Cultural Anthropology Ch 03

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language

Back 1

a system of arbitrary vocal symbols that human beings use to encode their experience of the world and to communicate with one another

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linguistics

Back 2

a scientific study of language

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anthropological linguistics/linguistic anthropology

Back 3

the study of language in a cultural context

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protolanguage

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a common ancestral language

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language family

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all languages believed to have descended from a common ancestral language (protolanguage)

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ethnolinguistics

Back 6

the anthropological focus on the relation between language and culture

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diachronic

Back 7

concerned with change over time

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synchronic

Back 8

concerned with patterns present in a particular language at a particular time

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grammar

Back 9

the elements of language and rules for combining words

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paralanguage

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the various qualities with which we utter our words (volume, pitch, emphasis, speed, etc.)

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code

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the most systematic and unvarying elements of a language

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openness

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the possibility of using linguistic code to create totally new combinations of elements in order to articulate meanings never before uttered

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phonology

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sound patterns peculiar to particular languages

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morphology

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the minimal unit of meaning in a language and the rules of combining the morphemes

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syntax

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the structure of sentences

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semantics

Back 16

the study of meaning (a dimension of language that traditionally had been viewed as too vague and variable to serve as an object of linguistic investigation)

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communicative competence

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a speaker's knowledge of the difference between grammatical an ungrammatical sentences in a language

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Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

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the claim that culture and thought patterns of people were strongly influenced by the language they spoke

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ethnosemantics/ethnoscience

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to discover the systems of linguistic meaning an classification developed by people in their own languages and used in their own cultures

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ethnoscience

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define

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etic

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categories devised by outside researchers

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emic

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categories devised by native speaker-informants

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speech community

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any concrete group of individuals who regularly interact verbally with one another

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sociolinguistics

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the study of the relationship between language and society

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verbal repertoire

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the sum of total verbal varieties a particular individual has mastered

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code-switching

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a situation in which an individual changes his verbal repertoire (for example, a job might require certain jargon, whereas family life would require another)

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discourse

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public or private performances of different culturally organized forms of talk such as storytelling, oratory, popular theater, and traditional forms of poetic expression

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pragmatics

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a catalog of universal rules of use to be obeyed by all speakers of all languages who want to communicate successfully with each other

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ethnopragmatics

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the study of the culturally and politically inflected rules of use that shape particular acts of speech communication among particular speakers and audiences, in teh spefici cultural settings in whih they regularly occur. Or, the "universal" rules of fomral pragmatics turn out ot be so idealized and culture bound that they are of little help when we try to understand what is gongon in most verbal interactions in most cultural settings in most societies.

Front 30

pidgin

Back 30

a reduced language with a simplified grammar and vocabulary that develops when speakers of mutually unintelligible languages come into regular contact and so are forced to speak their native language

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creole

Back 31

a pidgin that fictions just like any other natural human language

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language ideology

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the beliefs and and practices about language that are linked to struggles between social groups with different interests that are regularly revealed in what people say and how they say it.

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language revitalization

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a collaboration between native speakers and anthropologists to prevent the "death" of languages