Download Language and Culture

Language and Culture
“… it is true that human culture in its great complexity could not have developed and is unthinkable
without the aid of language … (Zdenek Salzmann 2004)
“… we suggest that there can be no such thing as culture without language and the socially determined
sharing of meaning and value” (Iain Davidson and William Noble 1989)
Linguistic anthropology exams the relationships between language, worldview, culture, and social
relationships. Linguistic anthropologists work to discover when and how complex human language
originated. They examine what makes human communication different from that of other animals.
Significantly, linguistic anthropologists want to understand the connections between culture, mind, and
linguistic systems. How do humans learn language? How do different languages influence thought, etc.?
All animals communicate in order to survive. Communication occurs whenever an organism receives a
signal from another organism. Transmission of information occurs even between members of different
species. (For example, we communicate with our cats, dogs, and horses and they with us. Is that
language?)
One definition. Language is:
A. A set of vocal sounds (that mean nothing in themselves) strung together to form words …
B. These strung-together sounds are (arbitrarily) endowed with shared meanings …
C. These strung-together-sounds-with-shared-meanings make a shared system …
D. This system makes it possible for its users to create an unlimited number of unique comments
about events and ideas …
E. Language users share this system to communicate about events and ideas that are removed from
them in time and space.
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Do humans and their brains have
unique properties?
Human intelligence appears to be the result of a combination of factors
and the enhancement of properties that are also found in nonhuman primates.
Old ideas
• tool use (great apes and corvids or crow family)
• tool making (great apes and corvids or crow family)
• syntactical grammatical language (under debate)
• consciousness … or conscious action and planning (evidence that
great apes have some states of consciousness)
• self-awareness (great apes and cetaceans)
• imitation (under debate)
• deception (found in monkeys, great apes)
• theory of mind (under debate)
The biological features that allow humans to share language are mostly found in other animals. The
difference seems to be that some animals share some of the features and some animals share other
features associated with human language. No non-human animals appear to share all of the features
associated with human language, although some animals come close. In addition, humans share a greater
degree of development of language-using features. For example, humans have highly developed lip,
tongue, and throat development to make a large range of sounds. Dogs are not physically capable of all of
the speech sounds that humans produce. They lack the necessary specialized organs. Another example is
the human ability to discuss something that is far removed in time or space from the setting in which the
communication occurs. This is called displacement, and seems much less developed in other animals
because it involves being able to share the meanings of arbitrary symbols (words etc.)
(If you are interested in learning more about language features, see linguistic link.)
Arbitrary means the random nature of the features of human languages, which bear no direct relation to
their meanings but are agreed-on symbols. For example we put sounds together to create the word pencil
to signify a piece of wood surrounding a stick of graphite for writing. The word pencil is arbitrary. It
could be schmucheltod or something completely different. We just agree that pencil means what it does.
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Possible Unique Properties
Theory of
mind
‘I intend that you believe that I
suppose that...’
We think we know
what other people
are thinking. We
anticipate and
empathize as part
of our ability to
communicate.
Essential to complex language is the human ability “to understand another individual’s mental state and
take it into account into one’s own behavior” (Gerhard Roth & Ursula Dicke 2005: 255). This ability to
assume what other people might be thinking is called theory of mind. [Watch The Mind’s Big Bang for a
more complete description of theory of mind.]
Scientists continue to determine whether non-human primates exhibit theory of mind. [Watch the video
about bonobos featured alongside this lecture and assess whether or not Kanzi and his sister show theory
of mind abilities.]
Consider why theory of mind is important for complex communications. What would communications be
like without the ability to think, “I intend that you believe that I suppose that …”
What is intelligence?
Corvids such as crows and ravens
Brain researchers Gerhard Roth and
Ursula Dicke
• Mental or behavioral
flexibility is a good
measure of
intelligence.
• Mental flexibility is the
appearance of novel
solutions that are not
part of an animal’s
normal repertoire.
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmb
WqyRdMF0
Anthropologists also look at the influence of language on human intelligence, or the influence of
intelligence on human linguistic abilities. What is it about human intelligence that allows humans to
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communicate in infinite and novel ways? [See film The Mind’s Big Bang and the Youtube link about
crows in Japan.] Consider the definition of intelligence in the above frame and whether or not other
animals have mental flexibility to create and communicate novel solutions to problems.
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