Linguistics 114 - Language, Culture, Communication Flashcards

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COURSE’S BASIC GOALS

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(1) to improve your ability to read, write and think;
(2) to introduce you to (linguistic) anthropology; and (3) to present you with a set of concepts and prin-
ciples that will provide knowledge about how language, culture and communication operate in your own expe-
riences.

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REPRESENTATION

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an explicit linguistic statement, description or theory about
some object or phenomena, defined ultimately in terms of discrete signs defined by oppositional features.

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KNOWLEDGE

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as a representation that provides us with information
about some object of study that has a use value. That is, it allows us to gain the ability to either predict or
explain something about that object or it represents it in new ways that has implications for both it and/or
other objects of interest.

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GENERAL THEORY OF LEARNING

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there are three
basic components to explicit (non-natural) learning: THEORY, DEMONSTRATION and PRACTICE.

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BEHAVIOR

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Whether they are conscious and intentional or not, a human behavior includes any phys-
ical gesture, social action or explicit thought.

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COMMUNICATION

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All human behaviors are types of this. It was refined to also include
the idea that it emerges from the experience of culture because some of that culture forms part of a pre-
supposed background which serves to coherently support entailing functions (which are its most conscious
aspects).

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CULTURE

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First, with increas-
ing levels of general inclusion, it is defined as a type of communication, and then most generally as a type of
human behavior. Second, culture is defined to include all regular forms and functions of behavior and the ide-
ologies that inform (or talk about) those regularities.

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LANGUAGE

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First, with
increasing levels of general inclusion, it is defined as a type of culture. As a type of culture, it is also a type
of communication, which is most generally a type of human behavior. Second, forms of language have three
basic functions: referential, indexical and semantic, which display functional overlap in actual use.

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FORM

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A description of the way in which a particular behavior is performed; it can be thought of as
the ‘how’ of human behavior.

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FUNCTION (or MEANING)—

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A statement about the meaning of a particular behavior in the con-
texts in which it is performed; it can be thought of as the ‘what’ of human behavior in the sense that it rep-
resents ‘what’ the form of a behavior does once it has been performed in some context of social interaction.

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(FORMAL-FUNCTIONAL) REGULARITY

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A regularity is a recurring link between a form and
a function.

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EMPIRICAL ACCOUNTABILITY

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a value used to evaluate claims about
regularities between forms and functions; it states that a regularity is empirically true if it occurs more often
than not across a representative set of instances.

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ETHNOGRAPHIC ACCOUNTABILITY

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a value used to evaluate
claims about regularities between forms and functions; it states that a regularity is ethnographically true if it is
justified by referring to ideas in some sense ‘generally’ found among the people(s) for whom the regular-
ities are said to operate.

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USE VALUE

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a characteristic of a representation of some object which provides us with
knowledge.

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IDEOLOGY

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refers to all those linguistic representations that state or explain the link between
behavioral forms and functions.

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IDEOLOGICAL) SCOPE

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An ideological regularity can be said to have relatively greater scope if it
is shared by a large number of people across a wide variety of types of people across a long period of time.
In comparison with other ideological regularities it reaches out ‘further

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(IDEOLOGICAL) STRENGTH

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An ideological regularity can be said to have relatively greater
strength if, at some point in time, it is known to a large proportion of some target population. In com-
parison with other ideological regularities, a larger proportion of some target population shares it.

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STATISTICAL REGULARITY

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One of the three types of regularities that we have set up as a gen-
eral theoretical expectation. It is defined by a statistical type of support and unconscious relative aware-
ness.

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NORMATIVE REGULARITY

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One of the three types of regularities that we have set up as a general
theoretical expectation. It is defined by a normative (and perhaps statistical) type of support and conscious,
but typically obvious or given, relative awareness.

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IDEOLOGICAL REGULARITY

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One of the three types of regularities that we have set up as a gen-
eral theoretical expectation. It is defined by an ideological (and possibly normative and/or statistical) form
of support and highly conscious, important relative awareness.

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NATURALIZATION

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one of the two basic types of ideological process. Like all ide-
ology, it represents and often comments on human behavioral patterns. It is defined as the attempt to erase
the fact and influence of culture by simply claiming that a particular form and function are linked outside
and prior to culture—in ‘nature.’

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INSTITUTIONAL RATIONALIZATION

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one of the two basic types
of ideological process. Like all ideology, it represents and often comments on human behavioral patterns.
It is defined as an ideology that attempts to justify the link between a form and function by appealing to
an argument which makes the relationship necessary and unavoidable in some way. Institutional rational-
izations can typically be traced back to important, official ‘voices’ of particular institutions in a particular
society.

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CIRCLE OF IDEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE

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found in every
culture. These are ideologies that more or less repeat the same basic claims and explanations about the
meanings of behavior even though they presumably emanate from different social institutions. That over-
lap helps give culture additional strength by naturalizing elements within it.

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POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

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a way in which regular patterns of behav-
ior maintain themselves over time and space; it is one of the answers to ‘how’ culture works. It refers to the
continuous web of positive rewards attached to behaviors that are positively valued in a society.

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NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT

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a way in which regular patterns of behav-
ior maintain themselves over time and space; it is one of the answers to ‘how’ culture works. It refers to the
continuous web of negative punishments attached to behaviors that are negatively valued in a society.

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HUMAN CULTURE IS RELATIVE

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a general principle for the study
of human cultures. They are relative because the regularities and ideologies that constitute human cultures
are not necessary, given definitions, but rather social values which develop over time. There are an infinite
number of possible frames for the meanings of human behaviors.

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BROAD POLITICS OF MEANING

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All cultures are characterized by a broad politics of meaning
in the sense that the regularities and ideologies that constitute them are relative and thus non-necessary; the
process of reduction from among an infinite set of value choices is thus inherently political (in the broad-
est sense).

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REFERENTIAL FUNCTION

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is one of the three general functions that we attrib-
uted to language. It takes place when some aspect of linguistic form picks out, or points to, an object in
ongoing social interaction (i.e., the context of language use).

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INDEXICAL FUNCTION

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one of the three general functions that we attributed
to language. It takes place when some aspect of a linguistic form points to some aspect of the context of
use itself. That is, the function or meaning of the sign is somehow about the very context in which the
sign is used.

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SEMANTIC FUNCTION

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is one of the three general functions that we attributed
to language. It takes place when some aspect of a linguistic form characterizes an object without referring
to the context of use itself.

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FUNCTIONAL OVERLAP

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that the same linguistic forms typically
carry distinct and thus overlapping functions.

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MARKED REGULARITY

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With some general behavior (or function) held as a constant for com-
paring two different forms, the marked form for carrying it out is used less frequently and has more spe-
cific indexical associations.

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UNMARKED REGULARITY

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With some general behavior (or function) held as a constant for com-
paring two different forms, the unmarked form for carrying it out is used more frequently and lacks spe-
cific indexical associations.

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FOREGROUNDED USE

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takes place when linguistic forms are
used in a context in which they aren’t appropriate or coherent with some co-occuring aspects of the ongo-
ing situation.

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AUTOMATIZED USE

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takes place when language forms and the
surrounding aspects of the context in which they are uttered cooperate together coherently such that
communication seems effortless, unproblematic and automatic.

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COHERENCE

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a general principle that informs the interpretation of cultural (and lin-
guistic) behaviors. It is present when the cultural forms performed, or the linguistic forms uttered, are
unproblematically related to aspects of the surrounding context.

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PRESUPPOSED (INDEXICAL) FUNCTION

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formal-functional regularities that indi-
viduals remain largely unaware of in a particular situation because they remain in the background of the
ongoing interaction and thus serve primarily as shared background or support for a dominant function.

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ENTAILING (INDEXICAL) FUNCTION

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formal-functional regularities that individuals
are more conscious of in a particular situation because they constitute the basic, overall and final meaning
or function of some particular formal stretch of interaction.

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REALITY IS INFINITE

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This principle states that the number of characteristics or traits ‘out there’
to be described for any object or phenomenon can’t be completely listed because they form an infinite,
unending set of possibilities.

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CONTINUOUS SIGNS

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These signs are sense-based and thus are not represented by discrete signs;
they exist thus as continuous, or unbroken, signs in consciousness that are reacted to (rather than ana-
lyzed).

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DISCRETE SIGNS

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Discrete signs are linguistic representations that create distinct, conscious objects;
these objects are pulled out of the continuous flow of experience and ‘named.’

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ALL REPRESENTATION IS (THUS) NECESSARILY REDUCTIVE

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Given the principle that
reality is infinite, linguistic representation, in order to work at all, must necessarily reduce that infinity in
actually naming any particular discrete sign; that is, it must reduce the infinite set of possibilities to the actual
features that matter for that particular concept.

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ALL MEANINGS ARE BASED ON OPPOSITIONS

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For any sign to have a positive, discrete
meaning, it must be opposed to other similar and different signs; that is, it must be framed by some implicit
or explicit set of oppositions.

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FEATURE

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the relevant trait or characteristic that defines a concept or word based on inter-
nal oppositions with other comparable concepts.

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PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

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The individuals who enact the culture that we want to study
simply do not agree on the forms, functions and ideologies that constitute their culture.