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Chapter 5

Chapter 5. Language and Communication. Chapter Preview. What Is Language? How Is Language Related to Culture? How Did Languages Change?. What Is Language?.

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Chapter 5

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  1. Chapter 5 Language and Communication

  2. Chapter Preview • What Is Language? • How Is Language Related to Culture? • How Did Languages Change?

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5.  Linguistics • The study of linguistics is divided into three main components. 1.) Descriptive 2.) Historical 3.) Sociolinguistics

  6. Descriptive Linguistics • This branch of linguistics involves unraveling a language by recording, describing, and analyzing all of its features. These linguists focus on: • Phonology • Morphology • Syntax • Grammar

  7. 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 thesmallest classes of sound that make a difference in meaning. • Example: Butter vs. Budder

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

  10. 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 another • the need for new vocabulary to deal with technological innovations or altered social realities.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. 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.

  15. 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.

  16. 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”

  17. 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.

  18. 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.

  19. 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.

  20. 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.

  21. 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.

  22. 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.

  23. 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.

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

  25. 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.

  26. 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.

  27. 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.

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

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