Language and Anthropology

Question 1

Definition of Human Language Universals

Answer 1

A system of communication using sounds put together in meaningful ways according to certain rules

Question 2

What are the Multimedia Potential in which all languages use to communicate?

Answer 2

Spoken

Signed

Touch

Written

Smell

Question 3

What are differences between languages?

Answer 3

Languages differ in the sounds they use (Phonology)

Languages differ in their (morphology), As in the rules used to make words (prefixes, suffixes, plurals, etc)

All languages use syntax rules to create infinite number of sentences (Productivity/creativity)

All languages are able to communicate about objects, ideas, people, things that are remote in space and time (Displacement)

Question 4

What is Morphology in language?

Answer 4

They differ in the morphology, I.e. rules used to make words (prefixes, suffixes, plurals, etc…).

Question 4

What is the Phonology of a language?

Answer 4

Languages differ in the sounds they use (Phonology)

Question 5

What is displacement in Language?

Answer 5

All languages are able to communicate about objects, ideas, people and things that are remote in space and time (displacement)

Question 6

What is arbitrariness/conventionality in language?

Answer 6

All Languages rely on arbitrary symbols agreed upon (arbitrariness/conventionality).

Question 7

What is syntax in language?

Answer 7

They differ in the rules used to make sentences (syntax).

Question 8

Examples of differences in Syntax in language

Answer 8

SVO “cows eat grass” English; Finnish

VSO “eat cows grass” Welsh; Samoan

OVS “grass eat cows” Hixkaryana

Question 9

What is Paralanguage in Language?

Answer 9

Extralinguistic noises that accompany language (grunts, moans. Pitch, pauses, etc….).

Question 10

What are Proxemics in language?

Answer 10

The study of how people structure the space around them when interacting with others

Question 11

What does Historical Linguistics study?

Answer 11

Why does language change?

How are languages related to eachother?

What were ancestral languages like?

How long ago have languages seperated?

Question 12

Why does language change?

Answer 12

Due to outside influence

Simplicity to reach out to more of the population

Question 13

How are languages related to eachother?

Answer 13

The more similar two languages are, the more likely they have a common origin

Ethnic Languages split off into new ones as populations divide and migrate into their own societies

Question 14

What were ancestral languages like?

Answer 14

Trick Question, Impossible to know especially if there are no populations to speak it

Question 15

What are the two language families and what are they?

Answer 15

Non Indo-European

Indo-European

not one of the group of European and Asian languages that are spoken in most of Europe and in parts of Asia and that include English, French, Greek, Russian, and Hindi, or not speaking one of these languages: The most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in Europe is Hungarian.

Question 16

What are sociolinguistics? And provide an example

Answer 16

The study of the use of language and how it reflects the social setting in which it is used

Example: How we speak around friends vs at an interview
-Age, gender, class, ethnicity all influence the use of language

Question 17

What is the Reflexivity of Language?

Answer 17

Language can give us information about the culture of a people

Vocabulary can tell us what is important to a culture

Syntax can tell us about values and worldviews

Question 18

What is Language Relativity?

Answer 18

The belief that interpretations of reality are influenced by the language one speaks