ANTH quiz 2
ways to get people to leave
"do you want another drink" "don't you have work tomorrow?" "its late" "well its been fun" indirection-turning the subject away camouflaging whats meant to happen
"mutton" example
"mutton busting" breaks down distinction "spicy fried mutton" "mutton" is food "sheep" is animal -in French these distinctions don't exist
semantic meaning
"whats up" -what is happening, right now or in the recent past?
speech styles, power, and gender
"you know?" <-- female -super polite forms -hedges to undercut what you're saying -women may be precise, exact, and formal -(madagascar) --> less polite
same phonemic meaning
(s p I n) vs. (ph I n)
cognitive linguistics
-brent berlin, paul kay- interested in color terms -progression of which colors get included in a language -black/white-->red-->green/yellow-->blue-->brown-->others (general to specific, more important to less, more general) -language is a reflection of reality -selective ordering of experience
Oldowan pebble choppers
-had normal people make these -they take some skill -handy tools -5 groups of test subjects (flintknapping-expert) -the only decent group was the most through one -humans are known for social learning -spoken language is important -languages are differently put together *tribal translation example
sapir-whorf hypothesis
-language shapes our reality -language determines how we organize and analyze the world -language shapes our thought -whorf: perceptions of hazards
rate my professor
-males seen as "funnier" -females seen as more "helpful" -females seen as more "organized"
Phonemics (phonemes)
-p--> makes a difference in language itself -sapir says we hear phonemics -ex: cooks and bakes -some sounds sound better in slang phonemes=minimal units of meaningful contrast -"beat, bit, but, bat"
Language
-sapir communicates ideas by means of a system of voluntarily produced signs -seyfarth: vocalizations that are voluntary, discrete (not graded), and learned -eble: the coming together of form and meaning
guest lecture
-she has to ask about slang-she can't participate in it because she's not a college student -she collects most entries only one; not all of them get picked up and slang is always changing -3/30 student=frequent term -1 generation= 7 years -only 117 words in 14 semesters (5,000 cards turned in) -sketchy, sorostitute, legit -pwn -pregame -the names of particular buildings on campuses -social media is vital-used to be transmitted face to face -every once in a while you can't pronounce slang because you don't ever hear it -online games -slang=social vocab; there isn't slang for EVERY word -highly judgmental- really good or really bad -very often about being drunk or high -emeliorating-losing sexual meaning and used in wider context (netflix and chill) -blending is on the ride -slang can't be neutral. has to have edge to it -jargon is language needed to do your job
Language (vocalizations)
-voluntary -discrete -socially learned -animals making alarm calls based on where the threat is located. juveniles make mistakes while doing this, but skills are refined with age and experience. -forms of communication have social learning component
bound morphemes
UN + bag + able pig + let big + er morph + eme
learning language cross-culturally
comparative element
generalization
taking an idea that applies to another species and applying to other one
interpretant
the effect of a sign on someone who reads or comprehends it.
grammar
the formal patterns of speech -sapir says the rules for generating sensible language -walk --> walked -run --> runned... misapplying the rule -different strategies turn words into slang -slang=new words placed in standard words
Linguistic Determinism
the idea that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception. The term implies that people of different languages have different thought processes.
diglossia
the parallel existence of 2 types of languages (english and ebonics)
semiotics
the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.
Lexicon
the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge.
"words for snow"
transcendental object language
CS pierce
trichotomy of signs icon, index, symbol, semiotics
"the Jabberwocky"
unfamiliar words but they flow together because the sounds make sense and the balance between consonants and vowels -standard english characteristics -poll everywhere- koko and alex language use
phonology and phonemics
what sounds make sense
semantics
what utterances mean
lexicon
what words are
syntax
word order -really matters in english
African American Vernacular (English)
Ebonics -Get teachers to understand ebonics (grammar, etc) and get kids to learn this as well so they can move back and forth -kids were using grammar, just different devalued grammar
koko language
clear distinction between sign and actual object -arbitrary relationship (symbol) -some primates are able to lie -they can generalize -they may not be good at syntax and grammar -series of signs -koko has 1,000 signs
Whorf
perceptions of hazards -workplace accidents. -finland and sweden -fins worked in a way that focused on object-increased accidents
"The Hopi Idea of Time"
The debate originated in the 1940s when American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf argued that the Hopi conceptualized time differently from the Standard Average European speaker, and that this difference correlated with grammatical differences between the languages.[1] Whorf argued that Hopi has "no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to what we call 'time'", and concluded that the Hopi had "no general notion or intuition of time as a smooth flowing continuum in which everything in the universe proceeds at equal rate, out of a future, through the present, into a past".[2] Whorf used the Hopi concept of time as a primary example of his concept of linguistic relativity, which posits that the way in which individual languages encode information about the world, influences and correlates with the cultural world view of the speakers.
communication breakdown
please like me-->nice sarong-->please give me your sarong
baby talk
a lot of ?s pitch changes happens when babies start trying to respond most effective is just the interaction (spontaneous and repetitive) this is why children ask "why?" they want to keep the conversation going
Linguistic Relativity
a principle that holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers' world view or cognition.
Phonetics
bits of sound that make up words when we say things -the objective quality of the sound (tones, sounds, patterns...) -saying "tomato" phonetic differences -edward sapid-when we perceive sounds we think of meaningful differences
onomatopoeia
dog barks
pragmatics
getting things to happen by using language
chimpanzees
have the same oral structure as humans -can make some range of our sounds, but they have different head/throat set ups though they possess the same structures as us -we can produce a wide range of sounds that are shaped by what language we grew up speaking
syntax
how to string them together
index
indicator: cause and effect of one state to another (flag being flown outside embassy)
Franz Boas
language compels us to say certain things -worked among Kwakwakawakw -words that tell if something is visible or not -indiciation of how you know something through words
pragmatic meaning
lets talk-->a conversation starter, not just a means of finding out info what the words are meant to do in the world
Un/marked
marked carry additional info... -actor=unmarked -actress=marked -sometimes unmarked term is taken to be the norm; marked is specialized -ex: day=unmarked night=marked (more specific)
Hypercorrection
middle class and lower class- most adherent to formal rules of english grammar (most rigid) -being especially adherent to the rule (sometimes making mistakes because of this)
Polysemous
not specified which kind (horses)
code switching
one form to another moving from one register of speech to another -speaking spanish to one customer, speaking english to another (what suits the situations)
free morphemes
refers to something world p + i + g nothing about p and b tell us anything about the difference of what there are, but these sounds help us understand there is a difference since we speak english
icon
relationship of resemblance: american flag: 50 states, 50 stars; carolina blue
model of communication
sender- meaning-->encoding code --> sign (vehicle) --> decoding code --> receiver
Navajo
shapes recognition stronger within children due to language
example of sign vehicle, interpretant, object
sign vehicle-smoke object-fire interpretant-"theres a fire"
object
signified
sign vehicle
signifier
symbol
socially learned -no relationship between canada and american flag -university in the tar heel state
William Labov
sociolinguistic-language in the context of social situations -looked at the "r" sound in NYC (looked at the upperclass) -WWII-->more r pronunciation w/ upper class... lower class didn't use it as much (guard and god) -emphasis bc beside God -upperclass speech was thought as closest to their own speech -face to face-not notice discrepheny bt ideal and actual pronunciations (filling in blanks) -manag social interaction -recordings-detected phonetic differences-->having pragmatic meanings
ferdinand de saussure
structuralism--> difference as signaling meaning -differences among units, signs -signifier and signified