BSEE 22

• Noam Chomsky


  American linguist (95 years old)
• Noam Chomsky: '"A language is not just words. It's a culture, tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language."'
• Social Change


  Changes in the way society is organized, and in the beliefs and practices of the people who live in it

  
• Four main subdivisions of Anthropology

  • Physical Anthropology
  • Cultural Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Linguistic Anthropology

  
• Social Change


  Change in the social structure and the institutions of society

  
• Physical Anthropology


  • Mechanisms of biological evolution, genetic inheritance, human adaptability and variation, primatology, and the fossil record of human evolution
• Cultural Anthropology


  • Culture, ethnocentrism, cultural aspects of language and communication, subsistence and other economic patterns, kinship, sex and marriage, socialization, social control, political organization, class, ethnicity, gender, religion, and culture change

  
• Theories of Social Change

  • Diffusion
  • Acculturation
  • Cultural Evolution

  
• Archaeology


  • Prehistory and early history of cultures around the world; major trends in cultural evolution; and techniques for finding, excavating, dating, and analyzing material remains of past societies
• Diffusion


  One culture borrows cultural symbols from another
• Dialect


  A variety of language that is distinguished from other varieties of the same language by its pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, discourse conventions, and other linguistic features
• Linguistic Anthropology


  • The human communication process focusing on the importance of sociocultural influences; nonverbal communication; and the structure, function, and history of languages, dialects, etc.

  
• Acculturation


  Prolonged contact between two cultures where they interchange symbols, beliefs and customs
• Dialects are rule-governed systems, with systematic deviations from other dialects of the same language
• Linguistic Anthropology


  The interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. Linguistic anthropologists investigate the relationship between communication and culture.

  
• Cultural Evolution


  Cultures evolve according to
• Influences that produce dialect features

  • Geographical and class origin
  • Educational experience
• Linguistic Anthropologist


  Studies the diversity of the world's languages and the diversity of language use and other forms of communication in societies around the world
• Accent


  A way of pronouncing a language that is distinctive to a country, area, social class, or individual

  
• Three Major Sources of Cultural Change (Anthropology)

  • Invention
  • Discovery
  • Diffusion
• Sociolect


  A variety of speech associated with a particular social class or occupational group within a society
• Linguistic Anthropology Deals with

  • The Building blocks of Language: sounds, forms, and meanings
  • Variation, language/dialect, and the speech community
  • Language Ideology
  • Language Socialization
  • Linguistic Relativism/the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
  • Language and Society
  • Topics in language and gender
  • Bilingualism and Multilingualism
  • Language Policy and Language Right

  
• Invention


  New products, ideas and social patterns
• Geographic dialects


  Varieties associated with speakers living in a particular location
• Discovery


  Finding something that was previously unknown to a culture
• Subfields of Linguistic Anthropology

  • Descriptive linguistics
  • Ethnolinguistic
  • Historical linguistics
  • Sociolinguistics

  
• Social dialects


  Varieties associated with speakers belonging to a given demographic group
• Diffusion


  Spreading of ideas, methods and tools from one culture to another

  
• Society


  A group of people who share similar values, laws and traditions living in organized communities for mutual benefits. Members of society often share same religions, politics or culture.
• Multilingualism


  The ability of an individual speaker or a community of speakers to communicate effectively in three or more languages
• Four Classifications of Culture

  • Physical Environment
  • Level of Technology
  • Social Organization
  • System of Symbol
• Culture


  Sir Edward B. Tylor's definition of culture (1871): "Culture… is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by [a human] as a member of society."

  
• Monolingualism


  The ability to use only one language
• Enculturation


  Members of a culture learn and internalize shared ideas, values and beliefs
• Language and Culture


  Edward Sapir & Whorf recognized the close relationship between language and culture, concluding that it was not possible to understand or appreciate one without knowledge of the other
• First language/Mother tongue


  The original language a person grows up speaking
• Social factors that provide context of language use

  • Gender
  • Social status
  • Age
  • Education
  • Geographical background
  • Ethnicity
• Language and Culture


  The structure of a language determines how speakers of that language view their world. This can be seen in how users of different languages view color, linguistic etiquette and kinship systems

  
• Social function of language


  The way we relate language to our relationships with other people
• Simultaneous bilingual


  Someone who is raised speaking two first languages or mother tongues