Linguistic AnthropologyLinguistic Anthropology

Language and Culture

Language in Action

• Beyond language to speech– Language in context…

– Ethnography of Communication…

– Communicating across cultures….

Language in Context

• Context = cultural and social situation

• How does context affect language?– Malinowski (1884-1942)

• Translation requires knowledge of context• Context can shift meanings

– Recognizing indirection:• Asking for a ride• Saying “no.”

Communicative Competence

• Ability to speak a language “well”– Ability to use your language “correctly”

– In a variety of social situations

• Compare with Linguistic Competence– Ability to produce (and recognize) grammatically

correct expressions• Chomsky’s “ideal speaker”

– Not distracted by environment.

Some Environmental “Distractions”

• When ‘bad’ means ‘good’

• When two positives make a negative

• Greetings and address terms– Ty and vy, du and Sie

– ‘Hello’ / ‘Hi’ / ‘Sup!’

• How do you learn these “rules?”– Ethnography of Speaking….

Ethnography of Speaking

Developed in 1960s by Dell Hymes• Focus on language in total cultural context

– How people use language in real situations– Communicative competence…– S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G…– Speech communities…

• The importance of fieldwork– What are the rules for speaking?– For not speaking?– How do children learn the rules?.

Ethnography of SPEAKING• Setting/Situation/Scene

– Where?

• Participants– Who are the speakers?– Who can speak?– Who should speak?

• Ends:– What are the goals?

• Bargaining• Asking for (and giving) directions• Report-talk vs rapport-talk.

Ethnography of SPEAKING

• Act Sequence– Exactly what gets said?

• Speech Acts– Promises, commands, apologies

• Speech Events– Exchanging greetings, telling jokes, giving speeches

Status and type or order of greetings

• Speech Situations– Classrooms, conferences, parties, ceremonies

• Key– Tone of voice, manner of delivery

• Mourning, joking, irony, teasing.

Ethnography of SPEAKING

• Instrumentalities– Languages & dialects

• Mutual intelligibility

• Politics and attitudes: languages and their speakers– Ideas about “Standard” and “Non-standard”

‘warsh’ ‘fouath flouah’ ‘pahking the cah’ “A language is a dialect with an army and navy.”

– Registers• Situation-specific

– Prestigious, formal, scientific, academic, colloquial

• Politics and attitudes about registers and their use

Ethnography of SPEAKING

• Norms– Expectations

• Speaking vs silence

• Directness vs indirectness

• Lying vs politeness

• Taking turns and interrupting

• Taboos and avoidances

• Genres– Kinds of speech acts or events

• Lectures, Poetry Readings, Joking, Gossip.

Speech Communities Linguistic Communities

• A speech community is– A group of people who share

• One or more varieties of language

• And the rules for using them in interaction

• A linguistic community is– A group of people who share

• A single language variety

• And who identify with that language variety

• A community of practice is ???.

Rules in Speech/Linguistic Communities

• Are a part of the community’s culture

• Are different in different communities

• Can be learned/studied in the field.

Language Across Cultures

• Different communities = different rules• Easy for misunderstandings to occur• Rich Points

– Moments of misunderstanding• Interviewing for a job• Asking for a ride

– Signal differences in rules • Ways to say ‘no’• Ways to take turns• Indirectness.

Cross Cultural Repairs• Michael Agar’s ‘MAR’

– Recognize/acknowledge ‘Mistake’ in using rules• Can also think of ‘Mistake’ as ‘Miscue’

– Develop Awareness of different rules• Ethnography of Communication as a method

– Repair understanding of rules• Finding appropriate ways to say ‘no’

• Learning to take turns without ‘interrupting’

• ‘Hearing’ and responding to a request for a ride.

Creating a Language: Difference in Action

• Identify some different linguistic situations– formal/informal, teasing/serious

• Or identify a ‘difference’ in identity– male/female, Senior/Junior, major/non-major

• choose a way for your language to index (mark, indicate, signal) these differences– degrees of loudness?

– Specific words only used by one group?

– Specific words only used in certain situations?

Creating a Language: Politeness

• create a greeting

• create a farewell

• taboo one of the words in your lexicon– why did you taboo this word?

• create a euphemism for it– why did you choose this euphemism?.