Anthropology tricks that make language & culture stick

Language levels: PMSS — Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics (+ Pragmatics as a 5th level for social context). P=Phonology, M=Morphology, S=Syntax, S=Semantics.

PhonologySound system — phonemes distinguish meaning

MorphologyWord structure — morphemes, affixes

SyntaxSentence structure — grammar rules

SemanticsMeaning — word and sentence meaning

PragmaticsContext-dependent meaning use

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: strong (language determines thought — rejected) vs weak (language influences thought — supported)

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis — Strong Whorfian (linguistic determinism): language determines thought — not supported by evidence. Weak version (linguistic relativity): language influences certain cognitive patterns. Evidence for weak version: Russian speakers (separate blue/goluboy-siniy) faster at discriminating blues. Pirahã (no numbers) → counting difficulties. Spatial language differences affect navigation. Guugu Yimithirr (cardinal directions only) → superior spatial memory.

Language universals: all languages have nouns, verbs, negation, questions, and recursion. No "primitive" languages.

Universal Grammar — Chomsky's universal grammar: innate language capacity (Language Acquisition Device). All ~7,000 languages: nouns and verbs, ways to negate and question, recursion (sentences within sentences). Language acquisition: children acquire any language equally fast — critical period ends ~puberty. No language is primitive or simpler than another — all equally complex. Endangered languages are not "less developed."

Diglossia: H (high = formal, written) + L (low = everyday speech) varieties used in same community.

Diglossia — Ferguson (1959) coined "diglossia." H variety: education, religion, formal writing, news — learned formally. L variety: home, market, casual conversation — acquired naturally. Examples: Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic vs dialects), Greek (Katharevousa vs Demotiki until 1976), Swiss German (Standard German vs Schwyzerdütsch). Code-switching: moving between varieties mid-conversation — socially meaningful, not "sloppy."

~7,000 languages exist; ~40% endangered. A language dies when its last fluent speaker dies. Extinction rate accelerating.

Language Endangerment and Loss — 50–90% of current languages may be extinct by 2100. Each language encodes unique ecological knowledge, classification systems, history. Language shift: community adopts dominant language for economic/political reasons. Documentation: record grammar, lexicon, texts before last speakers die (ELDP — Endangered Languages Documentation Programme; AILLA — Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America). Revitalization: Hawaiian, Māori, Welsh successes. Master-apprentice program: immersive one-on-one transmission.

Sociolinguistics: language varies by region (dialect), class, age, gender, ethnicity. Variation is systematic, not random.

Sociolinguistics — Labov: variable rules — linguistic variation correlates with social variables. New York City /r/ dropping: class-stratified, style-stratified. AAVE (African American Vernacular English): fully rule-governed dialect — not "incorrect English." Dialect vs language: "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy" (Weinreich). Register: formal/informal speech styles. Gendered speech: different intonation, lexicon, politeness strategies across genders and cultures.

Communicative competence (Hymes): knowing not just grammar, but when, where, and how to speak appropriately.

Communicative Competence — Chomsky: linguistic competence = knowing grammar. Hymes (1972): communicative competence = knowing what to say, to whom, when, how. SPEAKING mnemonic (S=Setting, P=Participants, E=Ends/goals, A=Act sequence, K=Key/tone, I=Instrumentalities, N=Norms, G=Genre) — a framework for analyzing speech events cross-culturally. Ethnography of communication: document speech events cross-culturally. Silence: culturally variable — Apaches use silence differently than Anglo-Americans.

Language ideologies: beliefs about which languages/dialects are "better" — always reflect power relations, not linguistic fact.

Language Ideologies — Language ideology: shared beliefs about what language is and should be. Standard language ideology: one dialect is "correct," others are "corrupted" — always the dialect of the powerful. Linguistic discrimination: treating people differently based on their dialect (legal in many places). Colonial language policies: suppressing Indigenous languages — cultural genocide. Language revitalization as decolonization. Codeswitching as linguistic resistance and identity maintenance.

Communication is multimodal: speech + gesture + gaze + posture work together. Gesture is not decoration — it's integral to meaning.

Gesture and Embodied Communication — McNeill: gestures are tightly coordinated with speech — co-expressive, not just illustrative. Types: iconic (depicts content), metaphoric (abstract concepts), deictic (pointing), beat (rhythmic emphasis). Sign languages: fully grammatical visual-gestural languages — not pantomime. Cross-cultural variation: gesture frequency and type differ. Multimodal interaction analysis: studies gaze, gesture, posture alongside talk in natural settings.

Language origins: unknown. Hypotheses — gestural (hands first), vocal (social grooming), music, or co-evolution of brain and culture.

Origins of Human Language — Language doesn't fossilize — indirect evidence only. Anatomical clues: descended larynx (allows speech, increases choking risk), hyoid bone shape, Broca's area in endocasts. FOXP2 gene: mutations cause speech/language disorder; shared with Neanderthals. Behavioral modernity: symbolic behavior, art, complex tools ~70,000–40,000 ya suggests language. Gestural hypothesis: hands before voice. Oldest agreed language-capable anatomy: ~300,000 ya in H. sapiens.

Speech acts (Austin/Searle): saying something IS doing something — "I now pronounce you..." changes reality.

Speech Act Theory — Austin (1962): performatives — utterances that perform actions (promises, declarations, warnings). Locutionary act: the literal meaning. Illocutionary act: the social function (promising, threatening, requesting). Perlocutionary act: the effect on the listener. Searle: taxonomy of speech acts (assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, declarations). Indirect speech acts: "Can you pass the salt?" is a request, not a question about ability. Politeness strategies use indirect speech acts.

Pidgin: simplified contact language (no native speakers). Creole: pidgin that becomes a first language — gains full grammar.

Pidgins and Creoles — Pidgin: simplified contact language with reduced grammar, from two+ language communities (trade, colonialism). No one's first language. Creole: when children acquire a pidgin as first language → they unconsciously add full grammatical complexity. Bickerton's Language Bioprogram Hypothesis: creoles share grammatical features because children draw on innate UG (Universal Grammar — the innate language faculty). Examples: Haitian Creole, Tok Pisin, Jamaican Creole. Creoles are fully complex languages — not simplified.