LCS QE Reviewer
LCS QE Reviewer
LCS QE Reviewer
C.Fields of Linguistics The sun's rays meet and the sons raise
(Phonology and Morphology) meat. (homophones)
SOCIOLINGUISTIC CHANGE
VERNACULAR
Is the study of the effects of any or all
aspects of society including cultural norms, the casual, normal spoken form of the
expectations and context on the way language or dialect of the person's speech
language is used. community.
-Labov found that in New York City the social network describes the structure of a
pronunciation of /r/ occurred and its particular speech community. Social
frequency of use depended on the networks are composed of a "web of ties"
speakers’ membership to particular between individuals, and the structure of a
socioeconomic status groups, i.e. social network will vary depending on the types of
classes. connections it is composed of. Social
network theory (as used by sociolinguists)
-In order to study the pronunciation of /r/ by
posits that social networks, and the
the employees of the three department
interactions between members within the
stores, Labov asked questions which should
networks, are a driving force behind
elicit the lexical items (‘fourth floor’)
language change.
containing the desired accent feature in the
employees’ speech: High Density Network
1st question: “Where can I find the lamps?” refer to a group who are in frequent contact
Elicited answer: “fourth floor.” and familiar to each other.
2nd question:“Excuse me?” Answer: Multiplex Social Network
repeated and more careful utterance of
fourth floor. is one in which interacting parties share
more than one role.
Each employee thus could pronounce post-
vocalic /r/ four times (twice each in fourth RESTRICTED CODE
and floor
speech lacking in stylistic range because
Result: The results illustrated that /r / in New the speakers share enough assumptions
York City was stratified by class. The that some of the meaning of their messages
pronunciation of /r/ depended on the social- is derived from context and gestures.
class membership of the employees: Those
with higher socioeconomic status ELABORATED CODE
refers to the variety of language use
characteristic of relatively formal speech Turn-taking
situations. In such situations, little if any,
reliance is placed on extralinguistic context Turn-taking gives rises to complex forms
to make the message fully meaningful.
of interaction in relation to the more
regimented form of turn-taking. Female
linguistic behavior characteristically
LANGUAGE AND GENDER
encompasses a desire to take turns in
conversation with others, which is
"Language and gender" refers to the0
opposed to men's tendency towards
relationship between the language of
centering on thier own point or
male and female.
remaining silent when presented with
such implicit offers of conversational
turn-taking as are provided by hedges
WHAT IS GENDER?
such as and "isn't it"
Gender refers to the socially constructed
Changing the topic of conversation
betwee women and men.
African-American English is
characterized by pronunciations,
syntactic structures, and vocabulary
associated with and used by a fairly
large number of African-Americans. It is
also called as Ebonics. AAE is
A great many people, regardless of
ethnic background, consider AAE as a
•Foots, mens, and childrens for feet, badly corrupted, deficient form of
men, and children. English. The negative attitude toward
AAE in U.S. society is in part reinforced
In comparison with Standard English, by the low socioeconomic status of
AAVE is characterized by multiple many African-American resulting from a
negation. long-standing pattern of racial
discrimination.
•“Didn’t nobody see it.” •“Wasn’t nobody
home. AAE is just as rule-governed as other
forms of English, but the rules that
The verb form be, as in “She be busy,” characterize its usage are, as may be
contrasts in AAVE with its absence, as expected, somewhat different.
in the corresponding “She busy.”
merits emphasized in ebonics study
AAVE further differs from Standard
English in specialized vocabulary, 1.There is no question that so-called
variant stress patterns on certain words, Ebonics is one among many variations
and the like. Despite these and other of English;
features that set the two Englishes
apart, however, the adjustment a non- 2. Not helping African-American
speaker of AAVE has to make to students to become proficient is
comprehend it is no more than the effort Standard American English will do them
needed to understand cockney. socioeconomic disservice
J. LINGUISTIC
This guaranteed the residents the use of
the French language, Catholicism, and
ANTHROPOLOGY IN A GLOBALIZED The other involves changes in the
WORLD structure of a language– changes
affecting its pronunciation, spelling,
LANGUAGE PLANNING grammar or vocabulary.
THE MOST COMMONLY USED AND Frequently, however, the two forms are
BEST combined.
DEVELOPED FORM OF APPLIED
LINGUISTICS LITERACY, WRITING,
IS LANGUAGE PLANNING. & EDUCATION
Language Planning may be called for There is no doubt that there are
when the presence of several competing significant social and cultural differences
languages in a country has become between literate and non literate people.
divisive or when a particular language or Having a writing system, of course,
dialect is to be elevated to serve as the expands the collective and historical
official or national language of a multi- memory of the group. In theory, in a
lingual or multi-dialectal society. The literate community, accurate historical
initial step in language planning is to records can be kept, scientific
define the nature of the problem. information accrued, and religious
traditions maintained. Ideally, literacy
The term language planning refers to a allows for knowledge to be
deliberate attempt, usually at the level of disseminated to everyone, not just by
the state, to affect language use to a select few.
prevent or solve some problem of
communication. Members of complex industrial societies
often underestimate the intellectual
The two main reasons are the prowess and aesthetic sensibilities of
dislocation of millions of people as a nonliterates who do not use of written
result of wars and political language. The findings of
persecution and the emergence of anthropologists have demonstrated time
many new multiethnic states when and again how false such an
colonial empires were dissolved after assumption is.
World War II.
Today, literacy is no longer
Language planning usually takes one of considered simply the ability to
two forms. One form involves a change read and write but is increasingly
in the status of a language or a conceived as a process of
dialect– in other words, a change in interpretation.
language use.
Literacy allows us to reformulate existing letter is sent, or letters are exchanged
knowledge to understand new provide a setting for an act of writing or
knowledge. Literacy is less a set of a writing event.
acquired skills than the acquisition of a
new way of thinking – one that allows us The channel for writing is optical, but the
to negotiate with the world in new ways. codes vary. Different languages make
Literacy is learning to become use of different writing systems, and
competent in one’s community. preschool children sometimes write by
drawing pictures.
Even though the term communication
also includes writing, accounts of how If we extend the term writing from true
writing is used in a particular society writing to any visual communication
appears only rarely in ethnographic accomplished by the use of enduring
literature. This is because marks or signs, we can then talk about
anthropologists traditionally have been various genre.
interested in nonliterates societies, and
also because anthropological studies of If studies in the ethnography of writing
complex industrial societies in which are to be complete and insightful, they
writing is important and widely used tend need to include the sociocultural context
to concentrate on face-to-face in which they occur.
interaction rather than the relatively
remote contact established and Again, Basso posed some of the
maintained by writing. questions to answered, among them
are:
Keith Basso (1974:426) reminds us that
the ethnographic study of writing should -How is the ability to write
not be conceived of as an autonomous distributed among the members
enterprise… but as one element in more of a community, and how does
encompassing field of inquiry which the incidence of this ability vary
embraces the totality of human with factors such as age, sex,
communication skills. socioeconomic class and the
like?
The same units and components -What kinds of information are
that are employed in the considered appropriate for
ethnography of speaking might transmission through written
also apply to writing. channels?
-Who sends written messages to
Several related acts of writing combine whom, when, and for what
to form a writing event. The sender and reasons?
the receiver of letters are participants, -In short, what position does
and the circumstances under which a writing occupy in the total
communicative economy of the languages have only 1,000 speakers at
society under study and what is the most.
the range of its cultural
meanings? Of the six or seven thousand languages
used in the world today, only about 600
Those questions have not yet can be considered safe, meaning that
been seriously addressed for the number of their speakers will have
more than a very few world’s become larger, or at least have
societies, though there has been remained at critical mass.
some work in this vein.
Why do languages die?
For example, Niko Besnier (1995)
studied literacy, gender, and authority in A fairly common reason in the past
Nukulaelae atoll in Polynesia. The could be that very small societies did not
Nukalaelae are now fundamentalist survive epidemic diseases against which
Christians. Sunday sermons are they had no resistance, or they perished
carefully scripted and circulated. in warfare or in such natural disasters.
Particular linguistic features characterize
these sermons includes elaborate poetic The most common reason in the 20th
alteration, special pronoun use, and century was the economic and cultural
other kinds of formal features. influence of large nation-states that
encompass small tribal societies within
THE LIFE & DEATH OF LANGUAGES their borders.
A look at a source book such as
Ethnologue (Gordon 2005)shows Language Death:
that there is great linguistic Why should we care?
diversity all around us. The
world’s 6.8 billion people speak Five Reasons Why We Should Care
some 6,000 languages. However, according to Crystal
96% of them are spoken by only
4% of the population. More than Because we need diversity
half the world’s population speak in order to preserve our
just twenty languages. traditional cultural wealth.
Because languages
David Crystal claims that on average, constitute the primary
one language dies out every two weeks. symbol of ethnic identity.
Because languages are
Endangered Languages repositories of our history.
According to David Crystal, about 500
languages have fewer than 100
speakers, and more than 1,500
Because languages Should they wonder
contribute to the sum of whether they have a moral
human knowledge. obligation to try to save a
Because languages are language even if its
fascinating in themselves. speakers are ambivalent
about its practical value
As one linguistic field- and future usefulness?
worker observed, “to fight
to preserve the smaller Language Maintenance &
cultures and languages Reinforcement
may turn out to be the
struggle to preserve the Language maintenance and
most precious things that reinforcement typically include linguistic
make us human before we analysis, a writing system, and the
end up in the land fill of production of instructional materials.
history.”
For the Northern Arapaho of the Wind
And as Kenneth Hale, a River Reservation in Wyoming, who are
linguist, once said “when eager to maintain and even reinforce
you lose a language, it’s their ethnic identity and cultural heritage,
like dropping a bomb on a the present situation is nothing short of
museum.” critical. Several factors contribute to the
gloomy outlook.
This situation poses important
questions: With few expectations, the
only individuals who have
Should anthropological full command of Arapaho
field-workers make special are the members of the
efforts to maintain or oldest generation.
revitalize an endangered Parents no longer teach
language? Arapaho to their children in
Should they try to the home.
persuade the remaining Active speakers and those
speakers of such an who have at least some
endangered language to passive knowledge of
make sure that the Arapaho are declining rapidly.
youngest members can The bulk of the population
learn it as their mother is for all the practical
tongue? purposes monolingual.
Arapaho is losing its Summer camp for
communicative viability. preschoolers and
elementary pupils.
The most significant step taken to arrest
the language decay was to formalize the In the initial stages of any language
teaching of spoken Arapaho to the maintenance programs, linguistic
youngest pupils. anthropologists provide useful advice
and help, but it is preferable and
This brief account of one example of important that, as far as possible, such
language maintenance and programs and activities be further
reinforcement would not be complete developed, organized, and administered
without emphasizing that many by members of the societies concerned.
additional steps must be taken to
expand the program in the future. Below INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
are the following additional steps. & TRANSLATION
Workshops designed to
develop new curricular When so many people frequently travel
materials and improve the far home and encounter members of
existing ones. different ethnic groups and societies,
In-service training of interethnic and intercultural relations are
current teachers and continually being put to test.
teacher aides.
Internship program for Intercultural Communication is a
future teachers. symbolic, interpretive, transactional,
Tribal scholarships for contextual process, in which people
students who have shown from different cultures create shared
exceptional intellectual meanings.
capacity as well as interest
and skill in learning a dying Even in languages or dialects that are
language to allow them closely similar or considered to be alike,
study linguistics and specific words may have different sense
anthropology at the college or carry a different emphasis from one
level. language to the other, resulting in
Adult education programs occasional misunderstanding.
featuring elders narrating
traditional tales or life COMPROMISE
histories and other In Britain, compromise means to work
reminiscences out a good solution.
In America, compromise means to work title, claim and advantages of and in
out a bad one, a solution in which all the said orange, together with its rind, skin,
points of importance are lost. juice, pulp, and pips and all rights and
advantages therein and full power to
Translation can be troublesome, as bite, suck or otherwise eat the same or
anyone who has ever studied a foreign give the same away with or without the
language knows. The scholarly literature rind, skin, juice, pulp and pips.”
and personal anecdotes offer hundreds
of examples of mistranslated words, Venire, tort, eminent domain, pursuant
phrases or whole pieces of discourse. to, know all men by these presents, and
(in) flagrante delicto?
Translation allows people of one culture
try to know the information conveyed to ENGLISH AS AN
them by other cultures. INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
Constance Hale and Jesse Donald Leu and others argue that
Scanlon in Wired Style (1999) there are four defining
argue that "no one reads email characteristics of these new
with red pen in hand" so we literacies.
should "celebrate subjectivity"
and "write the way people talk" First, new information and
(Baron 2008:172). communication technologies involving
novel literacy tasks require new skills
Baron (2008:171) says, "Modern and strategies if they are to be used
linguistic theory eschews passing effectively.
judgment on any linguistic
variant, and I am not about to do Second-though this is often resisted
so now. Rather, I'm suggesting "overtly, by deliberate educational
that should linguistic entropy policies... or covertly, by educators who
snowball, we may discover that sometimes are not nearly as literate with
personally expressive, culturally the Internet as the students they teach
accommodating, and clock-driven new literacies are now a critical
language users will find it component for full participation in civic,
increasingly difficult to economic, and social life in a global
understand one another's world.
nuances."
Third, these new literacies are deictic-
Crystal argues that so far, at that is, they change as new technologies
least, the pedagogical and "moral emerge.
panic" surrounding e-mail and
texting is overblown. The belief Fourth, new literacies are "multiple,
that the "highly deviant character" multimodal, and multifaceted," thus
of digital communication is making them more complex to
fostering poor literacy results has apprehend and understand.
been shown by psychologists and
educators to be largely an "urban The Language of the Internet
myth" (2010:417).
English appears to be the default
Digital Communication, Literacy & language of almost any site you hit.
Cognition
In his book Language and the Internet
(2001), the noted linguist David Crystal
wondered whether the English
dominated Internet would contribute to
the demise of other languages, at least
on the Web