Download Communication and Culture Part I - Hale

Anthropology: Communication,
Language & Culture
HSP3M
English
Night
Snow
Seven
Foot
German
Nacht
Schnee
Sieben
Fuss
Latin
Noctis
Nivis
Septem
Pedis
French
Nuit
Neige
Sept
Pied
Italian
Notte
Neve
Sette
Piede
Greek
Nuktos
Nipha
Hepta
Podos
Russian
Noch
Snyek
Syem
Naga
Discussion
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
What is communication?
What is language?
Communication



Sending a message
that is received by
another
Can be accomplished
through a variety of
means
What media do you use
to communicate?
Language


A detailed way of communicating
Uses symbols to represent ideas
Language and Anthropology

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Physical anthropologists study nonhumans… so do cultural anthropologists
How can we learn about language and
communication by studying animals?
Animals and Language
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Example: Rico the Border Collie was studied by the
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Knew the names of 200 different items Trained for 8
years by owner
Experiments revealed he could retrieve specific
items on command with remarkable accuracy
Could even learn the names of new objects to about
the same degree as a 3 year old human
Is this language?
Animals and Language


Since dogs have evolved alongside humans, they
have an ingrained ability to pay attention to verbal
and non-verbal cues from humans
Certainly, other animals communicate with one
another

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Bees use movement to communicate the location of
flowers
Animals issue various grunts or cries to warn each other of
danger
Is this language?
Dolphins

See videos
What is “true” language?

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Open, flexible, creative: can create new
sentence, combine and rearrange words to
make new ones
Symbolic: can refer to people, things, and
events that aren’t present; can communicate
things that have happened or will happen
Arbitrary: the word for something rarely has
any connection to it
Monkeys/Apes

Vervet monkeys have at least 3 different alarm calls,
each corresponding to a different threat (eagle,
leopard, python)


When the “eagle” call is made, the monkeys look up
Many chimpanzees have been taught sign
language, learning hundreds of signs


They can make new sentences with words
Ex: Washoe found a doll in her water dish and signed “baby
in my drink”; Lana signing “please machine make music”
Human Language

Emerged between 40,000 and 100,000 years
ago


Can’t really know since written language followed
much later
Guesses based on brain structures and throat
structures
The Origins of Human Language

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Bow-wow and Ding-dong theory (imitate
animal noises and natural sounds)
Yo-he-ho theory (cries/grunts of pain,
surprise, effort)
Tarara-boom-de-ay theory (singing,
humming, chanting)
Cooperation theory (necessary for hunting,
defence)
Language and Culture


Language is an aspect of culture
What other words/ideas do you associate
with culture?
Textbook work

read p 26 – 28 answer #2, 3, 4 p. 29