CHAPTER 5 This chapter introduces students to the study of linguistics. It discusses the basic categories and definitions used to study language, and the many ways in which language, culture, and social action intersect.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication Language is our primary means of communication. Language is transmitted through learning, as part of enculturation. Language is based on arbitrary, learned associations between words and the things they represent. Only humans have the linguistic capacity to discuss the past and future in addition to the present. Anthropologists study language in its social and cultural context.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication Nonverbal Communication Kinesics is the study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures and facial expressions. Despite the importance of nonverbal communication, language is the most important means of symbolic communication.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication The Structure of Language The scientific study of spoken language involves several levels of organization: phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax. Phonology is the study of the sounds used in speech. Morphology studies the forms in which sounds are grouped in speech. A language’s lexicon is a dictionary containing all of the smallest units of speech that have a meaning (morpheme). Syntax refers to the rules that order words and phrases into sentences.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication Speech Sounds In any given language, phonemes are the smallest sound contrasts that distinguish meaning. Phones are the sounds made by humans that might act as phonemes in any given language. Phonetics is the study of human speech sounds. Phonemics is the study of the significant sound contrasts of a given language.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication Language, Thought, and Culture Chomsky argues that universal grammar is finite, and the fact that any language is translatable to any other language is taken to be evidence supporting this claim. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: the grammatical categories of different languages lead their speakers to think about things in particular ways.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication Focal Vocabulary Lexical elaboration that corresponds to an activity or item that is culturally central is called a focal vocabulary.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication Meaning Semantics refers to a language’s meaning system. The ways in which people divide up the world—the lexical contrasts they perceive as meaningful or significant—reflect their experiences.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the study of the relation between linguistic performance and the social context of that performance. Linguistic Diversity within Nations Single individuals may change the way they talk depending upon the social requirements of a given setting--this is called style shifting. Diglossia is the regular shifting from one dialect to another by members of a single linguistic population. No language is superior to any other as a means of communication.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication Gender Speech Contrasts In America and England, there are regular differences between men’s speech and women’s speech that cut across sub-cultural boundaries. The fact that women in these populations tend to speak a more standard dialect and use fewer power words is attributed to women’s lack of socioeconomic power.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication Stratification and Symbolic Domination In situations where social stratification exists, the dialect of the dominant strata is considered standard and valued more than the dialects of the lower strata. Sociolinguistic studies have indicated that status-linked dialects affect the economic and social prospects of the people who speak them. According to Bourdieu, overall societal consensus that one dialect is more prestigious results in symbolic domination.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication Black English Vernacular (BEV), a.k.a. Ebonics Most linguists view BEV as a dialect of American English, with roots in southern English. BEV has its own complex system of linguistic rules; it is not an unstructured selection of words and phrases. BEV speakers do not pronounce intervocalic r’s. BEV speakers use copula deletion to eliminate the verb “to be” from their speech. Standard English is not superior in terms of ability to communicate ideas, but it is the prestige dialect.

CHAPTER 5 Language and Communication Historical Linguistics Historical linguistics studies the long-term variation of speech by studying protolanguages and daughter languages. Anthropologists are interested in historical linguistics because cultural features sometimes correlate with the distribution of language families.