Talking about Talking

Lesson 4:

Language and Communication

Communication• Communicare – Latin for “to share”

• Humans communicate using a variety of systems

• Language– A system of arbitrary vocal symbols– Used to communicate meaning– Transmits culture

Animal Communication

• All animals communicate

• They will use three different methods– Sound– Odor– Movement

• Though some will only use one, primates use all three

Primate Vocal Communication

• Though primates use all three aforementioned methods, we will focus on sound and vocal communication

• Humans use sound different from all of the other primates

• To see how, we will compare them to Vervet monkeys

Vervet Vocal Communication

• Have been observed in the wild to use various symbolic calls

• Three of their calls refer to different types of predators– Bird– Cat– Snake

• Each call is a unique sound

Human Vocal Communication

• Humans do the same as Vervets.– Sound encoding meaning

• Examples:– Care– Full

• Both unique sounds with unique meaning– Meaning sent, received, and decoded

How Language Differs• Unlike the Vervets, human language can

do this:care + full = careful

• Two sounds with unique meaning combined to make a third that is not a sum of it’s parts

• Human language can take small sounds and combine them to make words.– Can combine words into sentences; sentences

into paragraphs.

Primate Vocal Symbols• Primates used anywhere from 30 – 40

symbols• How many do humans use?

• The difference:– Primate systems are closed– Human systems are open

The Origins of Language• We can’t say exactly when language first

appeared– Sounds don’t fossilize

• We can use our biology to get an idea– Anatomy – mouth and throat– Brain

• Natural selection?– FOXP2

• Can we learn from present day languages?

Historical Linguistics• How language changes over time

– Social causes for structural changes

• Example: English and SpanishEng SpanYou IF Tú??? F Used

• What is the formal in English?

How are Languages Similar?

• Parent language• Go back to a common language • Ex – Spanish and French derive from Latin

• Contact• When two speech communities come into

contact• Borrowing and corruption

• Convergence• Two languages with the same word

despite no contact or recent parent language

• Noam Chomsky

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• Edward Sapir– Connected language to cultural experience– Language constructs our perceptions of reality

• Benjamin Whorf– Work in insurance led him to language– Worked with the Hopi

• Hopi do not view time the same as Europeans

Were Sapir & Whorf Right?

• Tough to test this hypothesis

• Words do impact how we view things– Celebrity stage names– Product names– Prestigious names for ordinary jobs– Expletives– War and Politics

Sociolinguistics

• William Labov explored the notion of a Standard American English

• What rules do we need for a standardized spoken language?– Grammar– Vocabulary– Pronunciation

• A focus on linguistic differences is a symptom of ethnocentrism– The purpose of language is to communicate

Exam Review Questions• How do animals communicate? What methods do they use (Lecture

material)?

• How do we study language in anthropology (Chapter 3 in Core Concepts)?

– What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?

– What is “deep structure”? Who proposed this idea about language?