Linguistic Anthropology
1. Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology
Orthodox psychology takes culture to be a secondary layer which is applied to the fundamental ideas and motives generated by the universal mental structure, something much like a varnish or paint applied to a finished material. In this model, it is possible to have culture-free data on the human mental apparatus, something which never has been nor ever will be accessible to the science of psychology. A cultural relativity of mental structures which are in any sense universal is also problematic, for it is difficult to escape the judgment that cultures with the wrong ideas are cultures with maladaptive modes of life. Faced with data of this sort, the orthodox theory can only argue a distortion of universal mental structures. This theory of culture and human nature has been one of constant and changing postulation of reconstructions of the past in order to justify the status quo. Linguistic anthropology postulates a relativist theory of mental difference and inner formulations and cultural relativity of truth and logic. A theory which presumes a creation of social reality through a constant reinterpretation and renegotiation of what it means to be.
This is a book about linguistic anthropology, a field of study which argues that the key to understanding the human mind is understanding the mind’s cultural context – the way in which people develop their ideas and concepts of the world and of their own lives through the shared acquisition of a natural language. This premise is very different from the one implied by orthodox theories of psychology or psycholinguistics, in which the mind is likened to a digital computer, assuming a human mental apparatus whose fundamental structures are universal and whose main differences are a matter of quantity and speed rather than quality. The uniqueness of the human mind is not denied in this work, but linguistic anthropology sees the mind as a thing of biological evolution which is constantly being shaped and restructured by a cultural surrounding which is itself the product of mind.
2. Language and Culture
Language can also have a powerful effect on how we see the world. One of the concepts that has been discussed very thoroughly among linguists and philosophers is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which states that language is a force which can influence how we see the world. This hypothesis is divided into two parts – the strong hypothesis suggests that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories, while the weak hypothesis suggests that while linguistic categories influence thought and certain cognitive processes, they do not limit those cognitive processes and that there are universal patterns in thought which are independent of language. While it has been shown that the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is generally not true, there has been much evidence found that supports the weak hypothesis. For instance, Russian speakers have been shown to be able to more quickly and accurately differentiate shades of blue than English speakers when presented with two differing shades, due to the fact that the Russian language has two distinct words for light and dark blue, while English uses the same word for both shades. This suggests that the way in which colors are divided in the Russian language has had an influence on the cognitive perception of those colors.
The relationship between language and culture has been one of the central interests in linguistic anthropology. Language has a strong influence on culture, and culture has a strong influence on language. The connection can be seen in many forms. In some cultures, there may not be a word for a specific object, and in others, there may be numerous words for a single object, each reflecting a different meaning. This demonstrates the extent that language can shape thought. It is commonly said among bilingual individuals that they are a “different person” when speaking a different language. It should be noted, however, that language does not entirely shape thought; patterns in thoughts also influence language, creating a two-way relationship.
3. Language Variation and Change
Considerable confusion has been caused by the fact that standard written languages and the codes used in broadcasting often cut across the natural dialect divisions that exist among the speakers of a given language. It has often been assumed that the speech forms found in the upper strata of society constituted the “real” or “correct” form of a language, while the speech of the lower classes constituted a corruption of this “real” language. We should not assume, however, that uniformity in language is an indication of linguistic health. In fact, different social and regional dialects are simply different types of linguistic systems and could be said to represent a greater linguistic diversity than would the existence of a single language code. Standard languages are no less dialects than are the myriad local, regional, and national dialects that lack political and social prestige, and they are often no less divergent from the speech of other communities. The notion that a standard language is something fundamentally distinct from a nonstandard dialect is based more on sociopolitical and historical factors than on any linguistic criteria.
“Language Variation and Change” explores the profound ways in which languages differ from one another and how they change over time. Just as all human biological populations form a continuum with one another, such that it is impossible to say that any group is biologically distinct from every other group, so it is with language. There is no single clear criterion for distinguishing one language from another, and no sharp breaks between groups of speakers that have different linguistic systems. Yet, despite the fact that it is often difficult to say where one language ends and another dialect of the same language begins, it is clear that different speech communities often have quite distinct ways of speaking.
4. Sociolinguistics
On a similar vein, the issue of how shifts between high and low level linguistic elements can cause large-scale changes has been a topic that has interested both historical linguists and sociolinguists. They have asked why changes in pronunciation or grammar sometimes trigger complex social reactions and what are the social consequences of these changes.
In the mid-20th century, a reaction to this view was born out of dissatisfaction with language change modeled as a unidirectional, autonomous process. This view of change was one that could be accounted for entirely by internal developments in a language, a view that at its extremes could eliminate social factors from the equation of why changes do or do not occur in the grammar and lexicon of a language. LAD theory also has been closely allied to traditional historical linguistics in that it too has been concerned with language change and constructing diachronic grammatical models in the search for universals. However, generative theory has tried to account for the course of change in terms of constraints on language universals and shifts between parameters in the grammars of languages. This approach shares with variationist sociolinguistics a concern for identifying directions of change and the forces that cause change; however, the methodologies employed by these two fields have been largely quite different.
Sociolinguistics and historical linguistics have points of both overlap and departures in their treatment of language change. Traditional historical linguistics has tried to answer questions about mechanisms of language change, how change is regular, how languages borrow elements from one another, and what the course of changes has been from an original state of a language. These studies have not often taken into account the social context for language change, and many have assumed a linear progression of change from older states of a language to newer states.
Charles Hockett notes (in the foreword to Gumperz and Hymes 1972) that “sociolinguistics is the study of the interplay between language and society.” This area of inquiry asks how elements of society and social structure can impact the way that language is structured, and how changes in the structure of language can in turn impact elements of society. Throughout the history of modern linguistics, this has been a common focus for research and theorizing, and indeed, many areas of overlap and influence between sociolinguistics and other fields can be found.
5. Language and Identity
In South Africa, different languages are used as a racial or ethnic badge. A woman of the Tswana tribe in the Northern Province may speak Afrikaans well but will only use it for communication with a white person.
Language can also be used to indicate a person’s membership in a particular group. This is often seen in multilingual situations. Diglossia is a state of affairs in which two languages or two dialects are used in the same community but for different functions. The H language and M dialect is an example from Italy. Languages or dialects can be of higher or lower prestige, and often the choice of which one to use is a reflection of the speaker’s social position. A man named B in the Italian village of S studied up to the third elementary and worked as a janitor in the town hall. He always used M, but it was often noted by the people he spoke to that his use of M was not as “pure” as the H used by the school teacher or the town clerk.
French has a particular way of marking social identity in that different words exist for certain kinship relations based on whether the speaker is of higher or lower status than the person he is referring to. An example of this can be found in the word for “uncle.” If your mother or father’s brother is of the same or lower social status than you, you would use the word oncle. If he is of a higher social status, you would use the word for “your honorable uncle,” which is differentiated by père and oncle respectively.
Different social positions with distinct sets of rights, obligations, and social roles are recorded in language. A person’s social identity can be signaled in a number of ways through language. One of the most common is the use of a prestige marker. Spanish has two ways of speaking to someone, tú and usted. Throughout the Spanish-speaking world, these two forms are used in varying degrees. The general rule is that the use of the more formal usted indicates social distance and/or respect to the person being spoken to. This more formal address is also often used when interacting with social superiors, no matter the actual relation between the interlocutors.
