Anthropology Exam 2

Why did the kids at the Attic use Gaybonics?

A function for freedom, racial uplift, leadership, and citizenship. It makes people feel better about themselves, they feel less excluded because they are now part of a group.

How do the kids at The Attic enact power through language?

A function for freedom, racial uplift, leadership, and citizenship. It makes people feel better about themselves, they feel less excluded because they are now part of a group. They have the power to exclude others the same way that they once were excluded from standard English.

Provide an example of the limits of gaybonics.

A limit of gaybonics is when another person or group can understand it and can engage in the discourse (thunder tried to use gaybonics on the bus, but the other guys could understand him)

identity

perceived as different components of the individual that collectively express personal experience (A self's self)

critical discourse analysis

studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are reproduced and resisted through language

Structural Violence

systematic ways in which social structures harm or otherwise disadvantage individuals (the government, media, etc.)

adaptors

tapping fingers, tapping feet, release of body tension or nerves

P (SPEAKING)

participants. who can or should be involved in various speech events or conversations and what is expected of the various individuals

intimate proxemics

0-18 inches

Public Proxemics

12 feet and beyond

personal proxemics

18 inches to 4 feet

social proxemics

4-12 feet

how many African Americans live in the US today?

40 million

how many people lost their lives in the bloody conflict in Africa

50,000

Provide examples of proxemics and how it can express social status/class.

A CEO of a company will have a larger office than those below him, the president lives in the White House,

ideology

A consistent set of beliefs by groups/individuals

SPEAKING

A fieldwork methodology for studying language inits social and cultural contexts

A (SPEAKING)

Act sequence, the actual sequence of events. What words are used?

What role does activism play in social transformation?

Activism can play a large role in determining if there will be social transformation or not. There will be no social transformation if there is no social or political change.

Why would it be considered offensive to ask, "Why didn't they just leave?" (Katrina)

Because many of the people were too poor, didn't have cars, and felt uncomfortable leaving all of their belongings behind. They were trapped by social and financial limitations. They were unable to heed the warnings to evacuate ahead of the storm. They assumed that they were safe, as they did in the past. They had no where else to go

How could the kids at The Attic become activists?

By using social and political change to accomplish things. Rallies, starting movements, protests etc.

Explain how to use critical discourse analysis to uncover racism in the language of Katrina: what were the words used and how did those words demonstrate racism?

Critical discourse (studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are reproduced and resisted through language) uncovers racism in the language of Katrina by seeing poor blacks as refugees and rich people as citizens. Words used: refugee, citizen, looter, resident,

5 Categories of Gestures

Emblems, illustrators, affect displays, regulators, and adaptors

K (SPEAKING)

Key, mood or spirit in which communication takes place

How language is used as a form of social reproduction and social transformation:

Language is used as a form of social reproduction because it reinforces different offensive words that can be carried on through generations. Racism is an example of social production through language, because a lot of racism stems from the way people talk about another race, which can shape future generations view of that certain race, and then carry on for generations. Language is used as a form as social transformation because new words are continually being created, language is not dead, culture is always changing. One example of this is slang, new generations are constantly coming up with new words, thus allowing for social transformation.

How does "The Attic" illustrate hook's concept of marginalization?

The kids from the attic had to use gabonics because they weren't as privileged as those who spoke standard English

Explain why this is considered an offensive question: "Why didn't those who were affected by Hurricane Katrina just leave?" (You must incorporate and discuss the specific statistics to receive credit)

Many of hurricane Katrina's victims stayed behind because they were lower class (about a 30% poverty rate), they were elderly (about 12%), many didn't have car (30%) and many had lived there their entire lives (almost 80%), and were scared to lose all of their life's work.

What does bell hooks mean when she says that the margins are a 'site of radical possibility'?

Margins are a 'site of radical possibility': (marginality-the complex and disputatious process by which means of which certain people and ideas are privileged over others at any time) (radical possibility - possibility of change) Bell hooks believes that marginalized and oppressed people use language to recover themselves and their experiences

how does social reproduction play out with the kids in The Attic?

Social reproduction (cultural meanings displayed and reproduced through language)

How did the aftermath of Katrina threaten the American Dream?

The aftermath of hurricane Katrina left people without their belongings, cars, and homes. In a way, many of them had to start back from the very beginning. Many of them were considered a refugee in their own country, which makes it hard to engage in the idea of the American dream.

What is the "categorical void"

The fact that they didn't know how to categorize those effected by Katrina. Refugee was too strong of a word, and they had trouble finding a suitable and fitting word.

How did Hurricane Katrina challenge assumptions about the American Dream?

There is an underlying assumption that they are weak, dependent on help from others, an helpless. You can't engage in the American dream if you are considered a refugee in your own country, and by your own people.

Why is 'Refugee' a dirty word?

The word was unsuitable to describe the plight of people who had been (or would soon be) forced to evacuate their towns and neighborhoods prior to or in the days following the storm: They had left their homes, not their country. The word often entails alien, excluded, rips off American identity. Shows in need of charity instead of assuming help

How do the youth who use gaybonics assert agency?

They asserted agency through the use of borderland discourse

How do they use agency? According to the author, are they activists?

They used agency through discourses to please, humor, create intimacy, subvert, and retaliate against. They did not accomplish the war of social and political change, therefore they were not activists.

Why was "refugee" considered offensive from an emic perspective?

Those called refugees felt as though they were looked at as foreigners. There is a stigma of charity (they asked for help, felt as though they were a burden,

What do the statistics provided in class tell us (about the language of Katrina)

Those that were called refugees were predominately black and poor, while those that were called citizens were predominantly white and wealthy. Some didn't have cars and had lived there their whole life. Many of them were below the poverty line.

T/F: Actor and agent are two different perspectives on the actions

True

How is language a form of social action?

We use language to cause a reaction to get what we want. Language builds our norms (boys will be boys, me too etc.)

How do the following people identify the borderlands and borderland discourse: Gee

a discourse is a way of being in the world, an identity kit that instructs you how to act, talk, and write so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize

What is structural violence and where do you see it in Hurricane Katrina?

a form of violence wherein some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. During Katrina, the government was not as present and helpful as it should have been, and people were kind of left to fend for themselves. Even other citizens of the US were not very helpful, they saw what those affected by hurricane Katrina were going through, but from afar. it did not seem like a real problem to many.

speech community

a group of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language

linguistic community

a group of people who share a single language variety and focus their identity around that language

agency

a mechanism for survival, can be term-49asserted through discourses to please, humor, create intimacy, subvert, and retaliate against, but also can be assured to accomplish the work of social and political change

agent

a person engaged in the exercise of power in the sense of the ability to bring about effects and reconstitute the world

actor

a person whose action is rule-governed or rule-oriented (they don't ever protest anything or doing anything active)

the sacred space of roadside memorials—what are the messages?

a proxemics analysis of constructed space "bad death", mark spot as a symbol of death, a garden of memory. Reclaiming space, creating memory of a lost loved one, a form of political protest, sites of contestation. Transforms body from living to the afterlife

How do the following people identify the borderlands and borderland discourse: Anzaldua

a vague undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. Borders are unnatural boundaries that are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, and to distinguish US from THEM

What is the difference between an actor and an agent?

an actor is a person whose action is rule-governed and rule-oriented an agent is a person who engages in the exercise of power in the sense of the ability to bring about effects and reconstitute the world. An actor works to accomplish the work of social and political change, whereas an agent use discourses to retaliate, but use no action.

Marginalization

certain people and ideas are privileged over others at any different time

What is borderlands discourse?

community based communication (gaybonics, ebonics, etc...)

affect display

conveys emotions (smile, pointing)

social transformation

cultural meanings that are transformed through language

emblems

direct verbal translation (raised are with closed fist, hunger games thing)

illustrators

movements to reflect something (showing that you're representing driving by looking like you are steering)

E (SPEAKING)

ends, reason for which the speech is taking place, or the goals that people have in speaking in particular situations

t/f there is a historical record of 20 slaves escaping from Bunce Island

false

t/f Tejami means "crossing the blood"

false, it means crossing the water

G (SPEAKING)

genres, different kinds of speech acts or even events

regulators

gestures used to control conversation (head nodding, eye movements)

proxemics: what is it?

how people perceive the use of space

I (SPEAKING)

instrumentalities, refers to the channels that are used (speaking, writing, signing, signaling, etc.)

why was the Tejami ceremony abandoned at the end of WW1

islam and christianity was introduced

How is "The Attic" a site of radical possibility (hooks)

it creates a border that distinguishes safe from unsafe

How does language reflect culture?

language and culture are intertwined, they change together and influence each other. Language communicates values, beliefs, and customs. The way the media and people across the US talked about the victims of Katrina reflected their culture (norms values etc.)

how did this (calling some refugees and some citizens) naturalize social inequality

media constantly said the word refugee, so it became normal/.

N (SPEAKING)

norms, refers to the expectations and the ideologies, that speakers have about appropriateness of speech use

What is object communication and why and how do people use it?

objects that people use to provide unintentional status (clothing wedding rings, tattoo's)

Types of nonverbal communication

oculists, haptics, and vocalics

According to the author of "Why Katrina's Victims Aren't Refugees: Musings on a "Dirty" Word, what does the language of Katrina tell us about U.S. culture?

our portrayal of Katrina was part of a radicalized discourse that excluded New Orleans residents from its public thereby helping to naturalize social inequality US culture quite often generalized people, and sets them into groups by making assumptions and by stereotyping. They framed blacks as looters, and said that the whites who took from shops were just doing their best to survive.

social reproduction

refers to the emphasis on the structures and activities that transmit social inequality from one generation to the next

How do the following people identify the borderlands and borderland discourse: Hooks

reflects a kind of knowledge that may be inaccessible to others (their oppressors), thus eliciting pleasure among themselves and subverting homophobia and other forms of oppression. Serve to create intimacy. Use of vernacular by those who have inequitable access to traditional notions of power; oppresses" and "marginality" people can recover themselves and their experiences in language.

What were the words (language) of Katrina?

refugee, citizen, flee, looters, social deviants

what is the basis of the "Gullah Connection" according to Joseph Opala

rice in the 18th century

S (SPEAKING)

setting/situation. Refers tot he place in which the conversation is occuring

What is coded language? (Text and subtext—videos of Katrina

text: anything considered to be a subject for analysis by or as if by methods of literary criticism subtext: the underlying or implicit meaning

Where do the Gullah live and why are they unique?

the coast of Georgia, the preserved africanism in their speech and culture

How does the story of the Tenjami demonstrate the relationship between language and culture

their song in the Mende language demonstrated aspects of their culture. You can't have language without culture, and this language (the song) brought together two people from different countries.

who are the Kamajos and what service do they provide?

they drive the war away from the village, hunters

Why are Katrina's victims not refugee's?

they were forced to seek asylum because of a natural disaster, rather than because of hostility or persecution. Those who were called refugees were predominantly black and poor, while those called citizens were white and wealthy. They left their home, not their entire country.

which gender is responsible for the Tanjemi ceremony and what does the white clay represent?

women, the white clay symbolizes death, mourning, and ancestors