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Language: We Are What We Speak
“LANGUAGE IS THE CLEAREST EVIDENCE WE
HAVE OF THE MIND THAT EXISTS WITHIN
US.”
Edward Sapir…
“…the “real world” is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the
language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently
similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The
world in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely
the same world with different labels attached.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein…
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
Language is a completely symbolic system. There is no necessary connection
between a sound (word) and the concept signified: different languages have
different words (or sounds) for the same concepts. The !Kung San of South
Africa and Botswana have 18 different varieties of clicks which have meaning
in their language. It is almost impossible for a speaker of another language
to hear the difference in the tone of the click sounds.
San language
Thinking is done with concepts or ideas. But ideas do not exist readymade
before words – the words and the concepts coincide. Words unite “not a
thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image” (Saussure, 1959). Not
only does this challenge our commensense belief that words mean things, but
also it should remind us that words are composed not of letters but of
sounds.
The Sound and Shape of Language
Phonology – study of sounds used in speech. In order
to analyse any new language, an inventory of all its sounds
and an accurate way of writing them down are needed.
Phonological analysis would determine which sounds
(phones) were present in the language being studied.
Morphology – the study of meaningful sound
sequences and the rules by which they are formed (study of
how sounds combine to form morphemes)
The word ‘cat’ has two morphemes ‘cat’ and ‘s’
Grammatical rules tell us which to use in what context we
wish to use the word. “cats” not “scat”
How is language structured? How do we put sounds together to form
meaningful statements?
Phoneme - "the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form
meaningful contrasts between utterances.“
Examples (English): Minimal pair
Here are examples of the phonemes /r/ and /l/
occurring in a minimal pair:
•rip
•lip
The phones [r] and [l] contrast in identical
environments and are considered to be separate
phonemes. The phonemes /r/ and /l/ serve to
distinguish the word rip from the word lip.
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of a language.
Examples (English)
•Unladylike
•The word unladylike consists of three morphemes and four
syllables.
•Morpheme breaks:
•un- 'not'
•lady '(well behaved) female adult human'
•-like 'having the characteristics of‘
•None of these morphemes can be broken up any more
without losing all sense of meaning. Lady cannot be broken
up into "la" and "dy," even though "la" and "dy" are separate
syllables.
Deep structure - - - - - - - - -surface structure
Phonosyntactics…how language uses phonemes to produce
minimal meaningful units of sound.
Morphosyntactics…uses phonemic minimal pairs and
arranges them into meaningful parts of words.
Sentential syntactics…arranges parts of words and words
into meaningful phrases and sentences.
Basic to this is understanding is the notion of language as
structured (langue) and as spoken (parole).
Phonetics, phonemics…terms used in
anthropological linguistics. Phonetics is concerned with
speech and phonemics is concerned with underlying
speech or rules of speech.
Two anthropological terms are derived from these …emic
and etic.
…Etic approach in anthropology is observeroriented; the anthropologists interpretations.
…Emic approach is actor-oriented; the
informants/speakers meanings.
Transformational-generative grammar…
 Noam Chomsky “Syntactic Structures” (1959)
 A language is more than surface phenomena (sounds, words,
and word order)


The human brain contains a genetically transmitted blueprint,
a basic linguistic plan, for building language a universal
grammar
There is an inborn human language, which consists of a set of
grammatical rules –universal grammar- that do not have to be
learned and that guide children’s discovery and mastery of the
grammar to which they are exposed at the proper time in their
lives.
Children around the world show little variation in the rate at which
they develop linguistic competence…
1. normal children learn language without formal
instruction, for there is no one who is capable of teaching them
which of all possible phonemes their language uses, nor the rules for
how these phonemes can be combined into meaningful morphemes
and sentences.
2. learn language in a remarkably short period of time that
varies surprisingly little from language to language
3. learn language almost regardless of how ell they perform
other mental tasks
4. Learn language by a process of deduction rather than by
imitation and memorization
Chomsky – universal grammar is the inherited genetic endowment
that makes it possible for us to speak and learn human langauges.
Language, Culture and Reality…
 Language (and culture) is what mediates between us
and the world or ‘reality’; in other words, perception
is not direct but always mediated. This is as true of
the empirical sciences as it is for ordinary everyday
perception.

“Observation has become almost entirely indirect; and
readings take the place of genuine witness. The sense-data on
which the propositions of modern science rest are, for the most
part, little photographic spots and blurs, or inky curved lines
on paper. These data are empirical enough, but of course they
are not themselves the phenomenon in question; the actual
phenomenon stand behind them as their supposed causes.”
Different languages are different conceptual systems, and have
characteristic ways of interpreting and expressing things which
consequently have an impact on culture.
Language enables the creation of a world to live in, that is, a culture.