Week 03b ANT102 Posted

8/6/2019 Week 03b ANT102 Posted

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Whenwelookatreallanguagewequicklyseethat

rulescanbeconsideredasprototypesthatare

frequentlyamended,adapted,orignored(Lyon,Sato,Saunders,Nehaniv2008:7).


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IthoughtmoreconsciouslyabouttheworldIwas

pushingthroughwithspeech.WasItalkingabouta

worldofresultsorprocesses,afinishedworldoran

ongoingworld?(Agar2002:65)


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Wild Herds of Sentences on Open Range

The tendency is to draw a circle around

language, to herd neat sentences into the corraland wrangle parts of speech. But most problems

with language, the problems that come up when

you try to use it to communicate, arent about

sentences and parts of speech. They have to do

with wild herds of sentences, out on the openrange (Agar 2002:16).

differences in language go well beyond

what you find in the grammar and the

dictionary (Agar 2002:16).

Culture erases the circle around language. You

can master grammar and the dictionary, but

withoutculture you wont communicate (Agar2002:29).

Excerpts from Michael Agar. 2002. Culture Blends. InLanguage Shock.New York

Perennial HarperCollins Publishers


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In cultural and linguistic anthropology, FIELDWORK

is conducted using the methods ofETHNOGRAPHY


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TheFatherofModernAnthropology

FRANZBOAS

July9,1858December21,1942


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Gettingusoutofthearmchairandintothefield

BRONISLAWMALINOWSKI

18841942


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Ethnographic Fieldwork

The primary method for understanding cultural

variation and social change.

Involves months to decades of observation, interviews,

and participation in peoples everyday lives. Combined

this is known as PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION.

Fieldwork puts us there and gives us the holisticperspective we must seek to understand how things

work among human populations.


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LANGUAGE AND WORLDVIEW

Language points to our ability to thinkand experience the world in certainways.

And it is evidence of how we classifythose thoughts and experiences. Itincorporates

Expressions for human emotionSpatial and temporal relations

oSequencing eventsoRelating past to presentoPlanning for the future

The logic of cause and effectUnderstanding relationships


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Sapir-WhorfHypothesis

AKALinguisticRelativity

Languageplaysaroleinourhabitualthoughtsand

behaviors.Itdoesntdeterminehowwewillthinkor

actbutitdoesobligeustothinkaboutcertainthings

incertainways.

Example1.Lexicon:TheEmptyPaintDrum

Example2.Syntax:

TimeandtensemarkersinEnglish

(Iamgoingtothestore.Iwenttothestore.)

EvidentialverbsinHopi

(WariHerunsIsawhim).

GenderedarticlesinFrench


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LinguisticRelativity

Languagecarrieswithitpatternsofseeing,

knowing,talking,andactingandshapeswaysof

seeingandacting,waysofthinkingandfeeling.

Languagelaysdown(these)comfortablerutsof

perceptionandpeoplebyandlargestayinside

them(Agar2002:71).


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Language

ACQUISITION

&

Language

SOCIALIZATION


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TeachingusinglanguageacquisitionmodelsCOGInterviewVideo2:49;00toEND

(astieinandasleadintolanguageacquisition)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olvHuifsI7I&fea

ture=related


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Language is about

more than

WORDS AND RULES.


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COMPETENCE v.

PERFORMANCE

There is a difference between having the

knowledge necessary to producesentences of a language and applying this

knowledge. It is a difference between

what you know (competence) and how

you use this knowledge in actual speech

production and comprehension(performance).


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What happens when competence fallsflat in the performance?


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Home

Store

Bio

Photos

Quotes

ThreesomeNeck O' The

Woods

MICHELLE SHOCKED

Hey farmer! You been livin' here all your life?

Not yet.

Hey farmer! Where does this road go?

Been livin' here all my life, it ain't gone nowhere yet.

Hey farmer! How do you get to Little Rock?

Listen stranger, you can't get there from here.

Hey farmer! Thought you said that mud-hole weren't very deep?

Only comes up to here on me ducks.

Hey farmer! When you gonna fix that leakin' roof?Ah stranger, when it's a rainin' it's too wet to fix it and when

it's dry it's just as good as any mans house.

Hey farmer! You're not too far from a fool are you?

Just a barbed-wire fence between us.

Hey farmer! You don't know very much do you?

No, but I ain't lost.

Arkansas Traveler (Mercury 1992) / Arkansas Traveler (Mighty Sound 2004)

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Mutual orientations are made through speech.

Example.Javanese: Lha iki rak Jemuah, tur bojoku

agek hamil.

English: Its Friday, and besides, my

wife is pregnant.

Example.

John walked into the restaurant. He

ordered a hamburger. When he

finished, he started to leave, and the

waiter shouted,

Hey, you forgot something.

John pulled out his wallet.


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19/21

Lost in Translation at the F.B.I.

By GEOFF D. PORTER

In announcing his restructuring of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,

Robert S. Mueller III, its director, stressed the importance of

upgrading the F.B.I.'s intelligence capabilities by recruiting "the

right people with the right experience." If my own experience with the

agency is any guide, that should include an urgent recruiting drive for

people with the right Arabic language skills.

Less than a week after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the

Pentagon, I responded to the F.B.I.'s calls for Arabic translators. I

know of a half-dozen other Middle Eastern studies graduates who also

applied Ph.D.s who, like me, are proficient in one or more Arabic

dialects, as well as in Modern Standard Arabic. Ultimately (dismayed by

what seemed to us the agency's flawed understanding of what proficiency

in Arabic means) none of us pursued our candidacies.

I applied less than a week after Sept. 11 but wasn't called for the

four-and-a-half hour translation test until January. It wasn't untilFebruary that I sat for a four-hour interview and polygraph test. The

F.B.I. was then to begin a six- to eight-month background check. At the

earliest, I might have started translating more than a year after I

applied.

The slow pace, however, wasn't the most unsettling characteristic of

the process. There was something more worrisome: The F.B.I.'s Arabic

translation test simply does not measure all the language skills needed

for intelligence gathering focused on Arabic speakers.

The Arabic-language test (copyrighted in 1994 by the Defense Language

Institute, according to the back of my exam booklet) was solely in

Modern Standard Arabic, the Arabic most frequently studied at American

universities. This is the form used for official speeches and in the

news media in Arab countries but almost never in conversation. It

differs substantially from the spoken varieties of Arabic in

vocabulary, syntax and idioms enough so that a non-native speaker who

learned only Modern Standard Arabic would not be able to understand

Arabic speakers talking to one another.

The regional dialects also differ from one another, varying

considerably from one end of the Arabic-speaking world (in Morocco) to

the other (in Oman). The dialects are, for some Arabic speakers,

mutually unintelligible. (Once, I mistakenly gave a Cairo taxi driver

directions in Moroccan Arabic, and he responded: "Ich spreche kein

Deutsch.")

These varieties of Arabic are the language of the market, the home and

the street for the world's 200 million Arabic speakers. Yet no

colloquial Arabic, in any dialect, appeared anywhere on the F.B.I.'s

Arabic translation test, which included a listening-comprehension

section.

During my post-exam interview, I tried to offer some feedback about the

test's failure to measure skills in everyday spoken Arabic, but the


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interviewer brusquely moved on to his next question. Nor was there a

chance for me to name the two Arabic dialects in which I am proficient.

The interview is scripted; there is no room for unscripted interaction.

All the other Middle East studies applicants with whom I spoke said

they, too, noticed the test's shortcoming but couldn't find an opening

to comment on it.

As the F.B.I. reorganizes, it should improve its recruitment of Arabic

translators by adding tests that measure fluency in one or more of

these numerous Arabic dialects. Otherwise, its translators may be

limited to reading Arabic newspapers or listening to Al Jazeera

broadcasts. They may misunderstand wiretapped phone conversations or be

unable to identify crucial information. Until the F.B.I. shows more

willingness to listen to the experts it is trying to attract, it will

not get the expertise it needs.

***********************************************************************

***

Geoff D. Porter teaches Middle Eastern studies at New York University.


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The process of languageacquisition involves

socialization tolanguage&

socialization throughlanguage.

Documents

Week 03b ANT102 Posted