Race and Identity or Language, Status, and Identity

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Chapter Outline

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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Discuss the contrasts between symbolic com- munication and sign communication.

2. Contrast human and nonhuman communication.

3. Explain the characteristics of nonverbal communication.

4. Define language.

5. Explain the biological basis of language.

6. Discuss the concept of linguistic relativity.

7. Discuss the social nature of language use.

8. Explain the concept of language families.

9. Discuss contemporary language diversity.

Language and Culture 4

4.1 Linguistic Anthropology

4.2 Human Communication

• Signs and Symbols • Nonverbal Communication • Culturally Patterned Nonverbal Symbols • Human Versus Nonhuman Communication

4.3 Language

• Language Versus Speech • The Origin of Language • Biological Evolution and Language • Pidgin and Creole Languages

4.4 The Structure of Language

• Phonology • Grammar • Language Universals

4.5 Linguistic Relativity

• Effects of Morphology • Effects of Syntax

4.6 Language Change

• Changes Over Time • Processes of Change • Dialects • African American Vernacular English • Basic Vocabulary

4.7 Language Families

• Contemporary World Languages • Language Extinction

4.8 Sociolinguistics

• Gender and Language • Language and Social Rank • Prestige Dialects • Language and Nationalism • The Verbal Arts • Language and Social Media

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Human Communication

Human ways of life are far more varied and complex than those of other animals. This complexity is facilitated by our distinctive ability to communicate the intrica- cies of these lifeways to each new generation of our group. Unlike other animals, we tend to portray our concepts by highly arbitrary but mutually accepted sym- bols, such as those embodied in languages. In this chapter, we will examine this capacity of symbolizing, which is fundamental to the origin and perpetuation of human cultures.

4.1 Linguistic Anthropology

As noted in chapter 1 linguistic anthropology is the study of language and the roles it plays in human social life. It has been an important part of anthropology since the origin of the discipline. Fieldwork in non-Western cultures has always brought anthropological researchers into contact with the languages of the societies they study, and learning the native language is a necessary fieldwork tool. Some anthropologists spe- cialize in linguistic anthropology. They are trained in linguistics so that they can describe, record, and analyze languages that have rarely been studied by others. These are skills that are often useful to cultural anthropologists during fieldwork among speakers of dif- ferent languages than their own. In this chapter, we will examine some of the general characteristics of language and some of the applications of linguistic anthropology to the study of culture.

4.2 Human Communication

Communication is the transfer of information, concepts, or ideas from one person to another using observable objects or actions, such as gestures and spoken words, that encode meaning. Human communication relies heavily on our ability to cre- ate, manipulate, and understand symbols.

Signs and Symbols In human communication, meaning is expressed simultaneously with signs and with symbols. Signs are indexical units of meaning. In other words, their meaning is directly associated with some object, action, or state. Tears, smiles, clenched fists, and agitated ges- tures are all signs, or spontaneous expressions of feelings, needs, or concepts that require little conscious effort or learning to master and interpret. They are natural representations of what they signify.

Although signs play a role in human communication, it is the use of symbols in com- municating that sets us apart from other animals and that serves as the foundation for the extremely complex ways of life found in all human groups. Symbols are objects or events that stand for something else. National flags and spoken words, for example, have no inherent significance; their meanings exist only because their users have agreed that they represent certain other objects or events (White, 1971). Thus, symbols have no innate meaning; their use and interpretation must always be learned. Their meanings are not natural but arbitrary in the sense that they are a matter of social consensus.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Human Communication

The relationship between a symbol and what it represents is not determined by the inher- ited biological tendencies of the communicator to relate one to the other. Furthermore, a symbol need not share any physical similarities with or proximity to its referent. There is, for instance, no reason dictated by human biology or the physical properties of the wave- lengths of light that the color “red” has to be used to mean “stop” or the color “green” to mean “go” in traffic signals. Similarly, there is no compelling reason in human biology or the principles of geometry for a stop sign to be octagonal rather than triangular in shape. Because the meaning of a symbol is not intrinsic but is assigned by its human users, any symbol may be used to designate any referent. And because the meanings of symbols are a matter of social convention or consensus rather than something inherent in their nature, they can change quite readily within the lifetimes of their users. Because people can freely assign new meanings to objects or actions, they can communicate new and extremely complex and subtle messages to one another.

Nonverbal Communication The two most active forms of interpersonal communication are nonverbal communica- tion and language. Nonverbal communication consists of the messages that we convey to each other without words or words alone. It is often an unconscious expression of our emotions that we may not have intended as communication. Nonverbal communication ranges from grins and hugs to the distance we maintain between ourselves and others during conversations to our handling of time (for example, whether we habitually arrive early or late for an appointment). Although nonverbal communication does not include the words that we speak, it does include various qualities of speaking, such as how fast or slow we talk and the intonation, pitch, and volume of our speech, all of which express how we feel about what we are saying.

Figure 4.1: Nonverbal communication

Body and facial movements are forms of nonverbal symbolic communication.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Human Communication

Our most common nonverbal symbolic communications tend to be performed with the highly visible upper extremities of the body—the hands, arms, shoulders, head, and parts of the face (Figure 4.1). They are often used in situations of purposeful communication, such as (1) where verbal communication is impossible, as when persons are too distant from one another to hear each other well; (2) where verbal communication is inappropri- ate, as when the actor wishes to send a message to only one member of a group but knows others would overhear a verbal message, or when the sender feels that a verbal communi- cation would be too direct or strong in impact; or (3) where their use will provide added emphasis to messages conveyed verbally.

Nonverbal Signs The simplest forms of nonverbal communication are physiological signs, not symbols. For instance, blushing, which communicates embarrassment, is a direct reflection of one’s emotional state and is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. Smiling, although it can be consciously controlled and assigned other symbolic meanings in special contexts, is also more generally a direct reflection of happy feelings. As such, it can be observed in deaf–blind individuals as well as in others. Slumping posture will signal submission or defeat without conscious effort; prolonged eye contact can indicate aggression or interest in maintaining contact; staring blankly while avoiding eye contact may signal fear or a desire not to interact. Nonverbal signs communicate the same meanings in every culture. Samoan, Navajo, or Chinese, we all express happiness with the same spontaneous smile, confusion with a distinctively human knit brow, and boredom with a yawn.

Proxemics Even the distance we place between ourselves and others conveys subtle nonverbal mean- ings. Edward Hall (1959) has studied the ways in which people symbolically structure the spatial relationships between themselves and others. He refers to the study of people’s use of the space around them as proxemics. One finding of proxemic research is that the distance people choose to place between themselves and those with whom they are com- municating illustrates how they feel about the interaction. According to Hall, there are four main distances to which North Americans adjust themselves in their business and social relations: intimate, personal, social, and public.

Intimate distance, which is reserved for occasions when caressing and touch are appro- priate, varies in the United States from direct contact to 1 1/2 feet, where individuals are still close enough to touch one another easily. We experience others in this zone intensely through our senses. They fill our field of vision, their breathing is audible to us, and we are aware of their presence through our senses of touch and smell. This intimate aware- ness often leads us to experience them as an extension of our own self rather than as a separate entity. Intimate distance is normally regarded as too close to be used by adults in public. In crowded situations such as elevators or subways, when people are forced to remain within the intimate distance of strangers, individuals communicate that they are not intentionally intruding on the intimate zone of others by staring impersonally at a distant spot.

The second meaningful zone to which North Americans adjust themselves, called personal distance, indicates a close friendship. It extends from 1 1/2 to 4 feet. A husband and wife generally place themselves within the first half of each other’s personal zone in

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Human Communication

public or conversational situations, while other friends will normally occupy the farther half of this zone. In many other cultures, the distances for this personal zone are some- what closer than they are in the United States or Northern Europe. This can make it dif- ficult for persons of differing cultural backgrounds to communicate their interest in one another. An Anglo-American may feel ill at ease if a stranger from another society adopts a distance that in the stranger’s homeland indicates friendship but which to the Anglo- American seems overly intimate or pushy. When the Anglo-American backs away to a distance at which he or she feels comfortable among friends, the other may mistakenly interpret the nonverbal communication as disinterest, or quite literally, distancing. Such misunderstandings can be avoided only if one understands that even the most habitual of human behaviors, because they are very specific and symbolic, have no universal mean- ings but vary from society to society.

Beyond personal distance is social distance of 4 to 12 feet, which is used in more imper- sonal interactions of a cordial type such as those common in business transactions. Public distance, which is greater than 12 feet, is the final zone. The usual distance placed between a teacher or public speaker and most audiences is 12 to about 25 feet. Distances greater than this are used to distinguish important public figures.

Kinesics Nonverbal communication often accompanies speech, providing the context within which speech is interpreted. Signs such as body posturing, gestures, and the use of the eyes communicate the level of interest and involvement in others present or in the sub- ject being discussed. Through its subtlety and complexity, nonverbal communication provides information about emotions such as love, hate, fear, dependency, submission, dominance, interest, disinterest, or boredom. It therefore defines and expresses the nature of the relationship. Without a successful nonverbal relationship between people, verbal communication may become impossible. For instance, successful verbal communication may be impossible if the individuals’ body movements are too unsynchronized with one another or if they indicate hostility. Nonverbal communication strategies vary even within cultures. In her extensive research on the communication strategies of men and women, Deborah Tannen (1990) has found that women tend to look at the person they are talking with, whereas men tend to avoid eye contact by looking straight ahead. Men and women also use their bodies differently in similar contexts, with women often adopting different postures in the presence of men than they do in women-only groupings.

Culturally Patterned Nonverbal Symbols In contrast with nonverbal signs, our nonverbal symbols, such as parting gestures, flirta- tious uses of the eyes, and hand gestures of contempt, vary from culture to culture. For instance, throughout Europe when people want to point out the location of something they gesture in the appropriate direction with their hand. The finger closest to the thumb, appropriately called the “pointer finger” in colloquial English, may also be extended. Sho- shone Indians of the North American Great Basin still use their traditional gesture, point- ing with their pursed lips. Many North Americans use a “thumbs up” gesture to express their feeling that things are going well. In Japan this gesture would likely be interpreted to mean “boss” or “father.” The German who points to the side of his forehead communi- cates the same idea—”Crazy!”—that the North American may convey by tracing a circle

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.2 Human Communication

next to the head with the index finger. North Americans point at their chests to indicate “self”; Japanese point to their noses with the same significance. The British tap the side of the nose to indicate that something is a secret. More confusingly, Greeks and Bulgarians rotate their head left and right to indicate “yes” and jerk their chin upwards to indicate “no,” gestures to which most Americans would attach the opposite meanings.

Cultural variations in such symbols may inhibit full communication between people of different cultures, even on a nonverbal level. Greeting is not signified everywhere by a handshake: A kiss (or even one on each cheek), an embrace, or a nose rub will do as well. Among the Toda of India, a woman indicates respect in greeting an elder kinsman by kneeling and lifting his foot to her forehead (Murdock, 1967). A wave of the hand that the European would interpret as a farewell might elsewhere be used as a request to approach. One study conducted in Israel illustrates the difficulty in interpreting gestures across cul- tures particularly well. Raphael Schneller (1988) showed a culturally diverse group of Israeli college students 26 gestures commonly used by Ethiopian immigrants to the coun- try. The students recognized more than 80% of the gestures but correctly interpreted less than a quarter of them. Such differences can lead to serious misunderstandings between well-intentioned persons from different societies who do not realize that their behaviors are only arbitrarily endowed with meaning and that the same behaviors might denote something different to people from another society.

Human Versus Nonhuman Communication Homo sapiens are not the only animal species that communicates. Humans and many other animals make use of both biologically innate and learned signs in communicative acts. However, the creation and use of symbols is characteristic of humans alone; the use of symbols is central to humans’ most conscious efforts to communicate. Acts such as

.Getty Images/Ryan McVay/Lifesize/Thinkstock iStockphoto/Thinkstock Humans and animals communicate very differently. Humans use symbols that have cultural meaning, while animals use signals that are the same for all members of the species.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.3 Language

smiling or crying have natural meanings as signs, but they can also be consciously manip- ulated and used in ways that alter their natural meanings and thereby transform them from signs into symbols, as when we smile sarcastically or feign tears or a sad expression to communicate a feeling that we are not really experiencing. It is this capacity to assign new meanings to things, even to things that are otherwise unconscious signs, that makes human language possible.

4.3 Language

Language is a system of communication that uses both signs and symbols to create and convey messages. Because the meanings of symbols can be redefined and new symbols and meanings can be created as needed, the messages transmittable by language are unlimited. For that reason, language is said to be an open system of com- munication, meaning that it is capable of creating an unlimited number of messages. The use of symbols in language makes it possible to express anything that can be thought. Language can be used to communicate about not only those feelings, things, and per- sons that are visible at the moment but also those that are invisible because they are dis- placed in space or time, as well as things that are nonexistent. Anthropological linguists refer to this feature of language as displacement. Language is also a metacommunication system—a system of communication that can be used to communicate about the process of communication itself. Such characteristics make it possible to communicate an essen- tially innumerable number of concepts with language. We humans can express any new idea we come up with in language, even if we have to invent a new word for it and then define it to others. This capacity of language is called productivity, and it relies on the human capacity to create and use symbols.

Language Versus Speech When linguists and anthropologists speak of language, they are referring to the shared system of rules that guides the production of speech, the audible symbols that people use to communicate. Every language system is made up of three sets of shared rules: (1) rules for forming the particular speech sounds used in the language, (2) rules for putting the sounds of speech together into words that symbolize concepts, and (3) rules for putting the words together into sentences that portray the relationships between concepts. In this introductory text we will focus on the use of words, the spoken symbols of language, and their social and psychological effects.

The Origin of Language Very little is known about how human language abilities evolved. Spoken language leaves no imprint that can be searched for directly, and humans only began to record language in written form a few thousand years ago, so our investigation of the very beginnings of language must look at indirect evidence. There are a number of ways of doing this. For example, researchers can study the fossil record of early human forms for evidence

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.3 Language

of biological characteristics necessary for speech. Or they can determine how people who do not speak the same language have sometimes devel- oped new languages, called pidgins and creoles. In the past couple of decades there has been a major breakthrough in researching the origins of lan- guage. In the late 1990s, a British family was dis- covered in which some individuals had an inher- ited speech deficit and others did not (Itzhaki, 2003). Genetic research revealed that those with the deficit carried the same variant of the FOXP2 gene as chimpanzees and those without the defect carried the variant found in most humans. The gene in question appears to factor in interaction with other genes in the ability of humans to pro- duce the fine movements of the mouth necessary for speech (Fisher & Marcus, 2006; Enard et al., 2002). It may also influence the ability to speak in other ways. These findings suggest that at some point in human evolution, a genetic muta- tion occurred that enabled humans to physically produce speech. The physical ability to create speech sounds, of course, is not the same thing as the cognitive ability to create and use symbols for communication purposes, but this discovery is nonetheless an important step toward under- standing the origins of human language.

Biological Evolution and Language The human brain achieved its modern size at least 100,000 years ago. This is also the beginning of the era in which early modern humans developed increasingly complex technologies and eventually artistic decorations. It is likely that the use of language became an important human characteristic sometime during this period, when the increasing complexity of life would have made skills at communicating more advanta- geous, but thus far the study of early fossils has failed to establish that with any certainty.

Pidgin and Creole Languages There are several situations that bring together people who speak no common language. For instance, in colonial days, masters of plantations would have needed to communi- cate with laborers who spoke one or more other languages. In the early days of trading, shipboard life often brought together a crew of many different nationalities who needed to work and communicate with one another. These and similar situations have given rise to the development of pidgin languages, which are simplified versions of one language or a combination of several. Pidgins are simpler in grammar and smaller in vocabulary

Ingram Publishing/Thinkstock Language can include more than just spoken language. The development of writing allowed for the chronicling of history and extensive record keeping.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.4 The Structure of Language

than the natural languages children learn in childhood. However, they have sometimes become the second-generation native languages of entire populations, in which case they invariably develop the greater grammatical sophistication and larger vocabularies neces- sary for use in everyday life. Such true languages that have developed out of pidgins or through the efforts of speakers of several different languages are called creoles. There are over a hundred creole languages spoken in the world today. They include Haitian Creole, Hawaiian Creole, São Tomense of Equitorial Guinea, and Srinam of Suriname.

Derek Bickerton (1983) has investigated creoles and has found that they all have a number of characteristics in common. This suggests that their grammatical qualities may reflect those of early human language. For instance, in almost all creoles adjectives function as verbs, so there is no need for a “to be” verb to join a subject with an adjective. Thus, in Guyanese Creole “He is tired” is simply “i wiiri.” Creoles express future and past tenses by the addition of a particle, such as “shall” or “was” between the subject and the verb, and all have adopted the use of double negatives such as in Papia Kristang “non dag na bait non kyat” (literally, “no dog no bite no cat”), which translates into English as “No dog bit any cat.” All creoles also make use of intonation to indicate the difference between questions and statements.

4.4 The Structure of Language

Linguistic anthropologists who are interested in the structure of languages have shown that all languages have definite patterns in the sounds that their speakers use, in how those sounds are combined to form symbols, and in how those symbols are organized into meaningful utterances. These three structured parts of language are called phonology, morphology, and syntax.

Phonology The study of sounds used in speech and the rules for producing the sequences of sounds that occur in a particular language is called phonology. The human vocal apparatus is capable of forming a large number of different sounds, but the range of sounds actually produced in human languages is relatively small. Although there are at least 3,000 lan- guages in the world, it is possible to record any human language using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which consists of fewer than 100 sound symbols. Each lan- guage has its own set of sounds. The sounds used by speakers of a particular language are actually groups of similar sounds. For instance, what English speakers write as th is actu- ally pronounced slightly differently in different words. Put your fingers on your Adam’s apple as you pronounce the th of the word “this” and then the th of the word “thin,” and you will notice a vibration in the first case that is absent in the second. Despite this differ- ence, English speakers think of the th sound in both words as being the same sound and are not confused when they are written in the same way—as “th”—in both words. Such similar groups of sounds that native speakers of a language normally do not think of as being significantly different are called phonemes. The world’s languages typically use between 20 and 45 different phonemes.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.4 The Structure of Language

Grammar The analysis of the regular and predictable ways that the sounds of a language are combined to form meaningful utterances is called grammar. It has two subdivisions: morphology and syntax. The first of these, morphology, is the study of how the sounds that are used in

a particular language are combined into the smallest meaningful units, called morphemes. The second sub- division of grammar is syntax. It is the study of the rules for combining morphemes into complete and mean- ingful sentences. All languages do an adequate job of expressing mean- ings, but each language has its own distinctive rules that control how one goes about expressing those mean- ings. Although we each find the con- ventions of our own language quite natural, seeing how differently other languages operate can give us some idea of the fact that what seems natu- ral to us as native speakers is merely one of many possible conventions.

Languages such as English use word order to indicate differences between the actor and the acted-upon. For instance, there is an important difference of meaning between the two English sentences, The dog bit the child and The child bit the dog. In many languages, the dis- tinction between subject and object is instead indicated by subject and/or object suffixes. For instance, in the Latin sentence Canis infant-em momordit (literally, “Dog child-object bit”), the suffix -em indicates the object. Languages that distinguish subjects and objects in this way can become quite free in their word order. Thus, in Latin Infant-em momordit canis could also be used to mean “The dog bit the child.” Often, in languages that do not rely on order to indicate subject–object relations, differences in order may convey differences in emphasis. In the two Latin sentences just used, the first might be translated as “The dog bit the child,” while the second would be “The dog bit the child.”

The many languages of the world differ tremendously in their phonologies and gram- mars. Despite the great diversity in how languages organize a small number of sounds into meaningful sentences, all languages seem equally able to express ideas. As natural as your own language may seem to you after years of use, it is no more fundamentally human than others. Like all symbolic systems, languages convey meanings effectively simply because their users have learned the same conventions for interpreting those meanings.

Language Universals Like Bickerton, linguist Noam Chomsky viewed the human brain as having innate charac- teristics that form the basis of language acquisition. Chomsky (1965, 1971) argued that the distinctive characteristics of each of the thousands of human languages are largely only superficial and that every language uses a number of universal processes. For instance,

iStockphoto/Thinkstock All languages have a formal structure that is taught to each generation.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.5 Linguistic Relativity

all languages have simple grammatical rules that allow speakers to communicate ideas about relationships between actors, actions, and recipients of actions. Chomsky theorized that the human brain was prewired in a way that makes it easy for children to learn to express such basic relationships in simple, basic sentences that make distinctions between subjects, verbs, and objects.

While Chomsky has been highly influential in the study of language and language acqui- sition, some language acquisition researchers have criticized his idea that there is a single innate language acquisition device and view language acquisition as an emergent result of the interplay of diverse brain capacities such as memory, pattern recognition, and the ways in which neural pathways interact with one another. In this approach, represented nota- bly by Elizabeth Bates (see Elman et al., 1996) and Michael Thomasello (2003), language development is not the result of specialized innate language centers such as Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas, but rather it occurs throughout the brain and is influenced by the ways in which language acquisition functions in a child’s broader social environment. Instead of simply developing under the control of innate language modules, these researchers treat the specialized language centers as a result rather than a cause. In support of this, they point to the fact that the neural plasticity of the brain makes it possible for children to still acquire language abilities even following damage to Broca’s Area or Wernicke’s Area.

4.5 Linguistic Relativity

Any idea can be symbolically expressed in any language. Nevertheless, the vocabu-lary and grammatical variations of different languages influence (1) which things speakers habitually notice, label, and think about; and (2) how speakers ordinar- ily organize their expression of the relationships between those things (Sapir, 1949). The idea that language influences thought processes is expressed in the theory of linguistic relativity, sometimes called the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis after two of its originators, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf. According to linguistic relativity, what a people habit- ually thinks about is a reflection of what the current vocabulary of their language encour- ages them to notice, and at least some aspects of how a people thinks are affected by the grammatical relationships demanded by their language. Most linguistic anthropologists today agree that linguistic relativity should not be understood to mean that language structure determines how we think, but that language influences what we think about most readily and how we think much of the time (Deutscher, 2010).

Effects of Morphology Benjamin Lee Whorf, an insurance claims adjuster by profession, was an originator of the idea that the superficial and arbitrary grammatical patterns that distinguish one language from another influence the ways in which its speakers habitually think about the world. His strongest argument is that the morphology of a language can have an effect on its speakers’ tendency to notice some things readily while failing to pay attention to others. For example, Whorf (1956a) pointed out that one place in which industrial fires frequently begin is the room in which so-called “empty” containers are stored. The word empty is a symbol that refers to two somewhat different concepts. It is used to mean (1) “containing only residues, gases, vapor, or stray rubbish,” and also, in a more basic sense, to mean

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.5 Linguistic Relativity

(2) “vacuous, inert, or containing nothing.” Managers who label the room as a storage area for “empty containers” understand the word in its more specialized association with the first concept; ordinary workers, however, are likely to behave around these containers of sometimes-volatile residues and gases as if they were inert and vacuous. A worker, for example, who would never consider lighting a cigarette near a “full” gasoline drum might casually do so near an “empty” one, never stopping to think that the volatile gasoline fumes that remain in the empty containers are much more likely to ignite explosively than would the liquid gasoline of the full containers. According to Whorf, the use of a single symbol that represents two different concepts is not uncommon in hazardous situations.

Many political debates revolve around how a word is best defined or about which word or phrase should be used for the topic. For instance, legislators differ on whether to use the word “fetus” or “(unborn) baby” when arguing about abortion, and surrogate moth- erhood is illegal in some U.S. states in which it is viewed as involving the “selling of a baby,” while it is legal in other states in which the legislatures choose to view it as simply “renting a womb.”

The Work of J. S. G. Boggs: Art or Counterfeit?

J. S. G. Boggs is an American artist who in 1985 began to explore paper money as a subject of art. Drawing freehand and using only a fine point BIC pen, he skillfully draws superb copies of U.S. paper money of various denominations. So realistic is his work that his drawings could easily pass for the real thing, but he is careful never to claim that they are actual currency. In fact, he describes them as works of art by his own hand.

Mr. Boggs also barters his drawings for goods and services. He values each of the drawings for the same amount as the piece of currency it portrays. For instance, he might offer to trade a drawing of a U.S. $20 bill for a meal at a restaurant that would cost $18 plus $2 change.

Boggs’s works are so well done that they have become highly sought after by art collectors, and people who accept them in trade for goods or services can easily sell them as works of art for significantly more than the value of the goods or services they exchanged for them. Numerous well-known art museums both in the United States and in other countries have featured Boggs’s drawings of U.S. currency.

Boggs’s works are also so well done that the U.S. Secret Service’s Counterfeiting Division has con- fiscated them as “counterfeit currency.” Boggs, of course, says they are “art works.” To date, Boggs has not been brought to trial in the United States for counterfeiting, and therefore no legal consen- sus has been achieved about whether his work should legally be labeled “art” or “counterfeit.” If a case were ever actually brought, a lot could ride for Mr. Boggs on which word a judge is convinced to apply.

Whorf (1956b) argued that people’s names for things often influence how they behave around those things more than the physical traits of the things themselves. He cited the industrial blower as an example. Physically, a fan is a machine that simply causes air

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.5 Linguistic Relativity

to move. Yet when it is used to make air pass through a room—such as one for drying materials—because it is called a blower, workers are likely to install it so that it blows air into the room instead of pulling air out of it. The former method of installation is no more efficient and is much more hazardous than the latter, since an electrical fire in the machine itself would be blown into the room. Once begun, the fire would be fanned by a blower installed in this way as long as it continued to function.

Sometimes labels are changed either to avoid undesirable conditioned responses or to produce a specific result. Thus, the Korean War wasn’t a war at all but a “police action”; the unpopular war in Vietnam was a “pacification program”; and more recent military actions have been “interventions,” at least until the “intervention” in Libya, which one Obama Administration spokesperson described as a “kinetic military action” (Cata- pano, 2011). Even U.S. President Lincoln’s “War Department” was renamed the “Defense Department” to make it appear more compatible with American values. Sometimes labels are changed to make things seem less bad than they really are. For example, Americans now have more ways than ever to lose their jobs. Instead of getting “fired,” they can now get “deselected,” “dehired,” “defunded,” “separated,” or “released,” just to name a few options. And instead of getting “laid-off,” which is really just another way of get- ting “fired,” they can be “made redundant,” “retrenched,” “rationalized,” or even “right- sized” (Nordquist, 2009). Similarly, tuna did not become a popular food in the United States until one company began to label it “Chicken of the Sea.” And those who wished to support what they called “decriminalization” of drug use or prostitution soon recognized that it is better to use that label than “legalization” in their legislative proposals. Western science provides a further example of the conditioning effects of verbal symbolic labels. European scientists of the late 1700s noted that when they “added heat” to an object, its weight did not change. They searched for years for evidence of other “weightless sub- stances” before they realized that heat, even though it is labeled as a noun, is actually a process rather than a substance.

In the 1970s and even before, similar influences of morphology on thinking were pointed out by feminists, who correctly noted that the traditional use of the word “man” for “human” obscures the role of women as an equal part of humankind.

Effects of Syntax Syntactical processes can also affect how speakers of a language think about the world and how they behave, although the influence of syntax is probably not as great as the effects of morphology. Nevertheless, one finds numerous examples of correlations between a society’s way of thinking about what reality is like and the grammatical characteristics of its language.

Rom Harré (1984) cites examples of Inuit grammar that parallel Inuit ideology. If the Inuit respond to the question “Who is preparing dinner?” their answer, uva-nga, does not translate as “I am” but as “The being here-mine.” The English “I hear him” becomes in Inuit tusarp-a-ra, literally, “his making of a sound with reference to me.” In general, where English grammar portrays a person as an “entity” who has attributes and intentions and who initiates actions, Inuit grammar designates a person as the “location” at which quali- ties and relations occur. This characteristic of Inuit grammar mirrors and supports Inuit social life, in which one’s position within the group is much more important than one’s

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.6 Language Change

characteristics as an individual. Responsiveness to others is the hallmark of Inuit social interaction: When one person laughs, all laugh; when one cries, everyone cries. According to Harré, “At least with respect to a large and varied catalogue of public performances, individual feelings, intentions, and reasonings play a very minor role” (p. 88).

Such parallels between syntax and culture are best viewed as systems like that of the chicken and the egg: It is not clear which came first, but each is essential to the other. Syntax may change to reflect the culture in which the language is spoken, but the habits of thought embodied in that syntax also help to maintain conformity to the rules of the culture by making those rules feel very natural to those who speak the language.

Language, then, seems to have an effect on the way people relate to the world. It is a con- scious vehicle of habitual thought. The vocabulary of any language selects segments of reality that its speakers must become aware of when they learn to use their language. And the grammar is a built-in logic system that leads its users to relate the parts of the world to one another in the same way that the grammar organizes the relationships between the words that stand for those parts of the world.

4.6 Language Change

Since languages are symbol systems, they are highly susceptible to change. Language change may occur as the language is passed, by learning, from one generation to the next. A language may also change as its speakers are influenced by their interactions with speakers of other languages. In the following sections, these processes of linguistic change will be described in detail.

Changes Over Time Since the sounds used to form the verbal symbols of a language have no necessary con- nection with the meanings of those symbols, it is possible for both the sounds and the meanings attached to them to change as time passes. Likewise, the customary ways of organizing the verbal symbols into meaningful word order to communicate relationships between the concepts may also change as time passes. Thus, with the passage of time, languages may change in their sound system, their semantic or meaning system, and in their grammatical system.

Processes of Change Change in language also occurs when words are borrowed by the speakers of one lan- guage from other languages with which they come in contact, especially those spoken by their politically and economically more powerful neighbors. For instance, following the Norman invasion of England in 1066, English speakers began to be influenced by the Old French language of the more powerful Normans. Today, about half of the vocabulary of the English language traces its origins to borrowed Old French words.

Those English speakers who had the most contact with the Norman rulers began to adopt Old French terms for elements of Norman life. The speech of the English commoners was

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.6 Language Change

less influenced. For instance, contemporary English has inherited a distinction between the cooked and live forms of several meat animals. Mutton, pork, and beef were adopted into English from Old French (moton, porc, and boef) for use when serving foods to the Nor- man rulers. When the animals were still alive and in the keeping of the English peasants, they were called by their original English names, sheep, swine, and cow (Leaf, 1971).

Borrowing tends to happen more often from the languages of politically and economi- cally dominant societies to their neighbors than the other way around. This can be seen today in the large number of words that have been borrowed from American English into other languages. Today, when printing information about computers, German newspa- pers refer to “der Computer,” “der Code,” “das Display,” “das Web-Design,” and “der Cursor.” However, such Anglicisms are not limited to computer terminology. German newspaper readers may also encounter words such as “der Trend,” “der Cash-Flow,” and “der Trainer,” English words that have displaced their German equivalents in some publications.

Dialects Changes in language occur gradually with the passage of time. Yet, at any given time, the need to communicate effectively within a social group necessitates a certain degree of mutual sharing in the sounds used to form words, in the meanings of words, and in the grammatical patterns for combining them. Consequently, a language changes in more or less the same way for all members of the group. However, when a group is subdivided, either geographically or socially, the members of each subgroup tend to communicate more frequently with one another than with outsiders. One result of such isolation is that new ways of speaking that arise in one subgroup do not necessarily pass over into others. Thus, a language originally spoken in the same way by several groups can gradu- ally change until it is made up of separate dialects, or mutually intelligible variants of a language shared by different social groups. For instance, the English now spoken in Great Britain differs from the varieties of English spoken in the United States and Australia, although all three forms developed from a single language spoken but a few hundred years ago by residents of and emigrants from Great Britain.

African American Vernacular English William Labov (1972a) studied the everyday speech of African Americans in Philadelphia, New York, and other urban centers in the United States and recorded the patterns of their English dialect, which is now technically referred to as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) but was once called Ebonics. AAVE differs in several ways from Standard English (SE), the dialect taught in U.S. schools and used by most people in the United States, at least on formal occasions.

One notable difference between AAVE and SE is the structured omission of forms of “to be” in AAVE, an omission that Lanehart (1999) argues can be traced back to the dialect’s West African roots (p. 217). This rule allows a statement such as “You are fast” to be expressed more succinctly as “You fast.” Although this deletion of “to be” is not found in Standard American English, it is not at all unusual in other languages. For instance, subject and predicate complements are not joined by a “to be” verb in Russian, Hungarian, or Arabic.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.6 Language Change

Absence or deletion of the “to be” verb in these languages and in African American Ver- nacular English causes no ambiguity, as it carries no meaning in this context that would be lost when it is deleted. Its deletion is not, in other words, a random or illogical dropping of a word that is needed for clear communication. Rather, the deletion is rule-governed and predictable. In fact, AAVE drops the “to be” in exactly those sentences in which it may be contracted in Standard English. Thus, “He is happy” may be contracted as “He’s happy” in SE, or the verb may be completely dropped to form “He happy” in AAVE. In those grammatical constructions in which “to be” cannot be contracted in SE, it cannot be deleted in AAVE. African American Vernacular English also makes use of various forms of the double negative. For instance, the Standard English “There wasn’t much I could do” becomes “Wasn’t much I couldn’t do” in AAVE, and “When it rained, nobody knew it did” becomes “When it rained, nobody don’t know it didn’t.” Again, by distributing the negative throughout the sentence rather than restricting its expression to a single place, African American Vernacular English follows a pattern found in many other languages of the world, and doing so does not create misunderstanding among speakers of any of those languages or dialects.

According to Labov, African American Vernacular English is a dialect “that is more differ- ent from most other English dialects than they are from each other” (p. 36). However, like any other dialect, most of its grammatical rules are those shared by all dialects of English. Its difference from Standard English is one of degree, not kind. In sum, the distinguishing characteristics of African American Vernacular English, like those of every other dialect, are simply a matter of differences in what Chomsky has referred to as the Surface Struc- ture of a language. African American Vernacular English has the same universal Deep Structure characteristics as all other languages and dialects. Nonetheless, those differ- ences have important social, political, and economic ramifications for AAVE speakers, which linguist John Rickford (1997) argues can be addressed through educational strate- gies that help AAVE speakers master Standard English.

Standard English is not a superior dialect. It and African American Vernacular English function equally well in meeting the communication needs of their speakers. However, SE is the prestige dialect in the United States, meaning it is the one used in education, the workplace, the mass media, official discourse, and most professional communication. The privileging of Standard English in academic settings has serious implications for AAVE speakers, whose performance may not be accurately assessed by SE-speaking teachers who lack an understanding of AAVE, possibly stigmatize AAVE as a speech form, or fail to value the linguistic diversity AAVE speakers add to the classroom. Many teachers and most students also fail to recognize AAVE as an expression of personal identity and cul- tural heritage, which can impact AAVE speakers’ confidence, self-esteem, and motivation for learning. Under such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that many AAVE speakers fail to master SE. Once out of school, that can hinder their ability to secure well-paid or high-status employment. Rickford (1999) suggests that improving AAVE students’ ability to communicate effectively in SE may lead to their improved socioeconomic status later in life.

The question of how AAVE speakers should be accommodated in the classroom remains a thorny one, as exemplified by the so-called Ebonics Controversy of the mid 1990s. In December 1996, the Oakland (California) School Board passed a resolution recognizing AAVE as the primary language of some African American students and mandating that

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.6 Language Change

district schools develop programs to address their needs (Monaghan, 1997). Students who participated in the new programs, which provided a bridge between AAVE and SE, pro- gressed more rapidly in their ability to read Standard English than those who did not. Unfortunately, the project proved so controversial that the board abandoned it after a few months. Similar strategies for addressing the needs of AAVE-speaking students in other parts of the country met with the same fate. In the Oakland case, the school board’s attempt to elevate the status of AAVE from a stigmatized type of “broken-down Eng- lish” to a legitimate speech form with a long and rich history was badly misunderstood (Monaghan, 1997). Some people wrongly assumed the board wanted AAVE taught in the classroom, others were outraged by what they saw as the elevation of slang to a legiti- mate way of speaking, and yet others perceived the move as pandering to underprepared students who simply needed to get with the game and learn “proper” English. In reality, all the board was trying to do was better meet the needs of African American students, which the early evaluations indicated they were doing. Although not objecting to the pro- posal as such, linguist John McWhorter felt the low performance of African American students could be better accounted for and more productively addressed in terms of the overall failures of underfunded intercity schools (Monaghan, 1997). Linguist Roy Kephart also thought the problem extended beyond the classroom. He noted that “gaining greater command of the standard language will not help unless society is willing to adjust its atti- tudes toward those involved.” He suggested that this may be “where anthropologists and linguists have their most important work to do: raising public awareness and understand- ing of what linguistic, cultural and biological differences mean, and most importantly, what they don’t mean”(qtd. in Monaghan, 1997, p. 9).

Dialects of the same original language can gradually become so different that they are no longer mutually intelligible. English and German, for example, were once a single language. Called Proto-Germanic by modern students of language, it was spoken on the mainland of Europe in what is now northern Germany by peoples known as the Angles and the Saxons. Those who left the mainland about 1,500 to 2,000 years ago became a separate social group in the British Isles, where their isolation allowed the language to change in different ways than it did on the mainland. Since the process of change was systematic in both groups, one finds a system of consistent parallels between the two “daughter” languages, German and English.

Basic Vocabulary The part of a language that best reflects its internal history consists of words learned by individuals early in their lives in their home setting. Such words are used frequently in normal speech situations. The habit of their use is not easily overcome, and foreign terms are not likely to supplant them (Gudschinsky, 1956). The part of a vocabulary that has these qualities is known as the basic vocabulary of a language. It includes the words most commonly used to express such concepts as father, mother, brother, sister, head, hand, foot, eat, water, drink, fire, house, earth, sky, sun, moon, and star, as well as others that designate basic elements of people’s social, biological, and physical environments.

By comparing the basic vocabularies of two languages, it is possible to determine whether they developed from the same common ancestral language, proof that may not be evident in comparing the entire contemporary vocabularies of the languages. For instance, the fact that over 50% of the English vocabulary is derived from French does not indicate that both

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.7 Language Families

languages arose recently from a common ancestral language. This distinction becomes clear only when one examines the basic English vocabulary. In this more stable part of the vocabulary, English words generally have their closest counterparts not in French but in the Germanic languages spoken in the region from which the Anglo-Saxon immigrants to England originally came.

4.7 Language Families

It is assumed that the greater the number of these stable items of basic vocabulary two languages share, the more recently they began diverging from a single parent language to become separate languages in their own right. Based on this assumption, it is pos- sible to reconstruct a family tree of related languages. Its branches correspond to major historical occurrences that led to the separation of the speakers of the original language into separate subdivisions. For instance, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Romania were once part of the Roman Empire, and Latin was the dominant language spoken through- out the empire. When the empire declined in the fifth century, each of these areas became politically independent. Afterward, their versions of Latin gradually changed until they became separate languages. Each of these “Romance languages,” as they are called today, is a branch that grew out of Latin. Similarly, Old English separated from the other Germanic languages (such as those that became German, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian) when some Anglo-Saxons migrated from the northern German coast to the British Isles about 500 CE. After that the islanders were no longer in sufficiently intense communication with their mainland counterparts to maintain language unity.

Almost all of the world’s languages can be grouped into 93 language families. These are groupings of related languages that evolved from a single, ancestral language spoken about 5,000 or 6,000 years ago. For instance, most of the languages of Europe, as well as those that spread from Europe into India, developed from a single common ancestral lan- guage that contemporary linguists call Proto-Indo-European. Proto-Indo-European was spoken about 5,000 years ago.

Contemporary World Languages Most linguists estimate that there are at least 3,000 languages spoken in the world today but some put the figure at closer to 5,000. The exact number is difficult to determine because the dialects that make up a language can be so similar or so distinct that linguists disagree on whether they should be called dialects or separate languages. Consider German and Dutch. Although speakers of Bavarian German dialects would be unable to comprehend the dialect spoken in a German village in Schleswig-Holstein near the border of Denmark, the change from one local dialect to the next is too gradual to claim that there is more than one German language in the country. Similarly, the dialects spoken in small towns on either side of the German and Dutch border may be so similar that the inhabitants of those towns can understand one another. However, despite the mutual intelligibility of their languages, they speak of German and Dutch as if they were separate languages. In fact, some southern German dialects differ more from the nationally preferred way of speaking the modern standard German “language” (which is mostly based on northern German dialects) than some northern dialects in Germany differ from Dutch.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.7 Language Families

Some languages are spoken by relatively few native speakers. For instance, only a few thousand people speak Shoshone today. On the other hand, some languages are spoken by many different societies with very different cultures. Such languages may cross the borders of modern nation-states and be spoken by millions of people. For instance, due to colonialism, English is one of the official languages of India as well as the native tongue of peoples inhabiting lands as scattered as England, Canada, South Africa, the Falkland Islands, New Zealand, and Jamaica. See Figure 4.2 for more on language preferences in the United States.

The languages spoken by the largest numbers of people today are those that have become the national languages of major countries. The Beijing dialect (formerly called Mandarin) of Chinese is spoken by more than 950 million people. It is the most commonly spoken language in the world. English is the next most common with about 470 million speakers.

Figure 4.2: The politics of language

Source: Data from Crawford, J. (2012). Language legislation in the U.S.A. Language Policy.net. Retreived from http://www.languagepolicy .net/archives/langleg.htm

Many states have declared English as the official language. Have you encountered arguments for or against making English the official language of the United States?

States that have declared English as the official language

States with two official languages

States that have passed English plus another language resolutions

Undeclared states

TX

CA 1986

NV

OR 1989

WA 1989

ID 2007

MT 1995

WY 1996

UT 2000

AZ 2006 NM1989

OK 2010

KS 2007

CO 1988

NE 1923

SD 1995

ND 1987

WI MN

IL 1969

IA 2002

MO 1998

AR 1987

LA

MS 1998

AL 1990

GA 1996

FL 1988

SC 1987

NC TN 1984

1987

1984 KY

MI

IN 1984

OH 2010

PA

NY

WV VA 1981

MEVT

MA

NH 1995

RI 1992

MD DE NJ CT

HI 1978

AK 1998

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.7 Language Families

In some parts of the world, many different languages are spoken by people who differ relatively little in their culture. Canada maintains two nationally recognized languages, French and English; political speeches and advertising must be carried out in both. About 400 languages are spoken in Nigeria, of which only one, English, has been designated an official language. Such a diversity of spoken languages can create enormous political problems in administering governmental affairs throughout the country. The elevation of one or more languages to official status is intended to alleviate some of these problems. Since government business is largely conducted in an official language, speakers of other languages are expected to learn one of the official languages or find an interpreter when they wish to deal with government administrators. Where national languages exist, they are likely to be the ones used in the school system, the idea being that all citizens should learn the national language or languages. Although the selection of one of a society’s lan- guages as an official one may simplify some of the problems of governing a linguistically diverse country, the designation of a single official language is not without its problems. For instance, speakers of a nonofficial language may find themselves at a political or eco- nomic disadvantage compared with those who speak the national language.

Language Extinction Although there are at least 3,000 languages in the world today, not all of them have a large body of speakers. Only about 200 are spoken by more than a million people. Many lan- guages are spoken by fewer than a thousand people, and the number of the world’s lan- guages declines each year. For instance, when Columbus crossed the Atlantic there were about 300 languages spoken in North America. Today only 207 survive. Of the approxi- mately 300,000 people who speak a native North American language, about a third are speakers of Navajo. The remaining languages average fewer than 1,000 speakers each, but for many the numbers are much smaller. Alaska offers a typical exam- ple of the decline of indigenous North American languages. Of its 20 native languages, there are only two that are still being learned by children. Of the 187 native languages outside Alaska, 149 are no longer being learned.

The decline of languages in North America is not unique. The same thing is happening throughout the world, and the total number of human languages is actually declin- ing at an accelerating rate. Jared Diamond (1993) estimates that at the current rate of language extinction the total number of languages will drop to just a few hundred within the next 2 centuries.

Everett Collection/SuperStock Beginning in the 1800s and lasting until the middle 1900s, schools were developed to force Native American children to assimilate. One of the goals was to eliminate the native languages and replace them with English.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.7 Language Families

Welsh Language Preservation and Revitalization

Wales is one of the constituent countries of Great Britain. Almost everyone who identifies as Welsh speaks English, the national language of Britain, but the traditional language of Wales was Welsh or, more accurately, Cymraeg, a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. Welsh is closely related to Irish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, and Cornish (all indigenous languages of the British Isles), and Breton, an indigenous language of Brittany, France. Of the Celtic languages still spoken in Britain today, Welsh has the most Native speakers, or people whose first language or “mother tongue” is Welsh. In the 2011 Census conducted by the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics, 19% of the people in Wales reported that they could speak Welsh, a drop from 20.8% in 2001 but still well up from the 18.7% recorded in 1991. In the 2001 Census, about 582,000 people reported they could speak Welsh; in 2011, only 562,000 said they could, which is still more than the 508,000 recorded in 1991. Analysts attribute the downward shift noted between 2001 and 2011 to changing demographics: Older people for whom Welsh was the mother tongue had died and been replaced by non-Welsh-speaking migrants into the area. That, however, does not explain why the 2001 and 2011 figures are higher than the figure from 1991, when one could assume more Native speakers were still alive.

Besides having the largest number of indigenous language speakers in Great Britain, Wales also has what is probably the most extensive and aggressive language preservation program, as well as the one that enjoys the greatest political backing. Most people who identify as Welsh embrace the Welsh language as a symbol of their distinctive cultural identity, even if they don’t speak or understand it themselves. The increase in Welsh speakers from 508,000 to 562,000 over the 20-year period from 1991 to 2011 is undoubtedly a consequence of the Welsh people’s growing commit- ment to preserving their language and the programs they put in place to do so, efforts supported by the British Parliament and what is now known as the Welsh Assembly. It is noteworthy that this same 2-decade span was marked by an upsurge of Welsh nationalist sentiment and an increase in the strength and extent of Welsh self-governance, a linkage between nationalist sentiment and lan- guage revitalization seen in postcolonial contexts worldwide.

Two significant pieces of legislation were passed in 1990s that furthered the preservation of the Welsh language and enhanced its status: the Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998. The Welsh Language Act put Welsh on equal footing with English in Wales, at least in the public sphere. As a result, all road signs in Wales are now in both English and Welsh, as are many government documents; applicants for government and university jobs in Wales are asked whether or not they can speak Welsh, and people have the right to use Welsh as their language of choice in court and other official contexts. The Government of Wales Act 1998 established what is now the Welsh National Assembly, which has actively sought to preserve and revitalize the Welsh language and has strategically used the language as a symbol of Welsh national identity. Since 2000, the study of Welsh has been mandatory for all students under 16 years of age attending state schools in Wales, even those who do not identify as Welsh. As a result, even those who don’t routinely speak Welsh are now able to understand the language, at least to a degree. In late 2010, the Welsh Assembly passed measures that further strengthened the official status of Welsh. Two months later those measures received the Royal Approval necessary to make Welsh an official language in Wales. The National Government of Wales (Official Languages) Act 2012 included additional measures to aimed at promoting the Welsh language.

(continued)

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.8 Sociolinguistics

Welsh Language Preservation and Revitalization (continued)

All of these steps have served to not only preserve but also to revitalize the Welsh language. Thus far there are no daily newspapers published exclusively in Welsh, but there are daily papers that include Welsh columns. There are also weekly and monthly newspapers and a growing list of magazines pub- lished exclusively in Welsh. The percentage of television and radio programs broadcast in Welsh in Wales is also steadily growing. Research by Nikolas Coupland (2012) indicates that Welsh is increas- ingly privileged over English on road signs and in other types of displays in public spaces in Wales.

4.8 Sociolinguistics

Language is not simply studied in terms of its grammatical or semantic characteris-tics. It is also studied in terms of how people use it in social contexts. Such studies of the social uses of language are referred to as sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistic stud- ies focus on how language is used and on how the use of language conveys information about the social settings in which it is used. Many topics are subsumed under the category of sociolinguistics, including such things as conventions regarding politeness in speaking, speech differences that reflect differences in gender and social rank, variations in lan- guage that reflect differences in the degree of formality, and the setting in which language is used. In fact, any of the ways in which language use varies systematically in a socially meaningful way is subject matter for sociolinguists. Only four will be briefly examined here—gender and rank differences in speech, prestige dialects, and linguistic nationalism.

Gender and Language It is not uncommon for styles of speaking to differ by gender (Figure 4.3). Gender dif- ferences can exist in how words are pronounced, in the words used for the same things, and even—to a more limited degree—in grammar. Besides such structural differences in grammar, vocabulary, and phonology, gender differences can be found in how language is used (Tannen, 1990). For instance, in American English women use a higher frequency of modifiers such as “maybe,” “I think that . . . ,” and “perhaps,” modifiers that communi- cate deference to those spoken to and that make the assertions less dogmatic. In contrast, men are typically more direct in their formulation of sentences. Similarly, women speak- ers are somewhat more likely than men to frame a request as a question—”Would you like to come into the dining room now?” Deborah Tannen (1994), one of the leading scholars researching gender differences in language use, has found that men and women have dif- ferent ways of communicating their needs in the workplace, which can lead to misunder- standings and inaccurate evaluations of job performance. This is not to say that any of the differences mentioned are hard and fast, only that men and women as groups tend more toward one communication style or the other.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.8 Sociolinguistics

Figure 4.3: Gender differences in language

Gender differences can exist in how language is used. In American English, women frame a request as question and use the modifiers “maybe,” “I think that . . . ,” and “perhaps” to maintain politeness and deference. Men, on the other hand, are more assertive and direct, even in their requests.

In Japanese, such gender differences are more consistently conformed to than they are in English. For instance, according to Shibamoto (1987), Japanese women and men use differ- ent words for a variety of things. A man says “eat” using the Japanese word kuu, but women say taberu, meaning the same food. A man says that the food is delicious by using the word umai, while a woman is expected to say oisii. For men, water is misu, while women refer to it as ohiya. As in English, such gendered differences in speaking associate a higher degree of deference and politeness with the speech expected of women. However, since the 1990s a very small subset of young Japanese women, members of the ultra-cool and rebellious Kogal subculture, have been using gendered language in a very different way. In addition to their behavior and clothing styles, they have been using a particular form of slang to shock more conservative members of society, to craft their own sense of self, to assert their sexual independence, and to challenge traditional gender relations (Miller, 2004).

Differences in the vocabularies of men and women were great enough in the Carib lan- guage in the 17th century that a few writers described them as having different men’s and women’s languages. This was an overstatement, but the vocabulary differences between men and women speakers of Carib were great enough that native speakers them- selves theorized that they developed when the warlike Caribs killed off the men of their Arawakan-speaking neighbors and took the Arawak women as wives. Although such intermarriages may have occurred, gender differences in Carib speech were more likely an internal development that was simply more pronounced than it is for most other lan- guages rather than something fundamentally different. As in other languages, the differ- ence between the speech of Carib men and women was primarily in a limited number of gender-specific words, such as the words used by men and women for some kinship terms, household items, and features of the natural environment.

Perhaps we can try something

else…

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.8 Sociolinguistics

Where gender differences in speech exist, even where the differences are pronounced, they are differences in the use of a single language rather than the use of different languages. Likewise, they are not differences in the ability to understand or even speak in both ways. Members of either gender are always capable of quoting things said by persons of the other gender. Finally, gender differences in speech are fairly widespread. Anthropologist Mary Haas (1944) noted that they were found in the Muskogean languages of the south- eastern part of the United States, in the Yana language of California, and among the native languages of Canada, as well as in some languages of South America and Asia.

Language and Social Rank Language can also communicate differences in the social rank of persons. For instance, in English, relative social respect can be indicated by the use of a person’s first name versus a title such as Mr., Mrs., or Dr., and his or her last name. In college classrooms, instructors usually address students by their first names whereas students usually address instruc- tors as Professor or Doctor plus their last names. Several European languages indicate degrees of intimacy and respect by a simple distinction between “formal” and “familiar” forms of speech that use one set of pronoun and verb forms to indicate an intimate rela- tionship or subordination (e.g., the German use of the pronoun du and its equivalent verb form among friends or by adults when addressing children) and another for speaking respectfully to social superiors or strangers (e.g., the German use of the pronoun Sie and its associated verb form). One way in which differences in rank between individuals can be indicated is by how one person speaks to another. For instance, many languages have honorifics, linguistic markers that signal respect toward the person being addressed. Such markers may even signal varying degrees of relative rank and respect. For instance, linguistic anthropologists Jane and Kenneth Hill (1978) described the Nahuatl language of Mexico as having honorifics that marked four levels of respect: intimacy or subordina- tion, neutrality or distance, honor, and godparenthood. This system for marking degrees of intimacy, social distance, respect, and quasi-kinship allowed Nahuatl speakers to com- municate nuanced distinctions about their relationships with those to whom they speak.

Prestige Dialects In societies such as our own that have social classes, the dialect of the most powerful and prestigious social class is typically thought of by its speakers as somehow superior to other dialects spoken within the society. In such cases, the inability to speak the dialect of the elite may become a means of identifying those who do not belong to the elite and thus of discrimination. According to Pierre Bourdieu (1982, 1984), speaking the dialect of the politically powerful or of the wealthy class can become a necessary skill for those who wish to participate in those areas of social life. As a result, the dialects of such groups sometimes acquire the reputation of being superior to others. Dialects with a reputation of being inherently better than others are called prestige dialects.

In countries that have one traditionally accepted prestige dialect, it is often a dialect spo- ken in the capital city. In France, it was a dialect of Paris that became the national stan- dard of “good French.” In England, it was the dialect spoken by the monarch (“Queen’s English”) and graduates of Oxford (“Oxford English”) or Cambridge (“Cambridge Eng- lish”) Universities. In the United States, where the capital was created as an unconnected district not based on a previously existing population center, the nationally preferred

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.8 Sociolinguistics

dialect taught in the school system does not belong to any particular part of the country. It is somewhat of an amalgam and is most often spoken by television and radio newscast- ers. Dan Rather, who hosted the CBS nightly news for many years, had a distinctive Texas accent in casual conversation but adopted the preferred dialect for his news broadcasts.

Societies that lack social classes but rank the extended families of their leaders above others may reserve certain words or expressions as to be properly spoken only by that elite group. Societies in which there are neither social classes nor elite groups tend not to develop prestige dialects.

For instance, foraging societies such as the Great Basin Shoshone had numerous dialects, but none were considered somehow better than any other.

Language and Nationalism Judgments about the value of a particular language also take the form of linguistic nationalism, political prejudices that grant one language special legal status as a “national language,” the use of which is required in settings such as the education sys- tem. In contemporary countries made up of peoples who speak more than one language, intergroup politics similar to those that give rise to prestige dialects can influence lan- guage preferences in the political arena. In Canada, for instance, English is the dominant language used for most economic and political transactions in most of the country, but French plays the dominant role in the province of Quebec. The country as a whole rec- ognizes both languages as “official” national tongues for the conduct of government business, and products sold in stores throughout the country are labeled in both French and English. In Quebec, the one Canadian province in which French-speaking citizens have greater political and economic influence than English speakers, French has the legal status of being the official language of the provincial government. Rooted in Canada’s colonial period, this privileging of the French language reflects the strong sense of a distinctive French Canadian identity that underpins the ongoing debate over Quebec Independence described by Richard Handler (1988).

The political loyalties symbolized by preference for one language or another can be pow- erful enough to express themselves in public hostility between members of different lan- guage communities within a country. Competition between native French and English speakers in Canada has erupted into open conflict on more than one occasion and has been the basis for a secessionist movement within Quebec aimed at founding a separate, French-speaking country. Language as a political rallying point of this kind is not unique to Canada. For instance, the Basque separatist movement in Spain and France has a long history of armed conflict based on the demands of specific language-speaking groups. The United States has seen two recurring political issues during periods of large-scale immi- gration by non-English-speaking people. The first of these issues is whether or not English should be officially declared the country’s national language. As of 2011, the United States had no official language at the federal level, but 28 of the 50 states had declared English as their official language, most of them since the early 1980s, when immigration into the United States from Spanish-speaking countries increased. The second issue is which lan- guage should be used in school to teach children who do not speak English or are less pro- ficient in English than in another language. The Ebonics Controversy mentioned earlier in the chapter is just one example of this last issue.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.8 Sociolinguistics

The Verbal Arts The verbal arts, sometimes called oral literature, include myths, legends, rhetoric, folk- tales, proverbs, riddles, jokes, and other forms of art that are based on language and enrich the human experience.

Myths Stories that recount the origin of such things as the gods, the universe, human beings, animals, and plants are considered myths. They may explain how human ways of life began, the nature of death, and the afterlife. Usually myths are placed in the distant past and involve supernatural beings. For example, the Shoshone of the Great Basin desert tell of a time when the sun was so close to the Earth that people were dying, and the plants of the earth were burned up, so there was no food to be found. Cottontail, one of the creatures of the Earth, decided to kill the sun and set things right. He took some rocks as weapons and traveled toward where the sun rises until it got too hot for him. Then he began to burrow until he got to his destination. He made a hunting blind and waited until the sun came up. When the sun arose, Cottontail threw a rock at the sun and killed him. It was so hot that Cottontail was scorched, which left him brown, as he is to this day. After a while, the sun revived, but Cottontail removed the sun’s gallbladder and told the sun that he must go up higher in the sky so that all people might have light to gather food but not be burned. Out of the sun’s gallbladder, Cottontail fashioned the moon, which also went up to the sky.

According to Clyde Kluckhohn (1965), five themes seem to be found in the myths of every society: great natural catastrophes (most often by flood, but sometimes by earthquake, hurricane, or fire); monster slaying; incest (usually by brother and sister); sibling rivalry; and castration (in real or, more often, symbolic form). The list clearly deals with anxiety- related matters that must be addressed by peoples the world around.

Legends Another category of tales consists of legends. Legends are very similar to myths but usu- ally deal with a more recent period of time. Their central characters are heroes and hero- ines of great stature who are usually responsible for the origin of a particular society or culture. Although they are usually regarded as real persons, they are often thought to possess superhuman qualities and to embody the central values of their society. The leg- endary figures of U.S. culture are noted for their individualism, self-reliance, strength, and cleverness. They stand up for their ideals against great odds, triumphing over adversity. George Washington is one legendary figure who actually existed, yet time has endowed him with stature somewhat above that of a real person. He is remembered in U.S. folklore as being unable to tell a lie even as a child. At one time, it was said that he was strong enough to have thrown a silver dollar across the Rappahannock River. In many parts of the country, the river in this story has become the much wider Potomac. Other U.S. legends are based on purely fictional characters, like Johnny Appleseed, whose exploits included the planting of apple trees throughout the New World.

New legends can arise in each generation and be an active part of people’s sense of their current place in the broader scheme of things. For instance, legends of a hitchhiker who

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.8 Sociolinguistics

admonishes people about their obligations and then vanishes mysteriously have been common for generations in the American West. Many legends are traditional tales that date far back into history, while similar stories about more recent events—e.g., the story of a homicidal maniac who kills couples in the local “lovers’ lane”—are commonly referred to as “urban legends” to indicate their more recent origin. However, both varieties tend to be cautionary tales that either function to admonish the hearer to follow the values of the group or to avoid violating those values.

Rhetoric Formal speech that follows the traditional rules of a particular culture is called rhetoric. Most societies acknowledge a distinction between ordinary, everyday speech and the elegant speech used for special occasions. It is particularly common in societies with class differences to provide formal education, at least to the elite members of society, in styles of public speaking that are judged to be refined and aesthetically pleasing. For instance, among the Aztecs, members of the nobility received special training in public speaking, including the use of metaphors, poetry, proverbs, and other ways of embellish- ing their oratory.

Folktales Fictional stories that are told primarily for entertainment but also teach a moral prin- ciple or a practical lesson are called folktales. Aesop’s fables capture the essence of folk-

tales told both for pleasure and to teach a lesson, as do many of the Grimms’ fairy tales. Folktales are commonly placed in a timeless setting and vague location. They portray the basic dilemmas with which people must grapple as they strive to attain the goals of their culture. For instance, many European folktales are built around the theme of a poor but beautiful young girl who is often mistreated by her evil stepmother or sisters but who, by some type of magic or supernatural intervention, is rescued from her life of drudgery and raised to high status as the wife of a hand- some prince. Against the backdrop of European social systems in which the female role tradi- tionally included domestic chores and economic dependence on an income controlled by fathers and husbands, such folktales can be seen as stress reduction through wish fulfillment. They also contain the moral: Dutiful little girls will be rewarded. In the United States, a popular series of folktales includes those about the fictional character Paul Bunyan, whose exploits included the creation of Puget Sound. The telling of Paul Bunyan stories reinforces historic U.S. values of expansiveness and pride in heroic individualism.

.Getty Images/Photos.com/Thinkstock Folktales represent an important part of a culture’s linguistic identity. They are told for entertainment but also contain some sort of moral or lesson.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.8 Sociolinguistics

Appalachian Storyteller

In a ramshackle home on a mountainside in the Appalachian Mountains, Ray Hicks, 69, has become a legend in the art of storytelling. He is known primarily for his mastery of 18 “Jack Tales,” which tell the story of a clever, poor boy, Jack, who overcomes adversity with skill, cleverness, and good work.

Jack Tales, or similar stories, were once told all across Europe and were collected by the Grimm brothers in Germany around 1812. The stories were passed down in the oral tradition to Hicks’s ancestor, Council Harmon, who died in this country in 1896 at the age of 93, and to Hicks, in an unbroken line of 8 generations. They have become a metaphor for growing up poor in Appalachia. “The Jack Tales is how it feels to be a poor person,” says Mr. Hicks (DeParle, 1992, p. B7).

All the Jack Tales contain the elements of poverty, anger, wisdom, cunning, and heroics on the part of the young boy, Jack. In “Soldier Jack,” for example, Jack ties up Death in a magical sack. In “Jack and the Bean Tree,” he steals a sleeping giant’s quilt, and escapes by hiding the giant’s boots. In a story of courtship, Jack outwits a farmer who challenged anyone wanting to court his daughter to make a rabbit stay within the boundaries of a circle 10 feet wide. The danger was real, since the farmer would chop off the suitor’s head if the rabbit escaped. If the rabbit stayed, the farmer would lose his head. Through generously sharing his lunch with an old man, Jack obtained a magic stick which, when placed in the center of the circle, prevented the rabbit from leaving the circle.

Thus, through generosity, courage, and a little magic, Jack became a hero, and married the farmer’s daughter.

Proverbs Like myths and legends, proverbs embody the basic values of a culture, but in a form that can readily express issues that concern people. Their brevity makes it possible for prov- erbs to be inserted into conversations, where they can be used to cast light on the topics being discussed, comment on the propriety of a state of affairs, call others to take action, or even mildly rebuke another person without direct confrontation. In accordance with the work ethic, Americans remind each other that “the early bird gets the worm” or “a stitch in time saves nine.”

Riddles Mental puzzles told for entertainment are called riddles. By describing familiar things in novel ways, they challenge hearers to exercise their ability to see similarities between things not usually associated with one another. They are a source of information about what a people considers noteworthy in their environment, how they classify things, and what aspects of those things they judge to be relevant. For instance, Aztec riddles about spindles are often related to pregnancy. Perhaps the most obvious analogy is that the spindle grows in size as it is filled, just as a woman does in pregnancy. However, a subtler message carried by these Aztec riddles is one of classification: They reiterate the idea that the spindle is symbolically associated with the woman’s role.

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CHAPTER 4Section 4.8 Sociolinguistics

Jokes One important form of verbal humor is jokes, things said to cause laughter. Jokes have long been recognized for their role in helping people relieve the tensions of their way of life. Because the major anxieties differ from society to society, so does the type of humor. Consider the Inuit of northern Alaska and Canada. They live in a harsh environment that challenges the limits of their skill. The ability to endure pain and to cope skillfully with potentially disastrous situations is necessary for survival in the far north. Consequently, the people’s reaction to stories of near-disasters is one of mirth.

Language and Social Media In examining language change earlier in the chapter, the emphasis was on the impact of social and geographical isolation in fostering the development of distinct dialects and even new languages. Since all human societies are divided both geographically and socially into somewhat distinct groups, these processes are inevitable, but they can also be slowed by technologies that foster communication across those boundaries. At the very least, such technologies support a broader use of a more widely shared dialect. Historically, the education systems of nation-states have taught a “standard” version of the dominant language (or languages) of each country. Social media (online forums of communication such as Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and Pinterest), traditional noninteractive media such as newspapers and magazines, and the Internet function in a similar way by spreading new idioms and forms of expression. Acronyms such as LOL, ROTFL, RUOK, and IMO are now so widespread that they do not require defining for most of us.

Since the rise of the Internet and mobile technologies to access it, participation in social media has become one of the major activities of human beings where these technologies are available and widespread. Internet gaming—which includes communication with other gamers during play—and participation in such things as Facebook, email lists, and blogging can involve hours during each day. About 17% of couples married in the last few years met through an Internet dating service and as many as 1 in 5 people have dated someone they met on the Internet (Blatt, 2010).

The strong role of social media in our lives today has radically altered the way we per- ceive ourselves and others, as well as our relationships with one another and our styles of communicating. For instance, a “friend” was once that special person in whom we could confide in anything and on whose shoulder we could lean for emotional support. Today a “friend” is one of the 300+ persons on our Facebook page. Some years ago a col- league reported seeing two people approaching one another in a large mall while talking to each other by cell phone. As they began to walk together, they continued to use their cell phones!

As social networking comes to involve hundreds of millions of participants, not only does interaction among those participants become increasingly impersonal, but fundamental concepts other than just “friend” can also be impacted. What does the concept of “pri- vacy” mean now that our profiles are readily available to anyone throughout the world? When advertising is integrated by marketing companies into what otherwise seems to be

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CHAPTER 4Discussion Questions

conversations, can it still be recognized as easily as it is in the print media? And how do we decide which person who holds him- or herself forth as an “expert” on any topic really is? In earlier times, when most interaction was face to face, we could make such judg- ments more readily because we actually knew those who shared their opinions with us. In social media, separating the gold from the dross can become a daunting task.

Chapter Summary 1. The basis for the complexity of human culture is our ability to form and commu-

nicate concepts. 2. Signs are communications that express our feelings directly. 3. Symbols are forms of communication in which one thing is arbitrarily used to

represent another, according to socially agreed-upon and learned conventions. 4. Human communication is highly symbolic and therefore extremely flexible. 5. While some nonverbal messages, such as our gestures, facial expressions, body

language, and distances from each other, are spontaneous signs of our emotions, even nonverbal communications may be symbolic.

6. Verbal communication—language—is totally symbolic, for speech sounds, written words, and ways of arranging them are uniquely and arbitrarily assigned symbolic meanings within each culture.

7. The capacity for creating and using complex language systems seems to reside within certain areas of the human cerebral cortex.

8. Some nonhuman primates may have similar language capacities as humans, though more limited, but these primates do not use their capacities unless they are carefully taught to do so.

9. Languages and cultures are so closely linked that the forms and patterns of our speech both affect and reflect how we perceive the world.

10. Languages, like their cultures, change over time with influences from other cultures and their languages.

11. The part of a language that is most resistant to change is its basic vocabulary, which consists of household words taught and used from childhood.

12. Differences and similarities in basic vocabularies allow linguists to trace the his- torical growth of language families into the many languages and dialects spoken in the world today.

Discussion Questions 1. In what sense is the very existence of culture based on the human ability to create

and use symbols? 2. How is speech different from language? 3. What evidence is there that humans may have an innate tendency to acquire

language? 4. What may pidgins and creoles reveal about the origin of language? 5. How do dialects develop in a language? 6. What is a language family? 7. How do social media influence language change?

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CHAPTER 4Key Terms

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) The everyday dialect spoken by some urban African Americans.

basic vocabulary The words that chil- dren normally learn in their earliest years at home and use frequently in normal speaking.

communication The transfer of informa- tion embodied in concepts or ideas from one person to another using observable objects or events such as gestures or spo- ken words to represent those concepts.

creoles New languages that are created by groups of people who did not speak the same language when they first came together.

dialects Mutually intelligible variants of a language shared by different social groups.

folktales Stories told for entertainment that teach a moral principle or a practical lesson.

grammar The analysis of the regular and predictable ways that the sounds of a lan- guage are combined to form meaningful utterances.

honorifics Linguistic markers that sig- nal respect toward the person being addressed.

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) A system of fewer than 100 written symbols that can be used for writing any of the world’s more than 3,000 spoken languages.

intimate distance The space around a person that is reserved for occasions when caressing and touch are appropriate.

jokes Things said to incite laughter.

language A system of communica- tion that uses both signs and symbols to communicate.

language families Groups of related languages, each of which evolved from a single, ancestral language that was spoken about 5,000 or 6,000 years ago.

legends Stories that describe heroes and heroines who are usually responsible for the origin of a culture or society.

linguistic nationalism Prejudices con- cerning the elevation of one language or another to special legal status as a “national language” that is required for use in various settings.

linguistic relativity The idea that lan- guage influences thought processes.

metacommunication system A system that can be used to communicate about itself.

morphemes The smallest meaningful units of a language.

morphology The study of how phonemes are combined into the smallest meaningful units (called morphemes) of a language.

myths Stories that recount the origin of such things as gods, the universe, animals, and plants.

nonverbal communication Messages that we convey to each other without words or beyond words alone.

open system A system in which sounds can be arranged and rearranged in an unlimited number of ways to convey an unlimited number of different meanings.

Key Terms

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CHAPTER 4Key Terms

oral literature See verbal arts.

personal distance The zone around individuals that people enter to indicate friendship.

phoneme Similar groups of sounds that native speakers of a language normally do not think of as being significantly different.

phonology The study of sounds used in speech and the rules for producing the sequences of sounds that occur in a par- ticular language.

pidgin languages Simplified versions of one language or a combination of several languages that are not as grammatically complex as other languages.

prestige dialects Dialects with a reputa- tion of being inherently better than others.

Proto-Germanic The ancestral language of English, German, and other Germanic languages that was spoken about 1,500 to 2,000 years ago on the mainland of Europe in what is now northern Germany by peo- ples known as the Angles and the Saxons.

Proto-Indo-European Ancestral language from which most of the languages from Europe through India evolved.

proverbs Short statements that illustrate the basic values of a culture.

proxemics The study of people’s use of the space around them.

public distance The distance to which people adjust themselves to others when they are engaged in impersonal interaction.

rhetoric Formal speech that follows the traditional rules of a particular culture.

riddles Mental puzzles told for entertainment.

Sapir–Whorf hypothesis See linguistic relativity.

signs Expressions such as tears, smiles, clenched fists, or agitated gestures that are spontaneous expressions of our feelings, needs, or concepts.

social distance The space around a person that is used in more impersonal interac- tions of a cordial type such as those com- mon in business transactions.

social media Online forms of communica- tion such as Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and Pinterest.

sociolinguistics The study of how lan- guage is used and how the use of language conveys information about the social set- tings in which it is used.

speech The audible symbols that people use to communicate.

Standard English (SE) The dialect taught in U.S. schools and used by most people in the United States, at least on formal occasions.

symbols Objects or events that have no inherent significance and whose meanings exist only because their users have agreed that they will represent certain other objects or events.

syntax The study of the rules for combin- ing morphemes into complete and mean- ingful sentences.

verbal arts Various forms of speaking for aesthetic pleasure, including orating, recit- ing myths, and telling folktales.

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