Communications: Language Thought and Society. In order for social scientists to understand how people organize their lives, carry out work, practice religions, and the like, they need to be aware of how people talk to each other (Bonvillain 2003, 2)

Communicative Interactions

Meanings transmitted through language Situational, Social and Cultural

Situational Meanings: Conveyed through the form of language depending on context Example: formal and informal encounters

Social Meanings: Transmitted by members of different social sectors through a particular use of language Example: gender differentiation, occupation, social class position, etc

Cultural Meanings: When words carry specific symbolic meaning or cultural specific meanings. Transmitted by a particular use of language Example: language expressions

The act of speaking is action

The importance of the links between language and culture To understand the importance of human communication To understand social and cultural behaviors Cultural contexts in which language is used

Situational, social and cultural meanings of language are created within cultural contexts: Cultural contexts are connected to Cultural models:

Cultural Model A cultural model is a construction of reality that is created, shared, and transmitted by members of a group (similar to an ideology )

Speech Community A group of people who speak the same language, share norms about appropriate uses of language, and share social attitudes toward language ant its use.

Linguistic Anthropology Subfield of anthropology Study of language and comunication (cross- culturally) Compares language use Language origins Relationship between language and culture

Linguistic Anthrop New Areas of Research Nationalism and language --Quebec, Ireland, and Yugoslavia Language and social hierarchy --class system and caste system Language and politics

Linguistic Anthropology: specialization and links Links to archaeology: language origins Links to physical anthropology: human evolution and language Pragmatics: language usage

Characteristics of Human Communication Productivity: the ability to communicate many messages efficiently Displacement: the ability to think in the past, the future and the present

The Properties of Languages Sounds --Phoneme: a minimal unit of sound that functions to differentiate the meaning of words Vocabulary Grammar: rules for combining sounds into sequences that carry meaning

The Origins of Languages Started 50,000 as paralanguage: non-verbal communication (body posture, voice tone, touch, smell and facial movements) All languages are equally efficient (semantically and grammatically) Semantics: the study of meaning in language, including the analysis of meaning of words and sentences

Why do you think it is important to understand the relationship between language, communication and social/cultural contexts?