Ant 101: Chap 9 : Communication
Based on Deborah Tannen's analysis of indirect responses, what conclusion about gender roles could the following exchange between a couple suggest? Johan: Let's throw a party. Betsy: Are you worried your old crew is excluding you? -Men tend to schedule and dictate a couple's activities. -Women understand their role to include support for men in social contexts. -Men are expected to make irresponsible decisions that women gently challenge. -Women reinforce their dominance with subtle put-downs.
Women understand their role to include support for men in social contexts.
Sociolinguistics
a perspective that emphasizes how people's cultural and social context shapes their language and its meanings. Sociolinguists are, therefore, cultural constructionists -Most anthropologists see some value in both perspectives because language, culture, context, and meaning are highly interactive: Language shapes culture and cultural context shapes language.
Kogals
A contrasting pattern of gendered language comes from the kogals, young Japanese women between 14 and 22 years of age known for their female-centered coolness (Miller 2004). The kogals have distinctive language, clothing, hairstyles, makeup, attitude, and activities, all of which challenge prescriptive norms for young women. Their overall style is flashy and exuberant, combining global and local elements. Heavy users of cell phones, kogals use a complex and ever-changing set of emoticons, or "face characters" including icons for "wow," "ouch," "applause," and "I can't hear you." The spoken language of the kogals is a rich and quickly changing mixture of slang, some classic but much newly created. The national language of Indonesia is referred to as bahasa Indonesia. Many homosexual men in Indonesia speak bahasa gay, or "gay language" (Boellstorff 2004). Indonesia is the world's fourth-largest country in terms of population, with nearly 250 million citizens living on over 6,000 islands and speaking nearly 700 local languages. In spite of this cultural and linguistic diversity, bahasa gay is highly standardized.
Pidgin
A pidgin is a language that blends elements of at least two parent languages and that emerges when two different cultures with different languages come in contact and must communicate -All speakers of pidgin have their own native language(s) but learn to speak pidgin as a second, rudimentary language. Pidgins are typically limited to specific functional domains, such as trade and basic social interactions. Many pidgins of the Western Hemisphere were the result of the Atlantic slave trade and plantation slavery. Owners needed to communicate with their slaves, and slaves from various parts of Africa needed to communicate with each other. Pidgins are common throughout the South Pacific.
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
a perspective that says that people's language affects how they think. If a language has many words for variations of the English word snow, for example, then someone who speaks that language can "think" about snow in more ways than someone can whose language has fewer "snow" terms.
What is a logograph? -a writing system that came after the Latin alphabet -a symbol used in writing that resembles that to which it refers -a symbol used to identify a group -any item in a writing system
a system used in writing that resembles that to which it refers
Which of the following is the definition of language? -the process of sending and receiving meaningful messages -the ability to narrate about the past, future, and imaginary things -a systematic set of symbols and signs with learned and shared meanings -the ability to create an infinite range of meaningful messages
a systematic set of symbols and signs with learned and shared meanings
What is linguistic determinism? -a theory stating that culture determines language -the ability to talk about events in the past and future -the ability to create an infinite number of novel and understandable messages -a theory stating that language determines consciousness of the world and shapes behavior
a theory stating that language determines consciousness of the world and shapes behavior
A state's official television station frequently depicts men in the military performing acts that are admirable to the culture. This would be an example of __________. -a trope -narrative therapy -prosody -productivity
a trope
The text-messaged phrase "LOL I H8 U!!! ;)" would be an example of __________. -an emerging variant -a pidgin -the use of displacement -sign language
an emerging variant
Two forms of new languages prompted by European colonialism
are pidgins and creoles.
Critical media Anthropology
asks to what degree access to media is liberating or controlling and whose interests the media serve. -examine power issues in many areas including journalism, television, movies, advertising, the Internet, social media, and gaming worlds.
Call system
call system, or a form of oral communication with a set repertoire of meaningful sounds generated in response to environmental factors.
Which of the following pairs of words illustrates a phonemic difference? -blue and indigo -soda and pop -greasy and greazy -cat and Kate
cat and kate
Big data
collections of information including thousands, millions, or even billons of data points often generated from Internet and communication sources, such as cell phone use, Facebooking, and Tweeting (Palchykov et al. 2012). - Human language can be analyzed in terms of its formal properties: sounds, vocabulary, and syntax (sometimes called grammar), which are the formal building blocks of all languages. But languages differ widely in which sounds are important, what words are important in the vocabulary, and how people put words together to form meaningful sentences.
Which of the following concepts is associated with sociolinguistics? -Sapir-Whorf hypothesis -linguistic determinism -biological determinism -cultural constructionism
cultural constructionism
What is discourse? -verbal language combined with body language -culturally patterned verbal language -an ongoing conversation between two or more people -a monologue that describes the speaker's cultural beliefs
culturally patterned verbal language
Second, Human language emphasizes the feature of
displacement
The reason narrative therapy might not be effective among the Pirahã of Brazil would be related to what concept? -displacement -nonverbal communication -ethnosemantics -phonemes
displacement
Proto-language
historical linguists developed a hypothetical model of the original parent language, or proto-language, of most Eurasian languages. It is called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). Linguistic evidence suggests that PIE was located in Eurasia, either north or south of the Black Sea (Map 9.4). From its area of origin, between 6,000 and 8,000 years ago, PIE spread into Europe, then into Central, South, and East Asia, where local versions developed over the centuries.
Extreme Linguistic determinism
implies that the frames and definitions of a person's primary language are so strong that it is impossible to learn another language fully or, therefore, to understand another culture fully. Most anthropologists see value in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but not in its extreme form.
What approach did scholars use to gain information about Proto-Indo-European? -analysis of its living form, Euro-Iranian -comparison of the written forms of its "children" -studies of written examples found at a site north of the Black Sea -inferences from analyses of contemporary and recorded languages
inferences from analyses of contemporary and recorded languages
Sign Language
is a form of communication that uses mainly hand movements to convey messages. A sign language provides a fully competent communication system for its users, just as spoken language does
Textese
is a new and emerging variant of English and other languages associated with cell phone communications and involving abbreviations and slang. -In English Textese, vowels are often deleted, numbers may stand in for part of a word or an entire word, and a single letter may convey a word. Many stock phrases exist as acronyms, such as lol, that are widely recognized by users.
Critical Discourse analysis
is an approach within linguistic anthropology that examines how power and social inequality are reflected in and reproduced through verbal language -critical discourse analysis reveals links between language and social inequality, power, and stigma. It also provides insights into agency and resistance through language.
Media Anthropology
is the cross-cultural study of communication through electronic media such as radio, television, film, recorded music, the Internet, and print media, including newspapers, magazines, and popular literature - Media anthropology is an important emerging area that links linguistic and cultural anthropology (Allen 1994). Media anthropologists study the media process and media content, the audience response, and the social effects of media presentations.
Communication
is the process of sending and receiving meaningful messages. -Among humans, it involves some form of language, a systematic set of symbols and signs with learned and shared meanings. -Language may be spoken, hand-signed, written, or conveyed through body movements, body markings and modifications, hairstyle, dress, and accessories. Over several centuries, scholars of language have proposed characteristics of human language that distinguish it from communication among other living beings. The following material describes the two most robust such characteristics
Historical Linguistics
is the study of language change through history. It relies on many specialized methods that compare shifts over time and across space in aspects of language such as phonetics, syntax, and meaning. - It originated in the eighteenth century with a discovery made by Sir William Jones, a British colonial administrator working in India. During his spare time, he studied Sanskrit, a classical language of India. He noticed marked similarities among Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin in vocabulary and syntax. For example, the Sanskrit word for the English word father is pitr; in Greek it is patéras, and in Latin it is pater. This was an astounding discovery for the time, given the prevailing European mentality that placed its cultural heritage firmly in the classical Graeco-Roman world and depicted the "Orient" as completely separate from "Europe" (Bernal 1987). -Following Jones's discovery, other scholars began comparing lists of words and grammatical forms in different languages: for example, the French père, the German Vater, the Italian padre, the Old English faeder, the Old Norse fadhir, and the Swedish far. These lists allowed scholars to determine degrees of closeness and distance in the relationships among those languages.
Deborah Tannen's analysis of discourse patterns among white Euro-Americans found that __________. -both men and women unconsciously affirm male dominance with language -men and women draw different conclusions from indirect responses -men use rising intonation at the end of sentences to assert authority -men make direct claims, while women make claims framed in terms of social relationships
men and women draw different conclusions from indirect responses
The current distribution of Bantu languages is the result of __________. -British colonial influence that encouraged the blending of English with indigenous African languages -the introduction of new media technology to developing nations -migrations of Proto-Bantu-speaking farmers who expanded into different regions of Africa 5,000 years ago -recent pan-African identity movements that sought to revitalize the Bantu language
migrations of Proto-Bantu-speaking farmers who expanded into different regions of Africa 5,000 years ago
Language family
or groups of languages descended from a parent language (Figure 9.5). Individual languages descended from the same language, such as French and Spanish (both descended from Latin), are referred to as sister languages.
Global Languages
or world languages. -Global languages are spoken worldwide in diverse cultural contexts. As they spread to areas and cultures beyond their home area and culture, they take on new, localized identities. At the same time, the "mother language" picks up words and phrases from local languages (Figure 9.7). Global languages may act as both a form of linguistic and economic opportunity and a form of cultural imperialism
West Germanic is a __________ of Dutch, which in turn is a __________ of English. -brother, parent -sister, sister -parent, sister -child, parent
parent, sister
Deborah Tannens
popular book You Just Don't Understand (1990) shows how differences in conversational styles between white Euro-American men and women lead to miscommunication. She says that "women speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy, whereas men speak and hear a language of status and independence" (1990:42). Although both men and women use indirect response (not really answering the question), their different motivations create different meanings embedded in their speech
First human language has
productivity and call system
Discourse
refers to culturally patterned verbal language use including varieties of speech, participation, and meaning.
Logographs
signs that indicate a word, syllable, or sound. Over time, some logographs retained their original meaning; others were kept but given more abstract meaning, and nonlogographic symbols were added
What is "productivity" with regard to language? -a form of a language in which native speakers use more words from a foreign language than their native one -the ability to create an infinite range of expressions from a finite set of rules -a set of symbols that conveys meaning through pictures -the ability to create stories about the past, future, or imaginary things
the ability to create an infinite range of expressions from a finite set of rules
Displacement
the ability to refer to events and issues beyond the immediate present. The past and the future, in this view, are considered to be displaced domains. They include reference to people and events that may never exist at all, as in fantasy and fiction.
Which of the following is the most comprehensive definition of communication? -the process of sending and receiving meaningful messages -the ability to talk about events in the past and future -the ability to generate a potentially infinite number of messages efficiently -a systematic set of learned symbols and signs shared among a group
the process of sending and receiving meaningful messages
Ethnosemantics
the study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences in particular cultural contexts. They find that languages classify the world in unpredictable ways, categorizing even such seemingly natural things as color and disease differently.
Early scholars of language
were often misled by ethnocentric assumptions that the structure of European languages was normative and that languages with different structures were less developed and deficient. For example, they considered the Chinese language primitive because it lacks the kinds of verbs that European languages have. As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, the Pirahã language appears simpler in many ways compared with English, as does the Pirahã culture, but both Pirahã and English have to be examined within their cultural contexts. Pirahã is a language that works for a rainforest foraging population. English works for a globalizing, technology-driven, consumerist culture. Languages of foraging cultures today can, with caution, provide insights about what foragers' language may have been like thousands of years ago. But they are not "frozen in time" examples of "Stone Age" language.
What is language shift? -when speakers start using their native language more than a new language -when speakers have a limited vocabulary in a new language and more often use their native language -when speakers have a limited vocabulary in their native language and more often use a new language -when speakers stop using their native language and use only a new language
when speakers have a limited vocabulary in their native language and more often use a new language
A pidgin often evolves into a creole
which is a language descended from a pidgin and that subsequently has its own native speakers, a richer vocabulary than a pidgin has, and a more developed grammar. Throughout the Western Hemisphere, many localized creoles have developed in areas such as Louisiana, the Caribbean, Ecuador, and Suriname. Though a living reminder of the heritage of slavery, creole languages and associated literature and music are also evidence of resilience and creativity in the African diaspora.
Writing Systems
Evidence of the earliest written languages comes from Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. The oldest writing system was in use in the fourth millennium BCE in Mesopotamia (Postgate et al. 1995).
What is the difference between gestures and sign language? -Sign language is used by people who are hearing impaired, whereas gestures are used by people who cannot speak verbally. -Gestures can communicate emotion as well as simple symbol-based statements; sign language can only make simple symbol-based statements. -Gestures are not a complete communication system, whereas sign language is. -Gestures involve only the hands; sign language involves the whole body.
Gestures are not a complete communication system, whereas sign language is.
Which of the following statements about global languages is accurate? -There are nearly 500 global languages. -Global languages are highly standardized and do not vary from region to region. -Global languages are not as grammatically complex as local languages. -Global languages interact with local languages and change within the local context.
Global languages interact with local languages and change within the local context.
Which of the following statements exhibits the African roots of African American English (AAE)? -He is tired. -Tired he is. -He tired. -I'm's tired.
He tired
How does clothing relate to human communication? -Clothing is a less important form of communication than body language. -Clothing is a form of body language. -You need to have spoken language in order to create clothing. -Clothing is far more symbolic than spoken language.
Clothing is a form of body language.
Evidence based on human mental and physical capacity, as well as indicators of cultural evolution, indicate language may have been developed about __________. -1.5 million years ago -10,000 to 5,000 years ago -6,000 to 8,000 years ago -100,000 to 50,000 years ago
100,000 to 50,000 years ago
Tok Pisin
(the indigenous pronunciation of "talk pidgin"), originally a pidgin language of Papua New Guinea consisting of a mixture of English, Samoan, Chinese, and Malaysian, is now a creole and is recognized as one of the official languages of Papua New Guinea. Two other creoles are also nationally recognized: Seselwa, a blend including French spoken in the Seychelle Islands in the Indian Ocean and Papiamentu, a blend including Dutch spoken in Curaçao (coo-ruh-sao), the Netherland Antilles, in the Caribbean.
Arab Media
-It is a loose category of public communication using technology that falls under state control. -For example, many Arab states have long used radio programs to shape the views of their citizens. Television now dominates public communication in Arab states, though the Internet has increasing importance. Journalism and film are two other major forms of public media. The dynamism and options for social change and empowerment have only begun to be assessed by cultural anthropologists doing research in the Arab world. The Arab spring movement of 2010 would not have been as successful without cell phone communication and other forms of social media.
Primates + Speech+ Kanzi
-Nonhuman primates do not have the physiological capacity for speech that humans do. In captivity, however, some bonobos and chimpanzees have learned to communicate effectively with humans through sign language and by pointing to symbols on a chart. -The world's most famous bonobo is Kanzi, who lives at the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa. He can understand much of what humans say to him, and he can respond by combining symbols on a printed board. He can also play simple video games, such as Ms. Pac-Man (http://www.greatapetrust.org).
Productivity
-productivity, or the ability to create an infinite range of understandable expressions from a finite set of rules. -This characteristic is a result of the rich variety of symbols and signs that humans use in their communication. In contrast, nonhuman primates have a more limited set of communicative resources. They rely on a
How are pidgins and creoles related? -Pidgins are the written form of creoles. -Creoles develop from pidgins. -Pidgins have become the official language of many countries. -The term pidgin is a synonym for creole.
Creoles develop from pidgins
Which of the following is true of big data? -It has little application to anthropological research. -Its use dates to the advent of verandah anthropology. -It was used to formulate the model of Proto-Indo-European. -It is generated by modern digital communications.
It is generated by modern digital communications
Gender in Euro-American Conversations
Most languages contain gender differences in word choice, grammar, intonation, content, and style. Early studies of language and gender among white Euro-Americans revealed three general characteristics of female speech: Politeness Rising intonation at the end of sentences Frequent use of tag questions (questions seeking affirmation and placed at the end of sentences, such as, "It's a nice day, isn't it?")
What is one explanation for why archaeologists have found fewer examples of utilitarian writing than ceremonial writing? -Until the latter half of the twentieth century, archaeological teams in many regions discarded a majority of what was later determined to be utilitarian writing. -Verbal communication, rather than utilitarian writing, was used throughout much of human history. -Most utilitarian writing was done on perishable materials and did not survive as well as ceremonial writing. -In the past, ceremonial writing was used for day-to-day recordkeeping as well as for religious purposes; there was no category of "utilitarian writing."
Most utilitarian writing was done on perishable materials and did not survive as well as ceremonial writing.
What would the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis say about the Saami repertoire of words for snow? -Saami people have an entirely different conception of snow than English speakers do. -Because snow is important in their culture, they have many words for it. -Their language emphasizes productivity. -The Saami have a great deal of pride in their ability to handle different weather conditions.
Saami people have an entirely different conception of snow than English speakers do.
Which of the following includes a tag question? -Is she here, right now? -Where did she go? -Can you believe she is gone? -She left, didn't she?
She left, didn't she?
Silence
Silence is another form of nonverbal communication. Its use is often related to social status, but in unpredictable ways. In rural Siberia, an in-marrying daughter-in-law has the lowest status in the household, and she rarely speaks -Human communication, in one way or another, often involves the body in sending and receiving messages. -the full range of body language includes eye movements, posture, walking style, the way one stands and sits, cultural inscriptions on the body such as tattoos and hairstyles, and accessories such as dress, shoes, and jewelry. -Clothing, hairstyles, and modification of or marks on the body convey messages about age, gender, sexual interest or availability, profession, wealth, and emotions. The color of one's clothing can send messages about a person's identity, class, gender, and more. In the United States, gender differentiation begins in the hospital nursery with the color coding of blue for boys and pink for girls. In parts of the Middle East, public dress is black for women and white for men.
Daniel Everett
Since 1977, linguist Daniel Everett has frequently lived with the Pirahã and learned their language, so it is unlikely that he has overlooked major aspects of their language. He insists that their language is in no way "primitive" or inadequate. It has extremely complex verbs and rich and varied uses of stress and intonation, referred to in linguistics as prosody. The Pirahã enjoy verbal joking and teasing, both among themselves and with researchers.
A second approach to understanding the relationship between language and culture comes from scholars working in the area of...
Sociolinguistics
Khipu
The Inca Empire, centered in the Peruvian Andes, is a notable exception to this generalization. It used khipu (kee-poo), or cords of knotted strings of different colors, for keeping accounts and recording events. Scholars are not quite sure how khipu worked in the past because the Inca coding system is so complicated. Debates are ongoing as to whether khipu served as an actual language or more simply as an accounting system. Whatever is the answer, the world's largest empire in the fourteenth century relied on khipu. -Two interpretations of the function of early writing systems exist. The first says that early writing was mainly for ceremonial purposes. Evidence for this position consists of the prevalence of early writing on tombs, bone inscriptions, and temple carvings. The second says that early writing was mainly for secular use in government recordkeeping and trade.
Piraha group
The Pirahã are a group of about 350 foragers living on a reservation in the Amazonian rainforest. Their language contains only three pronouns, few words associated with time, no past-tense verbs, no color terms, and no numbers other than a word that translates into English roughly as "about one." The grammar is simple, with no subordinate clauses. Kinship terms are simple and few. The Pirahã have no myths or stories and no art other than necklaces and a few rudimentary stick figures. In spite of over 200 years of regular contact with Brazilians and neighboring Indians who speak a different language, the Pirahã remain monolingual.
two theoretical perspectives were influential in the study of the relationship between language and culture.
The first was formulated by two early founding figures in linguistic anthropology, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf.
Phonemes
The sounds that make a difference for meaning in a spoken language
African American English: Prejudice and Pride
The topic of African American English (AAE), or African American Vernacular English (AAVE), is complicated by racism of the past and present (Jacobs-Huey 2006). Scholars debate whether AAE/AAVE is a language in its own right or a dialect (nonstandard version) of English. "Linguistic conservatives," who champion Standard American English (SAE), view AAE as an ungrammatical form of English that needs to be "corrected." In the current linguistic hierarchy in the United States, with SAE at the top, speakers of AAE may be both proud of their language and feel stigmatized by those who judge AAE negatively and treat its speakers unfairly (Lanehart 1999). AAE is a relatively new language, emerging out of slavery to develop a degree of standardization across the United States, along with many local variants. Some of its characteristic grammar results from its African roots. One of the most prominent is the use, or nonuse, of forms of the English verb "to be" (Lanehart 1999:217). In AAE, one says, "She married," which means "She is married" in SAE. Viewed incorrectly by outsiders as "bad" English, "She married" follows a grammatical rule in AAE. That AAE has its own grammar and usage rules is evident in the fact that when non-AAE speakers attempt to speak it or imitate it, they often make mistakes (Jacobs-Huey 1997). Ethnographic research on African American school-age children in a working-class neighborhood of southwest Philadelphia examined within-gender and cross-gender conversations, including directives (getting someone to do something), argument, he-said-she-said accusations, and storytelling (Goodwin 1990). All these speech activities involve complex verbal strategies that are culturally embedded. In arguments, the children may bring in imaginary events as a "put-on," preceded by the cue term "psych," or use words of a song to create and maintain playfulness within an argument. Much of their arguments involve highly ritualized insults that work quickly to return an insult to the original giver. When a group of girls was practicing some dance steps and singing, a boy said, "You sound terrible." A girl responded, "We sound just like you look" (1990:183). The study revealed the importance of verbal play and art among the children. It also showed that girls often excel at verbal competitions in mixed gender settings. Children who grow up speaking a version of AAE at home and with peer groups face a challenge in schools, where they are expected to perform in SAE. Just like native Spanish speakers or any non-English-speaking new immigrants, African American children are implicitly expected to become bilingual in AAE and SAE. More than vocabulary and grammar are involved. Teachers should understand that African American children may have culturally distinct styles of expression that should be recognized and valued. For example, in narrative style, African American children tend to use a spiral pattern, skipping around to different topics before addressing the theme, instead of adopting a linear style. Rather than being considered a deficiency, having AAE speakers in a classroom adds cultural diversity to those whose linguistic worlds are limited to SAE.
How does the language of the Pirahã people of the Brazilian rainforest challenge anthropological definitions of human language? -Their language is composed of expressions, gestures, and body postures like nonhuman primate communication. -Their language has a focal vocabulary for counting. -Their language has numerous focal foraging vocabularies. -Their language includes little productivity and displacement.
Their language includes little productivity and displacement.
How are kogals similar to bahasa gay speakers? -They both use a mix of English and Japanese words. -They both work to conform to the gender norms of their society. -They both challenge gender norms through language. -They both rely on emoticons to a larger degree than other cell phone users.
They both challenge gender norms through language.
How is critical discourse analysis similar to critical media anthropology? -They both study language and power. -They both focus on the descriptive details of language change brought about through globalization. -They both emerged in sociology before they were adopted into anthropology. -They both study language in order to promote a political agenda.
They both study language and power.
Linguistic Determinism
This catchy phrase became the basis for linguistic determinism, a theory stating that language determines consciousness of the world and behavior. Extreme linguistic determinism implies that the frames and definitions of a person's primary language are so strong that it is impossible to learn another language fully or, therefore, to understand another culture fully.