Linguistic Anthropology

Bringing Back the Brain

What Bloomfield Got “Right”

• Emphasized spoken language rather than written language

• The role of the linguist is to be a non-manipulating observer

• Linguistics is descriptive rather than prescriptive or normative

What Bloomfield Got “Right”

• Linguistic structures must be explicitly formulated without appeal to the intuitions of speakers

• Linguistics must explain language in ways that are complete

• i.e., in ways that a non-native speaker can also apply

• English grammar rule: the subject and the predicate must agree in person and number.

• E1 There was an attempt made by the students to limit the amount they were required to read.

• E2 There were attempts made by the students to limit the amount they were required to read.

• The subject of both sentences is “there”.

• But the verb forms differ…

• An English language speaker knows that the following are unacceptable:

• E1 *There were an attempt made by the students to limit the amount they were required to read.

• E2 *There was attempts made by the students to limit the amount they were required to read.

• A traditional grammar would state that we are dealing with an

EXCEPTION

E5 (a) An attempt was made by the students to limit the amount they were required to read.

(b) Attempts were made by the students to limit the amount they were required to read.

E6 (a) *An attempt were made by the students to limit the amount they were required to read.

(b) *Attempts was made by the students to limit the amount they were required to read.

What Bloomfield Got “Right”• The relationships between these sentences is not

random

Thus, the proper use of the English grammar rule that the subject and the predicate must agree in person and number…

…depends upon a native speaker’s intuitions and knowledge of English

The grammar rule above is not complete

What Bloomfield Got “Wrong”

Stimulus Response“the black box”

Jack and Jill Take a WalkAnd Jill sees a apple in a tree…

She can go to the tree and pick it herself

Stimulus Response (thirst) (pick)

or she can make “a noise with her larnyx,tongue, and lips”

from Bloomfield, Leonard, Language, 1933, p. 23.

Jill Speaks

Stimulus Response

Jack, would you be a dear and fetch me an apple?

Jack goes to the tree and picks an apple for Jill.

r . . . s

But Jill could have also said:

Those apples sure do look tasty…

I’m starving!

Do you remember the story of Adam and Eve?

Apples are my favorite!

speech (form) substitutes for non-speech (meaning)

these utterances may all lead to the same response,butthey do not all mean the same thing!

So…the meaning of a linguistic form (stimulus)

is not the same as the

activity (response) it provokes

Important things are happening in the black box!

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

And consider this

Noam Chomsky

• Works on developing a computer system for translating human languages

• Syntax vs. semantics

• Human language is creative

(1928 - )

Noam Chomsky

• A hearer-speaker can produce and interpret an infinite set of utterances using only a limited set of grammar rules and lexical terms

• A formal grammar of a language can account for this creativity

Noam Chomsky

• If you expose a child and a kitten to the exact same stimuli

• Only the child will learn to understand and produce language

• Humans have a “language acquisition device” (LAD)

Noam Chomsky

• Linguists should study this LAD and determine how it constrains the range of possible human languages

• The product: a Universal Grammar (UG)

Child Language Acquisition

• Occurs very rapidly

• Follows similar steps throughout the world

• Stereotypical errors

• Must involve innate brain mechanisms

Noam Chomsky

• Generative Grammar

• Using only a few inputs

• A child develops a model of the proper ways to use language

Noam Chomsky

• Distinguishes between linguistic

• Competence

• Performance

What’s Still Missing?

• Semantics – the study of meaning

• Pragmatics – the study of context

• Culture!