Language Exam 3

Speech community

"a social group which may be either monolingual or multilingual, held together by frequency of social interaction patterns and set off from the surrounding areas by weaknesses in the lines of communication. Linguistic communities may consist of small groups bound together by face-to-face contact or may cover larger regions, depending on the level of abstraction we wish to achieve." - John Gumperz

The notion of focus, and the focus continuum, as set out in the handout on focus with the quotation from Le Page and Tabouret-Keller on the class handout

'community' and 'language' have social reality only to the extent that convergent beliefs about them arise.) • They call this scale the degree of focus that a community or language may have, and use it to characterize the social and linguistic emergence of creoles

types of semantic change such as broadening and narrowing

*Broadening/widening: A more specific conceptual meaning becomes more general, the new meaning includes but is no longer limited to the original meaning *Narrowing: A more general conceptual meaning becomes more specific; the original meaning includes the newer meaning

Chinese characters

2nd millennium BCE

Mayan glyphs

300 BCE

proportional analogy

Children take general patterns and apply them everywhere Ex: I breaked it (proportional analogy)

Name at least 12 indigenous (Native American) languages of Texas from at least 8 different language families. For each language, be able to identify the family, and be able to spell the names of the languages and the families correctly!

1. Tonkawa - Isolate family 2. Comecrudo - Comecrudan family 3. Comanche - Uto-Aztecan family 4. Lipan Apache - Nadene family 5. Caddo - Caddoan family 6. Alabama - Muskogean family 7. Kiowa - Kiowa-Tanoan family 8. Kickapoo - Algonkian family 9. Solano - Isolate family 10. Atakapa - Isolate family 11. Cotoname - Isolate family 12. Karankawa - Isolate family

Sumerian cuneiforms

4th millennium BCE

Egyptian hieroglyphics

4th or 3rd millennium BCE

Roman Alphabet

500 BCE

ad hoc communication

A situation where multiple people have no language in common ex: charades, kind of communication you do when you're stuck in an elevator with someone who doesn't speak the same language

analogic change

AKA morphological change; includes proportional analogy and paradigm leveling - can apply to individual words or end up not being accepted by speakers

Be aware of three commonly used alphabetic systems: Devanāgarī, Roman, and Korean.

Devanāgarī: Roman: most familiar alphabet, variant of early Greek Korean:

The relation of focus to personal and ethnic identity in the formation and maintenance of ethnicity and nationhood.

Directly related to the formation and maintenance of personal, ethnic, and national identity

Know the group membership of the following languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Irish, Russian, Polish, Greek, Czech, Persian, Kurdish, and Hindi

English-> Germanic German-> Germanic French-> Italic Spanish-> Italic Italian-> Italic Irish-> Celtic Russian-> Balto-Slavic Polish-> Balto-Slavic Czech-> Balto-Slavic Greek-> Hellenic Persian-> Indo-Iranian Kurdish-> Indo-Iranian Hindi-> Indo-Iranian

standard language (e.g., Standard English)

Standard language is a matter of linguistic ideology, and not of linguistic practice. Nobody really speaks "Standard English," they just use their idea of Standard English as a yardstick to measure and judge their own and other people's speech. Typically, people will say that someone conforming closely to their idea of Standard English "has no accent" (even though everybody has SOME kind of an accent.)

Be aware of ad hoc communication, Pidgins, creoles, and established languages and speech communities as steps along the focus continuum.

Focus is a matter of the amount of established common ground that people have for communication—very little in the case of ad hoc communication, and quite a lot in the case of an established speech community. (ranges from ad hoc to established)

semantic change

If a different intention for a word is shared by the speech community and becomes established in usage then a semantic change has occurred.

litotes

Understatement: the sense of the term used in a metaphor is weaker than that which would literally be expected in context

Why is there linguistic diversity (including dialect diversity)?

In part because groups become isolated from each other and develop their own speech ways. But in part, it fills a need we have to mark ourselves off as different, and to be appropriate in (or even evoke) different situations, levels of formality, and levels of politeness (among other things.) Nevertheless, on a worldwide language diversity is diminishing and many of the world's *6900* or so languages -remember that number--are endangered (being replaced by a language of wider communication such as English or Spanish).

Is there an "ecology of language" in monolingual societies?

Yes, but it is more subtle: slight differences of vocabulary, pronunciation, morphology, and syntax—known as differences of variety—go along with each "niche."

The pervasiveness of language change.

Language changes at all levels: Phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and lexicon.

rebuses

borrowing a symbol only for the phonemic value that it encodes ex: pictures of an eye and a sea = "I see"

Know and be able to identify pictograms

pictures drawn to express ideas;(morphographic)

Language varies according to geography:

regional dialects, like Boston English or LA English

be aware of the role of prejudice in people's attitudes toward linguistic diversity and difference

some speech varieties are viewed asstigmatized and in some cases banned in schools or in public, the subject of language riots (as discussed by Robert King) or the topic of heated debate, as in the case of Ebonics (African-American vernacular English, as discussed by John Rickford)

linguistic purism

the practice of defining or recognizing one variety of a language as being purer or of intrinsically higher quality than other varieties.

Pidgins

what arose when colonizing and colonized groups came in contact for the first time; developed ways to overcome the barriers of communication - typically develop in trading centers or areas under industrialization - enough contact between people that they start sharing ex. Korean Bamboo English which emerged among Americans and Koreans during the Korean War

Be aware of the notions language family, protolanguage, daughter languages, and comparative reconstruction.

- language family: languages that evolved from a single ancestor language - protolanguage: parent language that is reconstructed by making deductions - daughter languages: languages that come from a parent language

euphemism

- the sense of the term used in a metaphor is "nicer" than that which would literally be expected in context - as with the words for 'bathroom/toilet'

Name 6 groups within the Indo-European language family. (And be able to spell them correctly!)

1. Germanic 2. Italic 3. Celtic 4. Balto-Slavic 5. Albanian 6. Hellenic

Understand the basic principles of the Mayan, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic writing systems. (You do not need to know the writing systems themselves.)

Mixed scripts, use a combination of signs

Sociolinguistics

The study of the relationship between language varieties and social structure as well as the interrelationships among different language varieties *Concerned with: - What people do - What people think they do - What people say they do

the variationist hypothesis and what is has to say about the nature of language change

The variationist hypothesis proposes that language change over time is rooted in variation among speakers at any one point in history. This is in opposition to the idea that language change occurs suddenly or uniformly across a speech community.

unequal distribution of language families around the world

There is a much denser distribution of language families in the Americas and the Pacific than there is in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Hence, the Americas and the Pacific are the greatest hotbeds of linguistic diversity.

Understand the idea that language is identity; and that humans generally react to linguistic differences viscerally (in your guts!)

This helps explain why people maintain linguistic differences (or, if they chose, reshape their speech as a way of reshaping their social and personal identity.)

Although dialect correlates with geography, ethnicity, social class, and gender, it is not absolutely determined by these factors. Many people are exceptions to these generalizations. (True or False?)

True

paradigm leveling

Try to not engage in changes in the form of words as they go Ex: If you talk about a pattern of "good, better, best" you might say "good, gooder, goodest" (switching out the stem so it's uniform across the board)

Members of multilingual speech communities have a linguistic repertoire consisting of more than one language.

Typically, different languages are appropriate to different situations. Choice of language may depend on who you are speaking to, the setting(e.g., home, school, religious, civic), the topic, levels of formality, or other factors. It is said that in multilingual speech communities, there is an ecology of language where each language fills a different niche or purpose or function.

Linguistic practice

What people do

The total regularity of sound change. (When it seems not to be regular, there is always another explanation!)

When words from an ancestral language are retained in its 'daughter' language

Does everyone belong to overlapping speech communities?

Yes, everyone belongs to overlapping speech communities based on such factors as geography, age, occupation, ethnicity, family networks, and others

logograms

a sign or character representing whole words ex: Chinese, Egyptian hieroglyphics, %, $

ideograms

a written character symbolizing the idea of a thing without indicating the sounds used to say it, e.g., numerals and Chinese characters.

Language varies according to social class:

class varieties, as with the tendency to lose postvocalic "r" in NYC English as you go down the socioeconomic ladder

grammaticalization

creole languages (like all languages) have a grammar; and that frequently, grammatical elements—especially function words—develop out of ordinary content words or phrases from the language that is the lexical source of the creole (as shown in class for Gullah, Jamaican creole English, and Tok Pisin).

Language varies according to gender:

e.g., lexical differences most US speakers tend to associate with men vs. women; men's vs. women's speech forms in Koasati (very closely related to Alabama-Coushatta, spoken in Livingston, Texas!)

Language varies according to ethnic group:

ethnic varieties, like African-American English, white English, Latino or Hispanic English

lexical markers of register as slang and specialized vocabulary (e.g., legal language)

jargon = technical language ex: dermatitis slang = less formal ex: fridge

Pidgins and creoles

languages having most of their vocabulary from a colonial language, called the lexifer language.

isogloss, as illustrated in the dialect map handouts on Canvas.

lines that show the geographic extent of different linguistic features

dialect map

map of specific linguistic features over an area

metonymy

new and old meanings refer to two entities that are associated in the real world (as opposed to just conceptually in the heads of speakers, as in metaphor more generally Ex: the pulpit for 'clergy' because these 2 entities are physically associated in space

Know the historical origins of the irregularity that we perceive in the English writing system. Be aware of the "problems" with the English writing system as well as the Spanish system. Also, be aware of the advantages of an historically-based alphabetic system such as ours in English.

problems: may letters are redundant and that a purely phonographic system would be easier for children and immigrants to learn/read

language variation

refers to variation within a given speech community. As noted, this variation may depend to some degree on ethnicity, social class, gender, age, or other parameters.

Know the sense in which the phonemic principle applies to most alphabetic writing systems.

represents all the sounds, both consonants and vowels

semantic motivations for lexical change

the desire to be vivid or to avoid taboo topics

creoles

the development of a pidgin into a primary local language that is learned natively by children. - content words become function words - people actually start speaking it as their native language ex: Haitian Creole; second-language acquisition by successive groups of ppl

mixed languages, such as the Mitchif language of Western Canada (described in a handout)

these differ from creoles in that they have equal input from more than one source language, and (as in the case of Mitchif) may involve retention of complex morphological patterns from the source languages

Are the terms language and dialect exact?

these terms are inexact in popular usage, and they may reflect not only different degrees of actual linguistic distance, but also social and psychological notions of which linguistic boundaries should count as major or minor.

code-switching:

where different languages can be used in the same conversation or even the same sentence, where language choice symbolizes differences in topic, attitude or feeling (in addition, at times, to "whatever comes out first")

difference between the terms language and dialect

*dialect: any variety of a language spoken by a group of ppl that is characterized by systematic differences from other varieties of the same language in terms of structural/lexical features

Be aware of William Labov's study of the stratification of /r/ in New York City

*Traditional New Yorkers speak "r-less" English—they have little or no retroflection in their pronunciation of postvocalic /r/ *In 1965, Labov hypothesized that a change was in progress, by which NY-ers were starting to use retroflection in the pronunciation of /r/ - He thought it was socially determined: by social class and by gender- The change to retroflection was happening faster for upper-class people and for women; and it was more common in careful speech - Labov went to three department stores: Saks (very hotzi-totzi!), Macy's (más-o-menos), and S. Klein's (bargain basement!) - And he looked to see what was sold on the fourth floor, and then asked the sales people about it (he did this many, many times) - When they said Fourth floor (or Foath floa!) he then asked, "Excuse me please?" And they would repeat it for him, slowly and carefully **Found that there was a tendency to lose postvocalic "r" in NYC English as you go down the socioeconomic ladder

Know what the theory of monogenesis of writing is, and whether it is now still considered a possibility.

*single origin - there are lots of writing systems No way!

Linguistic ideology

*the body of beliefs people have about their language - What people think they do - What people say they do

Be aware of the mixed system used with Japanese, including katakana and hiragana syllabaries, and the kanji, borrowed Chinese characters. (Also given in the class powerpoint posted on Canvas). This is also the type of system used by Maya hieroglyphics.

*two phonographic syllabaries = hiragana and katakana *one morphographic system = kanji

established languages and speech communities

- Distinct group identity, can be multilingual - Large body of shared linguistic and cultural knowledge - Traditions of writing may reinforce the traditions (e.g., English, Chinese) - But shared knowledge may also be maintained orally (e.g., indigenous communities such as Eyak, Cup'ik, Chatino, and many many others around the world); and it may be maintained in situations of stable multilingualism ex: bilingual community like Star, TX where Spanish is prominent 1st language of many households

metaphor

- Implicitly or explicitly claims an equivalence between the sense of the term used and a more "literal" term expected in the given context. - leading to systematic extension of whole lexical sets, as in Western Apache pickup truck terminology

Writing is secondary: What does this mean?

- It is not something that naturally happens like talking or walking, you have to learn how to do it - Not present in all societies

hyperbole

- Overstatement: the sense of the term used in a metaphor is stronger than that which would literally be expected in context - leads to bleaching (When hyperbole leads to semantic change, the word takes on a weaker sense than it had in its earlier meaning), as in the car names examples in the handout where they just add letters to new additions

reanalysis and how it is important in language change. Review the handout discussed in class and given on Canvas.

- People are always trying to make sense of stuff that is archaic - How is it important? Ex: We three kings of glory and tar In Middle English, one could have said, 'I wear a napron when I cook'. Now one wears an apron.

Reasons why languages vary and change:

- Speakers vary their speech to 'fit in' or to convey social meaning (by using slang, 'big words', try to sound the same—or different—from others...) - Speakers borrow (or appropriate!) pronunciation, words, word-meanings, or grammatical strategies from other languages - Ease of articulation (easier to say) Ease of perception (easier to hear) - Language acquisition error (learning the wrong thing) - Oversystematization (applying a rule to contexts where it does not normally apply)

Sources of language change (i.e., where language change comes from)

- The natural evolution of the form and meaning of old words and grammatical forms - The loss of old words and coinage of new words - Language contact, leading to the borrowing of words, meanings, and grammatical forms and patterns

How could it be that that the oldest settled areas of the planet show so much less diversity than the most recently-settled areas?

- There is a spread of empires/agriculture in some parts of the world that tend to knock out linguistic diversity in the older settled areas (Eurasia and Africa) - Time scale: we are only about to look at a tiny slice of the human story, whereas, you look at Africa and it goes back thousands of years (it goes well beyond linguistic methods)