Chapter Four Flashcards
(72 cards)
Language
Human communication through symbols, typically the spoken word.
- Can also be physically manifested using ASL or reproduced in writing
Speech
The oral production of language
Big Bang
Beginning around 50,000 years ago
Possible evidence for a change in the way humans communicated.
Elaborate cave art and symbolic expression - suggestive that language was in place at this time.
Gesture-Call System
Instinctive use of body movements and sounds to communicate
Involuntary shriek of pain or fear - instinctive vocal response
dogs barking
Animals: GCS Operates primarily through stimulus and response
Human Non-verbal communication
Most is learned as a part of enculturation process and differs from culture to culture.
- Gestures (Culturally different)
How we use space, how me move - non verbal but cultural
Writing and Sign Language
Gestures
Have different meaning in differenct cultures
O.K= in the United States where the thumb and index finger are used to make a circle is an obscene gesture in some cultures
Kinesics
Study of human body language
- Includes: body position, movement and facial expression
Paul Ekan and Carroll Izard
Pioneered studies of human facial expression
Argued that there are basic facial expressions that are similar cross-culturally.
Critics of Ekam
said human beings have conscious control over facial expressions.
- We can smile to convey friendliness, even in situations we do not feel friendly
Proxemics
One area of study in kinesics
Study of how humans use space
Space between people in elevator or waiting in a que
- different based on culture
Paralanguage
Refers to the sounds and inonation of language that convey meaning and emotion.
- Pitch, tone, and volume
Considered part of non-verbal communication because these sound features are not part of the meaning of the words itself.
Raising pitch at the end of a sentence when asking a question
Important
Great Ape ASL - chimps gorillas
Starting in 1930s
Can’t vocally talk, because vocal tract is structurally different than humans
typically limited to 3 signs - one being their name
1960s Gardners - Washoe taught ASL as infant
1972 - Patterson - Koko
Successful but with limits
Difference in communication between apes and humans
Apes: Do not initiate conversations and rarely ask questions using sign
But they can repeat back and use sign as stimulus response mode
Never grasp turn-taking
Developmentally, their language abilities do not ever progress much beyond that of a two or three-year-old human child.
Charles Hockett - 1960
Outlined a set of characteristics of verbal communication
general: vocal-auditory channel, broadcast transmission and directional reception, transitoriness or rapid fading and specialization
features: interchangeability, total feedback, and learnability, are typically but not universally found in all vocal forms of communication.
unique to lang: semanticity, arbitrariness, discreteness, displacement, productivity, traditional transmission, duality of patterning, and prevarication.
Transitoriness
The fact that sounds exist for only a brief period of time
- Sound waves disappear once a speaker stops speaking
Doesn’t echo out forever
Other forms of communication persist for a longer time. That is why your dog is so interested in smelling sign and fence posts and then urinates on them after a good long sniff.
Specialization
Hockett proposed that the purpose of vocal signs is communication. They do not have any other biological purpose.
Interchangeability
A feature of communication where the same kinds of messages can be sent and received by all members of the species.
Examples of not interchangeable - Women chemical signals of mensuration to other women - men don’t get this
peacocks, silkworms
section 2
Total feedback
When speakers of a language can hear their own speech and modify what they are saying
Learnability
Human languages are learned by being a member of a culture or society.
A dog born in Japan and a dog born in Russia will both instinctively wag their tails in the same manner. In contrast, the language of a Japanese child and a Russian child are not present at birth, but are learned through exposure to language.
Children and Language
Children do not have to be taught to learn language; they are genetically hard wired to do it.
Semanticity
Certain sound signals and words are assigned specific meanings.
Food call means food, nothing else
Arbitrariness
There is no necessary relationship between the world and the object or idea it represents.
Different languages use different sounds to represent concepts that have the same or similar meaning.
If the meaning of words was not arbitrary but somehow related to the sounds of the word then you should understand what pek, buuts, and wah mean. These are the Maya words for dog, smoke and tortilla.
Discreteness
The sounds of a word are discrete, they cannot be broken down into smaller units.
Cannot break the sound for the letter K into different pieces.
“sss” for s cant be split (so we can rearrange duality of pattern)
Honeybee Dance
Honeybees dance to communicate about a food source. The dances have three components:
- round dance to indicate food within 20 feet of the hive,
- figure-eight dance to indicate food 20 to 60 feet from the hive, - tail-wagging to indicate a food source greater than 60 feet away.
The quality of the food source is indicated through how actively or how many times the dance is performed.
Direction is also indicated by the angle at which the dance is performed.
So, in a form analogous to human grammar, the bees can combine discrete components to communicate different messages.
