• Ex. “Thou” 

• Originally, thou was simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronoun “ye”  Following other Indo-European languages, thou was later used to express intimacy, familiarity, or even disrespect
• In the 17th century, thou fell into disuse in the standard language
• In standard modern English, thou is used only in formal religious contexts, in literature, and in fixed phrases

• Ex. “Nice”

• Originally a Latin term meaning “not to know”

• Originally a ‘nice person’ was someone who was ignorant or unaware.

• Today, modern meaning is someone enjoyable, delightful

• Firstness: iconicity

o Ex. If the constraints of successful signification require that the sign reflect qualitative features of the object/resembles what it “stands for”

o Ex. Picture of your face is an icon of you

o Ex. Square with a picture of a printer is an icon for printing function

o Ex. Cigarette with a bar across is an icon for smoking? Don’t do it.

• Secondness: indexicality

o Ex. If the constraints of successful signification require that the sign utilize some existential or sensory connection between it and its object (A implies B)

o Ex. Dark clouds are an index of impending rain

o Ex. A scowling face is an index of displeasure

o Ex. Here, there, I, me, you, this, etc. when they point to their meaning

• Thirdness: symbolism

o Ex. If successful signification of the object requires that the sign utilize some convention, habit or social rule or law that connects it with the object o Ex. Bald eagle for USA

o Ex. Star of David for Judaism

o Ex. Font for a specific product (e.g. Coke)

something that shares characteristics, such as shape, with that for which it is an icon.

Example: a drawing of a person is an icon of an actual person.

something that represents something else in an arbitrary way.

Example: the American flag can be a symbol of freedom.

something which points to the context of something else.

Example: smoke is an index of fire, a Texan accent is an index (to some) of being uneducated. ;signs taht have some kind of existential relation with what they refer to.

• There is a social deixis that maps social status onto pronouns

o Ex. Latin tu/vos; Russian ty/vy

Ex. In Japanese, social inferiors speak to social superiors using a distinct, honorific verb form, while superiors speak to inferiors using plain forms. The ability to speak eloquently or coherently when intoxicated may also be an indicator of status, such as the "talking from the straw" practice in the southern Philippines.

• Genres are formed by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones are discontinued. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions.

• Genres are socially specified within cultures, and help people manipulate the meanings of content dependent upon the culture. When certain forms or genres are used in everyday communication, the meanings of those forms are anticipated by the audience depending on the social situation.

For example, a joke is fairly easy to recognize, is meant to be funny, and is not meant to be taken seriously. Given this cultural knowledge, when we hear a joke told we understand that the meaning relative to the form is silly or satirical, even if the joke may be interpreted as offensive otherwise.

• There is a gender index which creates a way of “sounding” male or female

•Gender and Hierarchy

o Difference and social inequality

o Multiple gender roles and statuses in some society

• Relationships between gender and language and symbolic behavior

o How to talk, when to talk, and to who to talk

o Words that refer to women and men

o Symbolic media “naturalize” gender difference

Make clear; made to seem natural and universal

o Narratives (including jokes) about women and men

•In Bedouin thought:

o Maleness associated with autonomy

o Femaleness associated with dependency

o Men preference for sons over daughters

o Mourning with birth of daughter

o Women’s association with nature is a handicap to their becoming morally worthy

Many languages naturalize gender differences in grammar through pronominal systems, especially in the third person (he vs. she) and through noun and adjective classes referred to as genders.

The symbolic system of clothing is another way gender differences are naturalized - what women can/are expected to wear and what men can/are expected to wear is different for different cultures. In this context, "naturalize" refers to the process of acclimatization to the demands of arbitrary cultural practices.

Linguistic anthropology starts from the theoretical assumption n that words matter and from the empirical findings that linguistic signs are representations of the world and connections to the world are never neutral; they are constantly used for the construction of cultural affinities and cultural differentiations (p.5)

• Basic principle of the arbitrary nature of a linguistic sign: there is no natural reason why a particular sign should be attached to a particular concept

o For example, seen in “Understanding Comics”, where there are multiple examples of various icons, and below them saying that it is not what it seems. Like an icon of cow, and it saying ‘this is not a cow’, or a picture of a pipe, and saying ‘this is not a pipe’

• According to the reading:

o “vailing is unique in that it is peculiar to women and has a specifically sexual meaning.

As we saw, sexuality is the most potent threat” (Veiled Sentiments Page 165)

o “used to show respect for that social order, and the people who represent it, women must deny their sexuality.

They do so by denying sexual interest—avoiding and acting uninterested in men, dressing modestly as to not draw attention to their sexual charms, and veiling. By distancing themselves from sexuality and its social associations, they escape moral stigma and only gain the kind of honor open to them: modesty, the honor of voluntary deference, which is the moral virtue of dependents in Bedouin society.” (Veiled Sentiments Page 165)

• Proff. Keating’s explanation:

o Used as a gesture for modesty

o In some societies veils are required just like clothes are here, it is meaningful because there is a contrast set. They only veil to higher status men and this becomes a marker. It shows status outside of intimate group.

For example, just like how we use “yes sir, no mam”

o Morally good to differentiate according to social status

o Is “vocabulary item” used to expand flexibility that language can be expressed through different ways

• Can be deemed incompetent and judged “unprofessional, impolite, ignorant, tactless, or unprepared”

Certain ways of using language have more authority/credibility than others, both by those who have mastered those forms and by those who have not. “Prestigious” linguistic patterns are part of a set of tools for people (e.g. within institutions) to claim the supremacy of their group’s representation the world.

People tend to be largely unaware of the routine nature of everyday interactions

If they then infringe the “rules,” which, because they are unconscious, are erroneously considered to be universal, they are 

deemed incompetent and judged “unprofessional,” “impolite,” “ignorant,” “tactless,” or “unprepared.”

• Pause and wait for a response/reply. If it doesn’t occur, the conversation becomes awkward.

Conversation is interactive, we design talk for our audience. (From lecture slide on 9/13)

Elinor Och’s research:

Case study/example #1 of family dinners in U.S. and “father knows best” narrative sequences Implications for kids learning gender hierarchy

• Since most people are used to the father coming home from work, children sharing stories, etc, the mother is set up to be the recipient of criticism. Therefore, unknowingly we are letting children learn that there is split authority between the mother and father

To illustrate the error of ethnocentrism Buddhists relate the story of the turtle and the fish

 The significance is that language appears differently to different people depending on how they first conceived it. It is difficult for someone who has never experienced the ocean to visualize it when it's explained by someone who knows nothing else. It is similar to the way that we unconsciously end up comparing new cultural experiences to our own. It is difficult to separate the two.

Passing on culture, language socialization

Heritage, habits, values, orientations, difference

Language, speech events, speech acts;

  There are so many exceptions to rules, puns, idioms, etc. that can only be learned through direct experience in a culture.

Deaf children who grow up in hearing families spend much of the day isolated from language, and as a result they are isolated from learning about their culture.

There is cultural knowledge that can only be attained by actually practicing sign language or any language, and when children aren't allowed to experience that practice, they are put at a severe disadvantage.

A hearing person could indeed try to explain facets of the deaf community, but it would not induce the same experience as if the child were learning those facets through sign language itself or from another deaf person.

Frazier, the author, was an armchair anthropologist that thought all other cultures to be inferior and should be studied to see where we were in the past. then

Boas came along and changed all that by saying that other cultures are merely different, and we need to study them from an emic (insider's) perspective in order to truly understand them. I think that The Golden Bough helped to shape the present day picture of anthropology by first and foremost making it accessible.

It provided examples through metaphor that helped relate previously unintelligible ideas into easy-to-understand stories.

People were able to relate through characters, archetypes, and myths that they already identified with the ideas of anthropology.

Boas considered culture to be fluid and dynamic while

Frazer thought that people were simply repeated past archetypes from ancient history.

Humor creates and reaffirms categories by backing up already culturally-held beliefs through repetition and identification.

If we are able to point at a blonde and say "Yes, I've heard that they are dumb because of jokes I've heard," then humor has done its job.

Humor separates people into categories like social class, appearance, intelligence, age, profession, location, experience, and race.

Humor also provides us a way to categorize people in a less hostile manner than with pure opinion or statement. It is more acceptable in our culture to say a blonde joke that pokes at the intelligence of blondes than it is to simply state that one thinks that blondes are less intelligent than other people.

Humor lessens the blow.

1970s interpretive anthropology

We are prone to over-emphasize our rationality

Geertz uses the example of a twitch vs. a wink to show that the only thing that separates a movement from a gesture is the mutually and culturally understood idea that it was communication…

Describing just the action (e.g. a twitch) is what is known as thin description.

Describing the meaning of an action (wink) is known as thick description

Geertz's example tells us that culture can add meaning to gestures that can only be understood by knowing facets of that culture.

For instance, in most cultures it isn't acceptable to be outwardly sexually aggressive, so we have developed a way of being suggestive.

While in most cultures a twitch of an eye wouldn't suggest anything in particular, in America, it could easily stand for a sexually suggestive gesture.

*repair – attempts at resolving what is being perceived and/or defined as a ‘problem’ or ‘trouble’ in the course of an interaction

*turn taking – systematic succession of speakers in a way that avoids overlaps and gaps

*preference structure – preferred & dispreferred replies to questions and other first pair parts give a sense of what social actors are after and what is considered to be normal or expected in any given situation; interpretive framework within which members must operate at the moment of engaging in the mediating activity of talk

*recipient design – we design talk for our audience – conversation is interactive (Sept 13/15 Lecture)

*transition relevance point – the point at which a unit ends; moment at which change of speaker may (but does not have to) take place; intonation can be a cue (Sept 13/15 Lecture)

The relative restraint of immigrant Korean storekeepers is perceived by many African Americans as a sign of racism,

While the relatively personable involvement of African Americans is perceived by many Korean storekeepers as disrespectful imposition.

(in 25 liquor store encounters that were videotaped and transcribed for analysis  low income, south central Los Angeles)

Depending on what type of family you were born into (deaf or hearing), the prominence of ASL as a part of deaf culture may have been delayed, especially in hearing families.

Due to the Congress of Milan, oralism was emphasized.

Most deaf people identify as a part of the Deaf-World. (Deaf World)

Pairs of terms in opposition which always alludes to a relation of opposition between social groups.

Example: (Hawaii Creole English)

Creolist view (there has never been a copula in BL, like most creole languages), BL speakers acquire copula

• he the teacher->he’s the teacher->he is the teacher

Anglicist view (English origin of BL)

• He is the teacher->he’s the teacher->he the teacher

An example of a U.S cultural event would be participating in a sports team.

You must address your teammates in a certain way by either yelling their name or tapping them.

You must hold a discussion with them before during and after the game to come up with strategies and plays to win the game and reflect on things you could improve on.

Many times when you’re on the field or court you will engage in arguments between opposing players or your own teammates to tell them to set it up.

The verbal art can be found within the calling of plays that lets everyone know what to do next.

For example, a football play could consist of many code words which are interpreted by the team and once the ball is snapped each member knows exactly where to go and what to do.

A U.S. custom that uses certain terms of address contains discussion and argument, and uses verbal art would be a debate between two politicians.

Both of these politicians have terms of address such as representative and candidate.

They also have arguments and discussions, on which policies will improve the nation, and even tell stories to sway the opinion of the voters.

:knowledge you need to know how to proceed/get something done.

This is important because you need to know how to interact with people of different cultures without offending them

It is the knowledge of how to do something.

It is often unconscious knowledge and though someone may demonstrate it, it can be something otherwise not considered by the person.

It can be something someone knows how to do without ever even considering it.

For example, most people learn to talk and communicate verbally during infant and early childhood development

According to Brown & Levinson (1987:33), across cultures, failing to communicate “the polite attitude will be read not merely as the absence of that attitude, but as the inverse, the holding of an aggressive attitude."

When conventions for paying respect in service encounters differ between cultures, individuals may read each other's behavior as not simply strange or lacking in social grace, but as aggressively antagonistic.

Making sense of other people is never easy and making sense of how other people make sense can be even more difficult (Keith Basso)

The implications for this in cross cultural interactions could be the creation of distance culturally.

It could lead to feelings of animosity towards another culture for not demonstrating “the polite attitude.”

For example, Koreans attitudes use towards African Americans during the LA riots.

The poems in Bedouin culture allow people to communicate topics between one another that are not socially acceptable to discuss otherwise

The Bedouin poems are different from everyday talk because they reveal the inner thoughts of the poet.

Mainly about what’s in their heart and the love they share for another. It is a way for them to communicate their inner thoughts in short, simple lines.

They cannot sate these feelings normally and have to act numb to feelings of sadness, longing, or that make them vulnerable.

Yes,

Americans hold politeness to a pedestal that you are raise to show to everyone from authority to your peers.

They display this politeness with terms such as “Thank you” and “Please” to others. For example, greeters at Wal-Mart will ask customers “How are you today?” or “How can I help you?” They use these greetings to welcome people, while East Asians would fend off the customer.

Typically, Bedouin poems draw from the personal life and personal experiences of the speaker.

More specifically, poems may draw on powerful sentiments – such as sadness, loneliness, anger, etc.

These poems may be recited most commonly at weddings and circumcisions, but may also be recited in more private settings, among those people trusted by the speaker, and almost always to those who belong to the same gender.

These more private recitations are generally prompted by some life event (a spouse leaving, someone dying, etc).

Almost always, sentiment is a negative form of expression among the Awlad ’Ali.

Even poems expressing seemingly positive feelings of love will be “negative or dysphoric” because it is common belief that one only sings during times of unhappiness, as a way of calming onesself (Lughod 183).

Greetings may be used in several ways.

A greeting such as ‘hello’ may be used to draw someone into a conversation

(for example, greeting a friend and thereby initiating conversation), or to acknowledge someone’s presence more generally.

It also may be used in phone conversations to respond to the “summons” of the ringing, and insodoing give the caller a jumping off point for the conversation (Duranti 257).

Greetings may also be used to close a conversation, as with “goodbye,” but in such situations must be handled more delicately and less abruptly than initial greetings, in that one must build up to a closing greeting (Duranti 255).

Metaphors allow us to conceptualize one idea in terms of another, unrelated event.

They affect our way of thinking in that we begin to see our world in terms of a net of metaphors that are visualized and culturally defined.

For example, thinking of our mind as a container, a highly prevalent metaphor in our society, shapes or way in which we conceptualize learning

– students are often thought of as empty vessels, waiting to be filled with knowledge, as are young children in general.

We also often speak of “filling our heads/brains” with knowledge.

Similarly, we have come to conceptualize anger as being explosive, outward, and damaging through metaphors such as:

“he blew his top” or “I’m so angry I could burst.”

This means that language must be studied as more than just the words it uses.

To fully understand a given utterance or a series of utterances that play off of one another, you must look at how the utterance conveys meaning.

The word choice of a sentence, or the way in which a sentence is said can radically alter the essential meaning than what is visible from a surface analysis.

For example, as we saw with the response to the Alexandra Wallace video, the singer uses stereotypical Asian pronunciation to begin his video, responding to Wallace’s racism throughout the video.

He further uses the framework of a ballad to juxtapose her racism and hate with ironic feelings of love and affection formed by playing with her remarks.

Without looking at the aesthetics of his response, it would be hard to see the ways in which his video responds to hers, and why it is clever and humorous.

The hearing world has a modest view of deaf peoples’ abilities

System of deaf education can foster low self esteem  Hearing society’s deficit model

Sometimes deaf parents are encouraged not to use sign language with their children! Encouraged to wear hearing aids

Hearing parents feel guilty, angry, and mistrustful of the system “devastated”

Mixed messages, role of the parent in shaping children’s lives

Problems with diagnosing deafness in an infant

Mother takes most of the responsibility typically

Only one parent in ten can communicate with their child (CM speaking with his mother for the first time)

Parents want their children to have a better life The hearing world has a modest view of deaf abilities.

For example, the system of education can foster low self esteem in the deaf community.

The hearing community has a deficit model of the deaf community.

Also, hearing parents are sometimes encouraged to not use sign language with their children, which inhibits their language acquisition and their lives.

LSF and ASL 58% cognates in sample of 87 signs

ASL is related to LSF because when Thomas Gallaudet went to Europe to investigate methods of teaching the deaf, he met Abbe Sicard in London.

He went to visit Sicard at the school for the deaf in Paris where he learned their teaching methods, which was a combination of old LSF and signs developed by Abbe de l’Epee.

Gallaudet went back to America where he opened the American School for the Deaf and taught students French signs.

Emic

• the insider’s perspective
• Predetermined categories are thrown out in favor of an analysis that emerges from the insider's perspective.

• The researcher must rely on the participants of the culture
• Predetermined categories are often rejected by the very artists that the etic (outsider) researcher claims to represent e.g. of Hip Hop music—such as gangsta rap or conscious rap—

Etic

• establishes what's important, from outsider's perspective,
• begins with already formulated notions and categories of knowledge to interpret the cultural phenomena in question.

Certain ways of using language have more authority/credibility than others, both by those who have mastered those forms and by those who have not.

“Prestigious” linguistic patterns are part of a set of tools for people (e.g. within institutions) to claim the supremacy of their group’s representation the world.

People tend to be largely unaware of the routine nature of everyday interactions

If they then infringe the “rules,” then deemed:

incompetent and judged “unprofessional,” “impolite,” “ignorant,” “tactless,” or “unprepared.”

Groups of people use different variations of language in order to form their identity.

: Ethnomethodology.

: Discovering and naming recurring structures in conversation and how we build our social world moment by moment.

a sequence of two utterances, next (adjacent) to one another, and produced by two different speakers (doing th first part makes the second part relevant for the other person)

• Can be classified in terms of:

The types of utterances that constitute its two parts

• First –pair parts/second-pair parts

o Ex. Question/answer, greeting/greeting

The type of pair that the two parts constitute together

• Ex. A: “Hello!” B: “Hello!”

refers to a turn-type that precedes another action and gives the hearer hints about what kind of action is going to follow

Example: “can I ask you a question?” “are you doing anything tonight?” (coming before a question or an invitation)

an explanation for not providing the expected (or preferred) second part of an adjacency pair.

Example:  “Well, I’d like to, but we’re already going out.”

Certain ways of using language have more authority/credibility than others, both by those who have mastered those forms and by those who have not.

“Prestigious” linguistic patterns are part of a set of tools for people (e.g. within institutions) to claim the supremacy of their group’s representation the world.

1.It establishes social/cultural values.

For example, language acquisition is also a means of socialization.

Through proto-conversations, white middle class caregivers treat babbling children as if they were competent participants in conversation, which introduces the important practice of turn-taking.

Baby-talk and collaboration are an attempt by the caregiver to accommodate to the young child’s developing language abilities.

In contrast, the Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea employ a method of teaching language by example, in which no accommodations or simplifications are made for the child.

If the child can’t be understood clearly, they are asked to clarify meaning by themselves rather than have their unclear utterances guessed at or elaborated on by caregivers.

This reflects the “Kaluli dispreference for saying what another might be thinking or feeling” and their belief that communicating meaning is the responsibility of the speaker. (Ochs and Scheiffelin 487)

2. Speech itself can incite, imply, or demand action. When someone says “stop” or “go,” they are telling you how to move. When a surgeon says “scalpel,” he is asking for a scalpel to be given to him. (Duranti 240)

3. Establishes rank. The extent to which these actions are obeyed can depend on rank. If an employee tells his employer that he is fired, he will not be taken seriously; if the employer says it, the employee is now jobless. (lectures)

Speaking is a “social action” in that it can create and reinforce social distinctions (use of “sir” and “ma’am” to establish who is dominant, gender polarization, etc.)

1. White middle-class
2. Kaluli (Papua New Guinea)
3. Western Samoan

Women’s association with nature a handicap to becoming morally worthy among Bedouins because childbirth (as well as menstrual blood) is considered polluting and looked down upon.

Postmenopausal women have more authority for this reason.

Children do not learn language through any of these processes but through the use of grammar.

A baby’s language acquisition starts with babbling around 7-10 months old.

Next comes the first-word stage (12-18 months),

Followed by the two-word stage (18-22 months).

What follows is the construction of sentences and the capability to understand sentences that they have never heard before. (cultural rules)

When using baby talk (higher pitched voice, slower speech, sounding out things, using emphatic facial expressions, by the shortening and simplifying of words etc) we assume that the baby cannot understand adult speech and that they need to be taught the fundamentals like how the mouth is shaped when a certain sound is made over the more complex language used later.

Baby talk, also referred to as caretaker speech, infant-directed speech (IDS) or child-directed speech (CDS)

Baby talk is more effective than regular speech in getting an infant's attention.

Studies have shown that infants actually prefer to listen to this type of speech.

• Baby talk is not universal

• High pitch and use of diminutives often associated with positive affect (emotion)

• Middle class “caregiving speech or baby talk…are highly valued by members of white middle-class society” (p 476 in 3 developmental stories reading). Mother takes on the “perspective” of the baby and is shown through simplified speech or “baby talk.”

This baby talk tries to match the competence of the children stating they are far less competent in the white culture.

Can also be seen as a “child-raising” strategy because they make the baby seem more competent by talking to it. Intentionally “mask the incompetence” of children (481).

• In kalui culture mother talks to an infant “with language that is well formed and appropriate fro an older child. Only the nasalization and high-pitch mark it as “the infants”’ (484). Their culture claims children have ‘no understanding” and are addressed by adults to little extent. Language with children are “one-liners” within the first 18 months because children are not expected to understand.

• In samoan culture babys aren’t talked to in the early months as much as they are talked about because they are considered as “baby thing thing” (489). When addressed, children are “addressed in the form of songs or rhythmic vocalizations in a soft, high pitch” (489). Once a child is “locomotive” they are addressed directly and the conversations held by caregivers are not simplified.

• Samoan and kalui children become fluent faster because their early form of language is not simplified.

The "Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf" met in Milan, September 6 - 11, 1880.

It was a turning point in the history of the deaf education.

After the congress, the use of sign language was banned from the instruction of the deaf.

Also, the meeting led to the disappearance of deaf instructors from the institutes.

“good mothering” varies cross-culturally in terms of talking with children

How children are viewed

o Their nature, social status and expected behavior

Technology

• Radio, TV
• “Standard” English, “Broadcast” English, texting
• American speech communities not necessarily becoming more homogeneous, what standardizing role technology has in the future
• A California dialect -- elements of Valley Girl and Surfer Dude, more Americans are fronting vowels, so that do sounds like dew, and raising their voices at the end of sentences to make statements sound like questions.

Technologies affect geographies

Mother responds “for the infant” in interactions (using a high pitched, nasal voice)

Mothers speak assertively for the infant, doing what the infant cannot do

Creates a relationship with older children

During the first 18 months very little dyadic verbal exchange

Case study/example #2 of how siblings learn to share in Kaluli (Papua New Guinea)

Mother “animates” a pretend voice for the baby “standing up for itself” – society values assertiveness

Metalinguistic Awareness is helpful to explaining the execution and transfer of linguistic knowledge across languages (e.g. code switching as well as translation among bilinguals.)

The ability to objectify language as a process as well as a thing

Can be classified as the ability to consciously reflect on the nature of language.

(metalinguistic: the science or study of language in relation to its cultural context)

Poetry is a way of speaking, personifies personal difficulties, personal life, & intimacy.

Poetry is never just a simple pleasingly written nor an oral form.

It is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to its apparent meaning.

Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns, lyrics, or prose poetry.

Poetry is always written for a purpose, have a meaning behind it, and most of the times is dedicated for someone or something.

(Language variety: a general term for any distinctive form of a language or linguistic expression.)

(Identity: term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations)

Identity: Icon & Symbol

Icon - is more transparent & Symbol - is more arbitrary

Language Variety - assumption

Ex: Texans are dumb/stupid because of the way they sound (Thats what I understood from what she said)

• Icon: a sign that is linked to its represented object by some shared quality

• Index: a sign that is linked to its object by an actual connection or real relation, for instance, by a reaction, so as to compel attention, in a definite place and time. 

• Symbol: represents its denoted object by virtue of an interpretive habit or rule that is independent of any shared physical quality, contextual contiguity, or lack thereof, with that which it denotes. 

It is greatly affected because once they get married they must obey their husband.

The man is suppose to work hard to maintain the family, have money to buy food, and everything else.

While the man does all these things, the women stays home and takes care of the children and the house.

The women have indeed gain more respect, but in their country the man still has the power.

Bedouin identity involves wearing a red belt & black veil.

Bedouin women act modestly, they are associated with dependency.

Sons are a Bedouin woman's social security.