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Chapter 10: Language and Communication
Learning Objectives- After reading this chapter and coming to class you should be able to:
1. Understand the structure and nature of animal communication and how it differs from human
communication.
2. Be familiar with nonverbal forms of communication like gestures, facial expressions, and body
movements, and consider how these form an interwoven part of spoken language.
3. Be able to identify the interrelated levels of organization in language.
4. Be familiar with the central premise of Noam Chomsky’s concept of universal grammar, as well as that
of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
5. Know what distinguishes a focal vocabulary, and be able to identify the subject matter of semantics.
6. Know what sociolinguists study. In particular, be familiar with how social difference is organized and
maintained through specific, situated linguistic practices. Even as fundamentally social linguistic
practices are differentially valued and evaluated, what does the concept of linguistic relativity assert?
7. Know what BEV (Black English Vernacular) is and how it compares to SE (Standard English).
8. Know what historical linguists study and how their work contributes to anthropology.
Terms- You should understand these terms and be ready to identify them:
Black English Vernacular (BEV)
A rule-governed dialect of American English with roots in Southern English. BEV is spoken by African
American youth and by many adults in their casual, intimate speech—sometimes called "ebonics."
call systems
Systems of communication among nonhuman primates, composed of a limited number of sounds that vary in
intensity and duration. Tied to environmental stimuli.
cultural transmission
A basic feature of language; transmission through learning.
daughter languages
Languages developing out of the same parent language; for example, French and Spanish are daughter
languages of Latin.
diglossia
The existence of "high" (formal) and "low" (informal, familial) dialects of a single language, such as German.
displacement
A basic feature of language; the ability to speak of things and events that are not present.
ethnosemantics
The study of lexical (vocabulary) contrasts and classifications in various languages.
focal vocabulary
A set of words and distinctions that are particularly important to certain groups (those with particular foci of
experience or activity), such as types of snow to Eskimos or skiers.
historical linguistics
Subdivision of linguistics that studies languages over time.
honorific
A term, such as "Mr." or "Lord," used with people, often by being added to their names, to "honor" them.
kinesics
The study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures, and facial expressions.
language
Human beings' primary means of communication; may be spoken or written; features productivity and
displacement and is culturally transmitted.
lexicon
Vocabulary; a dictionary containing all the morphemes in a language and their meanings.
morphology
The study of form; used in linguistics (the study of morphemes and word construction) and for form in
general—for example, biomorphology relates to physical form.
phoneme
Significant sound contrast in a language that serves to distinguish meaning, as in minimal pairs.
phonemics
The study of the sound contrasts (phonemes) of a particular language.
phonetics
The study of speech sounds in general; what people actually say in various languages.
phonology
The study of sounds used in speech.
productivity
A basic feature of language; the ability to use the rules of one's language to create new expressions
comprehensible to other speakers.
protolanguage
Language ancestral to several daughter languages.
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Theory that different languages produce different ways of thinking.
Semantics
A language's meaning system.
style shifts
Variations in speech in different contexts.
subgroups
Languages within a taxonomy of related languages that are most closely related.
syntax
The arrangement and order of words in phrases and sentences.