Language

Anthropological Study of Language

• field tool
• origins of language
• ethnography of communication
• sociolinguistics
• language and culture (relationship between)

language as a field tool:
descriptive linguistics

phones,
phonemes, &
morphemes

origins of language:
historical linguistics,
primates

the ethnography of communication:
studying language in action

Studying Language in Action

• More then words important...
• …including paralanguage
• …and context

Dell Hymes - "Speaking" (p. 1)

• S=Setting/Scene/Situation
• P=Participants
• E=Ends
• A=Act Sequence
• K=Key

Dell Hymes - "Speaking" (p. 2)

• I=Instrumentalities
• N=Norms
• G=Genres

Erving Goffman - Analyzing a sequence of events

• footing                                                               

Erving Goffman - Analyzing a sequence of events

• dominant communication
• subordinate communication: byplay
• subordinate communication: crossplay
• subordinate communication: sideplay

Erving Goffman - Analyzing a sequence of events

• types of speakers: animator                     
• types of speakers: author

Erving Goffman - Analyzing a sequence of events

• types of hearers: ratified
• types of hearers: non-ratified
• types of hearers: addressed participant
• types of hearers: unaddressed participant

sociolinguistics:
how situation and identity affect language use

Speech community

Rules in a speech community

• Are a part of the speech community's culture
• Are different in different speech communities

language ideology

The relationship between language and culture

Edward Sapir & Benjamin Lee Whorf

Principle of Linguistic Relativity

"Users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars towards different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world."

linguistic relativism
versus
linguistic determinism

Yucatec
che' + ___
= things of wood
English
shape change
=word change

Hypothesis:
Yucatec speakers will notice & react to material more;
English speakers will notice & react to shape more

Yep.