1. NO ANTHROPOLOGY CLASS ***FRIDAY, SEPT 13 th*** (All 100- and 200-level classes between 10 and 11 are cancelled for orientation) ***FRIDAY, OCT 4 th ***

2. Language and Communication II Descriptive Linguistics Historical Linguistics Sociolinguistics

3. Descriptive Linguistics Meaningful sounds and sound sequences are combined according to rules often not consciously known by the speakers Phonology, morphology and syntax

4. Phonology Phonology: Study of a language’s sound system Phones: Different sounds that the human vocal tract can make – No single language uses all possible sounds or phones – Transcribed using phonemic alphabet Phoneme: minimal unit of sound that signals a difference in meaning – Example: LAKE and RAKE

5. Morphology Morphology: study of sequences of sounds that have meaning (word formation) Morpheme: Smallest unit in a language with meaning (such as prefixes, suffixes, root words) Morpheme: One or more morphs with the same meaning – Free morphemes stand alone: Toast, Giraffe – Bounded morphemes have no meaning except when attached to morpheme: Toast + er = Toaster; Giraffe + s = Giraffes

6. Syntax Patterning of phrases and sentences – Along with morphology, makes up grammar

7. Historical Linguistics Study of how languages change over time Goals: –Reconstruct features of ancestral languages (proto- languages) of modern languages –Hypothesize how offspring languages separated from proto-language Language family: All languages derived from same proto- language –Establish approximate dates of separation

9. “I saw Uncle Bob on 42nd Street.” Mian: the verb would reveal if the event happened just now, yesterday, or the distant past Indonesian: verb wouldn’t indicate whether it had happened or was coming up soon Russian: verb would reveal speaker’s gender Mandarin: would specify if uncle was maternal or paternal and by blood or marriage Pirahã: could not specify “42 nd ” because no words for exact quantities – “few” “many” etc.

10. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf Language affects how individuals perceive and conceive reality

11. Gender Identity Formation for Hebrew, Finnish, & English speakers 1983 - Alexander Guiora - University of Michigan at Ann Arbor: Do children develop gender identity earlier when their language emphasizes gender? Compared three groups of kids growing up with Hebrew, English or Finnish as their native language – Hebrew: All nouns masculine or feminine, even second-person and plural pronouns – English: Differentiates gender only in third-person singular – Finnish: Words such as man and woman convey gender, but differentiation of gender is otherwise lacking Children growing up in a Hebrew-speaking environment figure out their own gender about a year earlier than Finnish-speaking children; English-speaking kids fall in the middle

12. Explaining Directions in Pormpuraaw Pormpuraaw - a remote Aboriginal community in Australia Everything is talked about in terms of absolute cardinal directions (north, south, east, west), instead of “right” or “left” – Example: Instead of “There is a About a third of the world's languages rely on absolute directions for space - Speakers are remarkably good at staying oriented and keeping track of where they are even in unfamiliar landscapes They perform navigational feats once thought were beyond human capabilities

13. Sociolinguistics Study of cultural and subcultural patterns of speech variation in different social contexts – Honorifics and social status – Gender differences – Multilingualism and Codeswitching

14. Examples of Gender Speech Differences Entirely different words to describe the same concept – Example- Japan: WATER – Men: mizu; women: ohiya Differences in intonation and phrasing – Example- USA: