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Anthropology Review
Why Does Anthropology Matter?
• Anthropology confronts basic questions of
human existence and survival.
– How we originated.
– How we have changed.
– How we are changing still.
• Sound conclusions about “human nature”
cannot be derived from studying a single
nation, society, or cultural tradition. We have
to compare them all.
Subfields or Branches
• Cultural anthropology – examines cultural
diversity of the present and recent past.
• Linguistic anthropology – considers how speech
varies with social factors and over time and space
• Archaeology – reconstructs behavior by
studying material remains
• Biological anthropology – study of human
fossils, genetics, and bodily growth and
nonhuman primates
We have discussed culture…
• Shared traditions, customs and innovations that
shape behavior and beliefs of a certain group of
people
– Transmitted through learning
– Greatly affects society – organized life in groups
• Goes back to Geography
– Adaptation – process by which organisms cope with
environmental forces and stresses
– Humans adapt using biological and
cultural means
Culture
• Our culture can often impose on the Earth and
the other people who may have opposing
traditions.
• It is important to maintain a history of other
people besides just ourselves so that we can
see how we have changed over time.
• Ishi…
We are discussing language…
• Study of language in its social and cultural
context across space and time
– Historical linguists – reconstruct ancient
languages and study the way languages change
through time
– Sociolinguistics – investigates relationships
between social patterns and language patterns
– Language helps to discover different
understandings and patterns of thought in
different cultures
• Historical linguists – reconstruct ancient
languages and study the way languages change
through time
• Perhaps as many as 90% of all world
languages will be extinct or spoken only by a
few older people and unknown to children
within the next 100 years
• An entire way of thinking is lost each time a
language becomes extinct
• Sociolinguistics – investigates relationships
between social patterns and language patterns
• Speaker’s use of language
• Who says what to whom, when, where and
why
• Code Switching
• Non-Standard forms of English are fully
efficient languages with their own unique set
of grammatical rules that are consistently
applied
Language and Culture
• Cultural emphasis—the vocabulary found in
any language tends to emphasize the words
that are considered to be adaptively
important in that culture
• Technology also affects language
• Ability to recombine sounds to create new
meanings that makes human language such
an efficient and effective communication
system
What are some new words/phrases that have
appeared in the past 20 years?
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Autotune
Crowdfund
Blu-ray
E-cig
Fleeky
FLOTUS
Fitness Tracker
Handsy
Hot mess
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Jeggings
Koozie
Photobomb
Retweet
Stanky
Webisode
Yasssssss
Read the article to help justify your
claims…
• Why do we add words to the dictionary?
• What do our new words tell us about our
culture? What do they tell other people?
• How do we determine new words?
Values
• Make a separate list of
what you think the
values of other
Americans are.
Exit Slip
• Are we different from other cultures?
• What does this say about how other peoples
perceive Americans?
• What does this say about the reality of their
perceptions?
• Discuss any similarities: are there any values
that are universally human?
• The idea that humans can combine words and
sounds into new meaningful utterances they
have never before heard
• Speakers of any human language can generate
an almost infinite number of such sentences
• Productivity or “Openness” makes human
language extremely flexible, conveying all
kinds of new information
How do you “get” a language
• Language Acquisition: A child “programs” her
or his language by interacting verbally with
other people automatically, apparently
without conscious effort
• • Acquisition of language is based in biology,
the acceptable use of speech to participate in
a community must be learned culturally
• Every language has logical structure
• All languages have rules and principles
governing what sounds are to be used and
how those sounds are to be combined to
convey meaning
• Human Being would speak no language if he
or she were taught none
• • Critical period of language development for
humans before the age of six— thereafter
learning language skills become increasingly
difficult
• The word "grammar" as used by linguists is
not the same as it is when used by most
people. Grammar, as most people view it, is
actually what is known as prescriptive
grammar.
• Prescriptive grammar is the usual stuff you
learn in school having to do with what to do
and not to do when speaking and writing, in
other words, someone (usually the people
writing the books) prescribes what people are
supposed to do.
• Descriptive grammar deals with how language
is actually used.
• When linguists talk about being grammatically
correct, they simply mean using language in a
way that is normal and understandable in the
community.
• Therefore, many things that are often
portrayed as "bad grammar," such as "ain't,"
are simply part of the grammar in a particular
community or dialect.
Next we will discuss archaeology…
• Study of human behavior and cultural
patterns and process through material
remains
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Artifacts (e.g., potsherds, jewelry, and tools)
Garbage
Burials
Remains of structures
Next we will discuss biological