front to back (labial are first)

o   Voiced to voiceless

·         Vowels

o   Back to front

o   Low to high

·         Passive Language (always understand more than you can produce)

·         Syntactic Stage

o   Pivot class before open class

§  PC: ritualized greetings, deixis, this/that, possessives & adjectives

§  OC: nouns, verbs (content)

§  PC occurs with OC, or two OC (shows development of grammatical meaning)

·         Neg + sentence (negation)

·         Question words: what/Where (concrete), who, Why/when (abstract: causality, means, temporality)

·         Locatives

o   In/on/under

o   Beside

o   Back/front (inherent to object)

o   Between

o   Back/front (not inherent to object)

How does a child learn Language?

1.       Discover rule

2.       Generalized rule through analogy

3.       Over-generalize rule  (refine)-mouses, goed, doed, comed

4.       Internalize rule

Vocabulary Growth

·         Strategies

o   Broadening/narrowing the sense of reference of a word (mommy, cookie, fluffy(dog))

o   Coining words (summered, souping, make it bell)

Trained Monkey Phenomenon

(imitation-response elicitations)

M: Adam, ask the lady where she can find some toys

A: Lady, where you can find some toys?

M: Adam, ask the lady why she can’t run

A: Lady, why you can’t run?

A: Adam wants some juice?

M (correcting): Can Adam have some juice?

A: Can Adam have some juice? Adam can have cookie too?

Instructional Strategies by Cultures are based on:

1.       Teach prescribed rules of interaction

2.       Norms of communication behavior

3.       Confirm cultural beliefs about language learning and children

American style in Child  Rearing and Language:

·         Speak directly to the child in “baby talk”

·         Consider child someone to directly address-conversational partner

·         MC

o   Self-lowering (baby talk)-asking questions you already know answers to

o   Child-raising; treating child as an equal communicative partner

·         (As opposed to Papua New Guinea, where child is expected to learn how to communicate with larger social group).

·         Interesting questions:

o   How do innate language capacities interact with culturally & linguistically significant aspects of upbringing?

o   Do cultural aspects of bilingual environments have impact on language learning?

§  Anti-chomsky to say that environment has this much or any impact on language learning, which is controlled by the LAD

§  Chomsky learn a UNIVERSAL GRAMMER (UG) despite “poverty of imput”-language is too complex to be explained by the limited signals that children get in the first year of life.

o   Sociolinguistics: not degenerate or poverty ridden input.  It is more about a GENERALIZED SET OF COGNITIVE MECHANISMS. SOCIAL INTERACTION plays a CRUCIAL ROLE

§  Language acquisition makes you a competent member of society

§  Being a competent member of society is realized through language

§  Children take an active role in constructing language capabilities that are USEFUL to them.

§  Peer-peer interactions need to be looked at in addition to adult/child interactions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lih0Z2IbIUQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JmA2ClUvUY

 USA-Middle Class*

1. Repeat utterance with expansion (based on middle class values: care givers must instruct children carefully in language and conversational skills – OVERT TEACHING is the duty of the care giver.

2.       Modeling: commenting on semantic content (maintaining child’s word order when possible)

A: Adam milk!

M: Adam has some milk!

A: dat book nice!

M: That is a nice book, what is it about?

A: dat doggie!

M: The book is about a doggie! Good, Adam.

A: Good Adam!

*Others (WC) expect children will naturally learn to speak and do not engage in these behaviors with such frequency. They may instead expand on their own speech supplying REPETITIONS, and VARIANT SYNTAX of their own utterances.

M: What you eating there?

M: What do you have?

M: Are you eating something?

M: Jane, are you eating something?

M: What are you eating there?

Kaluli (PNG)

Children need to be directly instructed

Routines (Elema):

Utterance_______________________”say like that”

Kwara’ae (Melanesia)

Begin talking to infants and including them in conversations. Speak for them by translating their babbling. (overt)

Navaho

Begin talking to children when they say things that make sense (3) Otherwise ignore their words. All learning is passive. (Covert)

Japan

Based on the notion of ‘Omoiyari’- empathy for others, politeness is overtly taught. Teaching is through example and admonition (directives)

1.       Save face by non-expression of feelings

2.       Practice indirectness

3.       Avoid conflict in communication

4.       “lack of response” signals self absorption and is rude. Teach to always respond.

5.       Personal desires are kept in check (do not show emotions)

Samoan

Signal ling emotions and intentions is part of good communication. Have particles, pronouns and affixes which allow you to do this in language. Overtly taught in DIRECTIVES

1.       Learn by age 4: affect markers-express emotion (before neutral ways of expression)

MULTI-LINGUALS AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Children will pass through stages more slowly than monolinguals and will often lag in production. When they do produce they do so at a more “advanced” level. (cognitive advantages)

1.       Do not mix languages (no code noise)

2.       Speak later but in fuller form

3.       Can learn up to 12 languages with no “bleeding”

4.       Critical age is 5/12

GENIE THE WILD CHILD (watch video)

·         Despite exposure, children may fail to acquire language under certain social circumstances

o   Attitudes

o   Parents actions in using speech styles

o   Perceived abilities/preferences of children as they become speakers (by parents)

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: What is the relationship between L&C?

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Language & Culture

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was first published in 1929, stated that "language was a guide to social reality".

• Language presents a cognitive framework which determines thought
• Thought and cognitive frame determines culture
• Therefore language determines culture
• If you learn a language therefore, you will learn the culture

Language:

1. communicates
2. directs the perceptions of its speakers
3. provides habitual modes for analyzing experiences
4. constructs cognitive categories
5. powers are part of the unconscious

Arguments for Sapir/Whorf

1. The Northern Hopi
1. TIME SPACE & MATTER...do we all view these the same way
1. Whorf looked at the Hopi and found that the way we view time is reflected in a languages tense system.
2. in Hopi, there are only two tenses...earlier and later...therefore they do not think of time as a quantity
3. In SAE where three tenses are used (past, present & future) This is why we use clocks, watches, etc, according to Whorf
4. THINKING is a function of language, and therefore determines culture.
5. CLOSURE is the psychological

Hopi & SAE

§  Mass nouns (SAE) & plurality

§  Time is discrete(Hopi) /length (SAE)

§  Verbs have no tenses in Hopi, but “validity forms”

§  Use of metaphors for duration, intensity & tendency (SAE only)

Summary:

·    SAE sees the world in terms if THINGS (bodies and quasi-bodies) plus modes of existential, but formal existence (substance & matter). It tends to see existence through a binomial formula  (content is understood by the outline of a container “stick of butter, “glass of water”) Time, like space is limited

§  Behavioral implications

·         Emphasis on time keeping, records and history

·         Increased gesturing as a visual metaphor

·         monotony

·    HOPI reality analyzed in terms of events, Events are expressed objectively through experience & perceptive reports. All quantities have a particulate existence. Time, unlike space, is not limited

§  Behavioral implications

·         Little gesturing

·         Preparedness for things already formed

·         repetition

Chicken or Egg?

Whorf says that language comes first because…”language is a system, not just an assemblage of norms (culture). Large systematic outlines can change to something really new only very slowly, while many other cultural innovations are made with comparative quickness. Language thus represents mass mind; it is affected by inventions and innovations, but…slowly…whereas to inventors and innovators it legislates with the decree immediately”

1. Color Studies
1. artists
2. gender

1. Identification of cultural elements (do structural elements have semantic correlates-this is the primary distinction which Hojior makes)
1. eskimo snow
2. navaho word for canoe
3. no word, no thing
4. gender and words (masculine, feminine, neuter)

1. Multilinguals
1. do you think differently in each language? Why? Why not?

Dorothy Lee:

“Codifications of Reality”

Time in American Culture

·    connects point to point (linear) chronological

·    moves (past to present but not any other way)

·    chronology is climactic (narrative or emotional)

Trobriand islanders

·    time is present, completed or timeless

·    events described situationally (in my father’s time) not chronologically

·    nonclimactic narrative, but validity, dignity, value ( no dessert)

George Lakoff & Mark Johnson

Metaphors We Live By

Our concepts and thoughts are all metaphorical in nature. This underlies the linguistic management of our habitual actions (unconscious) Language and culture are part of a larger cognitive system.

·    Argument is war

§  Win or lose

§  We have an opponent

§  Defend a point

§  Criticisms right on target

§  Shot down for his arguments

§  Gained a strong position

·    Time is money

§  Wasting it

§  Gadget saves you time

§  How do you spend your time?

§  Living on borrowed time

§  Invested a lot of time

§  Flat tire cost me an hour

Chicken & Egg:  Metaphors characterize a coherent system of concepts corresponding to a coherent system of metaphorical expressions for those concepts.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST SAPIR-WHORF

1. Brown
1. literal translation
2. naming
3. Zipf's Law
4. Etymology
5. Form Classes
6. Relativity

1. Bright and Bright
1. Culture area = Language area (areas that speak the same language should have the same culture and those similar in culture and geography should speak the same language)
1. Northwest cost cultures (many languages, one culture)
2. languages do NOT have the same cognitive structures

1. Black
1. LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY vs LINGUISTIC DETERMINISM
1. does language actually determine our perception, or is it a COVARIANCE. Does culture set up these categories and does language reflect them or is there a little bit of both.

Stephen Levinson

“Language & Mind”

Coevolution: there is great diversity among human language systems and there is not a simple temple or blueprint which is innate to all. Not just “noise” (psychlinguistic study)

Simple Nativism (Pinker): the essence of human language is syntax and the blueprint for syntax is innate. Diversity is inconsequential “noise”

Chicken & Egg: “It is culture, responding to a particular ecological niche that provides the bulk of conceptual packages that are encoded in any language”

Evidence for diversity:

·    Children must filter sounds to create a phonetic inventory

·    Children have a learning mechanism for this and we see this in their separation of systems when they are multilingual

·    Few linguistic universals, or statistical generalizations

·    May shift from vocal to visual auditory…does this have grammar in the same way?

Do we think how we speak?

·    Do we have a word or a concept for everything we experience in our culture? No.

·    When words are activated, the concept as a whole is activated, we do not parse. Short term memory is why. (limits)

-Languages vary in their semantics just as they do in their forms

-Semantic differences are bound to engender cognitive differences

-Cognitive correlates of semantic differences  can be empirically found on a widespread basis…no simple nativism.

We do not map words into existing concepts. This is why cognitive development in children exists.

Concepts (Man Without Words):

·      (p28) what is the impact of living without “names” for things? If you don’t have a name, what is your sense of self?

·      (p32) he did not seem to see signs as symbols, but rather as mimes or gestural commands

·      (p49) IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN CONTACT –human seem to need attention, the need to spend time with someone else as social beings-outweighs intelligent content

WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

·      (p57) made up of signs

·      (p63) how is it learned?

o   Names 

o   Sysntax

o   Tense

o   Adjectives

o   Verbs (don’t need these because they are easily mimed)

·      Learning: 1-2 word stages

·      (p79) language learning in isolation of culture is impossible

·      (p86) VISUAL THINKING and deaf culture-creates a rich visual culture

·      *p89) Audiological versus cultural deaf

·      (p90) language as a membership card to culture

·      (p98) language draws the boundaries created by humans, not nature

·      (p156) entrance into language is the entrance into the human family

·      (p160) Orality & education


Deaf language & Deaf Culture:

Culture and language intertwine, with language reflecting characteristics of culture & patterning the thoughts of deaf individuals which see the world through "visual language". 

• Learning about the culture of Deaf people is also learning about their language. 
• Deaf people use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate with each other and with hearing people who know the language. ASL is a visual/gestural language that has no vocal component. ASL is a complete, grammatically complex language. It differs from a communication code designed to represent English directly. ASL is not a universal language, however. There are signed languages in other countries (e.g., Italian Sign Language, Chinese Sign Language, Swedish Sign Language).
• American Deaf culture centers on the use of ASL and identification and unity with other people who are Deaf. 
• A Deaf sociolinguist, Dr. Barbara Kannapel, developed a definition of the American Deaf culture that includes a set of learned behaviors of a group of people who are deaf and who have their own language (ASL), values, rules, and traditions. 
• In 1913, George W. Veditz, president of the National Association of the Deaf, reflected in an old movie the sense of identity ASL gives Deaf individuals when he signed, "As long as we have deaf people on Earth, we will have signs, and as long as we have our films, we can preserve our beautiful sign language in its original purity. It is our hope that we all will love and guard our beautiful sign language as the noblest gift God has given to deaf people." HMMMM...

The values, behaviors, and traditions of Deaf culture include:

• Promoting an environment that supports vision as the primary sense used for communication at school, in the home, and in the community, as vision offers individuals who are deaf access to information about the world and the independence to drive, travel, work, and participate in every aspect of society.
• Valuing children who are deaf as the future of deaf people and Deaf culture. Deaf culture therefore encourages the use of ASL, in addition to any other communication modalities the child may have.-NON-STANDARD-LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE
• Support for bilingual ASL/English education of children who are deaf so they are competent in both languages. STANDARD-LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE
• Inclusion of specific rules of behavior in communication in addition to the conventional rules of turn taking. For example, consistent eye contact and visual attention during a conversation is expected. In addition, a person using sign language has the floor during a conversation until he or she provides a visual indicator (pause, facial expression, etc.) that he or she is finished. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
• Perpetuation of Deaf culture through a variety of traditions, including films, folklore, literature, athletics, poetry, celebrations, clubs, organizations, theaters, and school reunions. Deaf culture also includes some of its own "music" and poetry as well as dance.
• Inclusion of unique strategies for gaining a person's attention, such as:
  • gently tapping a person on the shoulder if he or she is not within the line of sight,
  • waving if the person is within the line of sight, or
  • flicking a light switch a few times to gain the attention of a group of people in a room- COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE.

Socially Charged Life of Language: Introduction to Language and Culture

"All words have the "taste" of a profession, a genre, a tendency, a party, a particular work, a particular person, a generation, an age group, the day and hour. Each word tastes of the context and contexts in which it has lived it's socially charged life..."    ---Bakhtin

"Black Lives Matter", "Blue Lives Matter", "All Lives Matter", 
---"Make America Great Again"

• Key Points and Learning objectives
• Language IS NOT a neutral medium for communication
• Language is a SET OF SOCIALLY EMBEDDED PRACTICES
• Social interactions are MEDIATED by language, whether spoken, written, verbal or noinverbal
• Semester will show that LANGUAGE AND CULTURE ARE INEXTRICABLY INTERTWINED

Examples to Consider: How is it the case that a linguistic analysis alone or a sociocultural analysis alone would NOT provide a comprehensive explanation of the significance of these events?

• getting "stoned" in San Francisco-Anti drug high school class (group 1)
• losing a language in Papua New Guinea (group 2)
• Pounded rice ritual in Nepal (group 3)
• BLM (group 4)

Think about the following when discussing your ethnographic example in your group:

1. how is language enmeshed in cultural values and social power?
2. How is inequality challenged or reproduced (upheld) through language?
3. How do linguistic "forms" like different words for the same thing influence people's thoughts and attitudes?
4. How do people's attitudes about language affect their perception of those that speak them (including themselves)?
5. How is the language in ritual (special contexts) different from everyday language?
6. Can language be understood outside of the social context in which it is used?

*The intertwined nature of language and culture requires, according to LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGISTS, requires that language be studied in REAL LIFE (social) CONTEXTS for any comprehensive understanding of human communication.

Language Decontextualized (emphasis on language as grammatical systems, rather than social acts)

• DeSaussure
• Chomsky
• Pinker

Though anthropological linguists value the work of linguists, they see "grammar" (structural aspects of language and 'universal grammars') as simply one aspect of language's "socially charged life".