Tag Archives: anthropology

Chapter 7: Metaphor: Making the Abstract Concrete and Visual

Multi-Tasking at its Finest: Working on My Honors Project while Waiting for the Electoral Votes to Come In

 

A symbol, once in being, spreads among the peoples. In use and in experience, its meaning grows. Such words as force, law, wealth, marriage, bear for us very different meanings from those they bore to our barbarous ancestors (Charles Pierce)

 

Introduction

Now we are finally arriving at the core of this paper, where one will be able to gain an understanding of the motivations for metaphorical communication. By specifically focusing on the purpose conceptual metaphors serve in today’s society, one will also gain an understanding of how the mind and body, the physical and mental essences, work together to shape the way humans think and act. By the end of this second part one should have a full understanding of why communication could not stop at the basic level and the role metaphor plays in our human existence.

 

Metaphor and the Synchronization of Mind and Body

I think it helps to begin discussion with an explanation of what goes on inside each individual’s brain that allows for one to conceptualize in such an abstract manner. To understand what is going on it helps to look at a study done by the German-American psychologist Wolfgang Köhler in 1929. In 1929, Köhler demonstrated that the human brain is able to extract abstract properties from shapes and sounds.[1] When he showed islanders two shapes, one round and amoeboid and the other sharp and spiky, and then asked them to associate the words “takete” and “baluba” with the shapes, he discovered the majority of participants associated “takete” with the sharp, spiky shape and “baluba” with the round, amoeboid shape (Geary, 80). It is the instinctive ability to make associations like this that helps explain why metaphors typically “take the commonly shared world of physical sensation as their source and the private, abstract world of ideas, feelings, thoughts, and emotions as their target” (Geary, 82). For a further example, think about the words “light” and “dark” and how they affect one’s opinion when associated with someone’s personality: a sunny person is typically characterized as someone who is happy and cheerful. In contrast, someone who is gloomy is characterized as being sad and depressed. These types of metaphors begin to create consistent patterns. The words we use for everyday experiences, physical things, and sensations become used to describe abstract thoughts, feelings, emotions, and ideas (Geary, 78-79).

 

Conceptual Metaphor

There is such a close-knit relationship between human cognition and metaphor because mind and body are not separate metaphysical entities. For this reason, everything appears to come down to human reason and the duality between mind and body. Physical experience and perception are both basic and shared between humans and human mental states are less readily communicable than physical ones (Sweetser, 719). To better understand the synchronization of mind and body, it helps to unravel what conceptual metaphors are. Conceptual metaphors allow us to “conceptualize one domain of experience in terms of another” (Flesh, 91). Because of their literal, basic level- entailments, conceptual metaphors allow us to conceptualize and comprehend our experiences, and then communicate them.

 

Time

Take for example the abstract concept of time. Time is not a concept that can be conceptualized on its own terms; it must be conceptualized metaphorically. Think about how humans orient themselves in space and time. “The most basic metaphor for time has an observer at the present who is facing toward the future, with the past behind the observer” (Flesh, 140). From this conceptualization, humans can talk and reason about the here and now because the observer’s physical location serves as a reference point for the words preceding and following (Flesh, 143).

 

Argument is War

One commonly used conceptual metaphor is argument is war. “Words are weapons in this verbal combat: sharp-tongued people make cutting remarks, for example, and sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me seems to be a formulaic attempt to assert the metaphorical rather than literal status of such weapons.”[2]

Humans perceive and act in accordance with the metaphors. Continuing with the theme of argument is war, one can see the parallel made between combat and conversation; “one may verbally and psychologically, without physical intervention, push someone into something, drag someone unwillingly into a situation, pull someone out of trouble, give someone a (verbal) nudge (= a reminder) slap someone’s wrist (= reprove someone mildly), and so forth” (Sweetser, 718). Humans plan and use strategies in order to try and win verbal arguments. It is hard to imagine a culture where the metaphorical concept argument is war is not used to structure what humans do and how humans understand what they are doing when they argue; try and imagine a culture where no one ever wins or loses, where there is no sense of attacking or defending. These people would view arguing differently, if they even had a perception of argumentation at all. American culture has a form of discourse structured in terms of battle, and this discourse demonstrates how metaphors allow for the perception of one thing in terms of another. These conceptual arguments serve the purpose of shaping understanding; the construction of these arguments shows the connections between things that are and things that are not obvious by putting ideas together.

 

Summary

These various defining concepts (e.g. journeys, war, health, etc) emerge from the interactions between human beings, and the concept they metaphorically define (e.g. love) is understood in terms of interactional properties.[3] This identifies how metaphors are grounded in human interactions with the physical and cultural environment. Reason and concepts therefore are not transcendent – not utterly independent of the body (Flesh, 128). The traditional theory of metaphor, which has persisted for twenty-five hundred years in the philosophical and literary tradition, treats metaphor as irrelevant to fundamental questions about the nature of the world and knowledge of it, but these traditional views must be challenged.[4] Metaphors are imaginative and creative, but the irony is that they are necessary for the conceptualization of the real (Flesh, 14). Truth is always relative to a conceptual system that is defined by the metaphor (Lakoff, 3). Therefore, since the primary role of language is to express and communicate basic truths about the world, these metaphors are proven to be necessary.

[1] I Is An Other (Geary, 81)

[2] Sweetser, Eve E. “English Metaphors for Language: Motivations, Conventions, and Creativity.” Poetics Today 13.4 (1992): 705-24. JSTOR. Web. 10 Mar. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1773295&gt;. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Sweetser, p.#).

[3] Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1980. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Lakoff, p.#).

[4] Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic, 1999. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Flesh, p.#).

Chapter 6: A Symbolic Language: A Look at How Tropes Influence Human Communication

The Search for Peace

 

Symbols carry a life-enhancing ability, and when one is tuned in to what these symbols have to offer, the symbol becomes “pregnant with meaning” and shapes one’s reality

~ Anthony Stevens, Ariadne’s Clue: a Guide to the Symbols of Humankind

 

Non-Verbal Communication

The communicative function is a powerful one. It is not a simple, one layered, linear process. Humans in addition to communicating at the literal level, have the ability to transmit signals by means other than spoken or written words. They achieve this non-verbal communication through the use of facial expressions and bodily gestures, as well as through non-literal verbal extensions with a logical component, called tropes. [1] Human beings appear to unconsciously use these non-literal methods of communication. In many instances, it appears evident that the body communicates more strongly than the mind, without the mind even being aware of the body’s innate power over reason. Human societies need this form of communication in order to represent the ways things in the world are; communication in the non-literal sense is a process of rendering the unfamiliar more familiar.

There are various forms of non-verbal communication Some forms include: paralanguage, which refers to sounds that sometimes do not have a written form (e.g. uh-huh means Yes, or I am listening); kinesics, or body language (e.g. eye contact); proxemics, which refers to how humans organize space (e.g. the intimate distance for embracing, touching or whispering); haptics, which refers to the sense of touch (e.g. in Spain, people greet each other with two kisses on the cheek); chronemics, which refers to time (e.g. when in a relationship to say, I love you); and artifacts, or communication with objects (e.g. jewelry, bumper stickers, food, etc.) (Salzmann, insert page#).

Kinesics:

To begin to understand this non-literal sense of communication it helps to first analyze the role kinesics plays in human societies. This powerful form of communication involves body language, and the way this is used to portray moods and emotions. “Ritualized gestures – the bow, the shrug, the smile, the wink, the military salute, the pointed finger, the thumbed nose, sticking out the tongue, and so on – are not really nonverbal communication, because such gestures are just a substitute for the verbal meanings that are associated with them.”[2] However, there are many spontaneous gestures and actions that are unconscious, and communicate a great deal; sometimes what a person is saying unconsciously by his actions directly contradicts what he is saying consciously with his words (Clark, 57). The best way to understand how this form of non-verbal communication works is to think about how body language is interpreted when one goes into an interview. There are various types of body movement one can conduct, which can portray a person as confident or insecure, enthusiastic or lazy. For example, something as simple as a handshake with an interviewer says a lot. A good firm hand shake is associated with an open-minded, less neurotic and shy personality in comparison to a weak handshake.[3] Words prove to not be the only way to effectively communicate; body movement has interpretative meaning as well.

Tropes:

Now, looking beyond body language, it is important to also look at the use of tropes in human societies. Tropes include: metaphor, a literary figure of speech that uses and image, story or tangible object to represent a less tangible object or some intangible quality or idea (e.g. Life as journey: some of us travel hopefully, others seem to have no direction, many lose their way); simile, a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, using the words like or as (e.g. life is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you are going to get); metonym, a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept (e.g. the white house stands for the president); synecdoche, a figure of speech in which a term denoting one thing is used to refer to a related thing (e.g. executives being referred to as suits), myth, a traditional or legendary story; and metamorphosis (abrupt change in an animal’s body structure through cell growth and differentiation).

Metaphor:

For the purpose of this paper, metaphor will be the main focus. While the other types of tropes play important roles in human communication, metaphors can be viewed as people’s primary mode of mental operation. This is because of the major role metaphor plays in human reason. “Reason is not disembodied, as the tradition has largely held, but arises from the nature of our brains, bodies, and bodily experience” and this reason is “not purely literal, but largely metaphorical and imaginative.”[4]  In the following chapters one will learn about the important role metaphor plays in shaping our understanding of every day experiences.  In order to demonstrate this importance, there will be a specific focus on conceptual metaphors. Conceptual metaphor, which refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another (e.g. understanding quantity in terms of directionality – “prices are rising”).[5] These metaphors not only shape human communication, but shape the way humans think and act. It is through these metaphors that we can talk about our every day experiences.

[1]  Salzmann, Zdenek. Language, Culture, & [and] Society: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Boulder: Westview, 1993. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Salzmann, p.#).

[2] Clark, Virginia P., Paul A. Eschholz, and Alfred F. Rosa. Language: Introductory Readings. New York: St. Martin’s, 1977. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Clark, p.#).

[3] LiveScience Staff. “Firm Handshakes Help Land Jobs.” Live Science. LiveScience.com, 6 May 2008. Web. 10 Mar. 2012. <http://www.livescience.com/7487-firm-handshakes-land-jobs.html&gt;. Further reference to this source in parentheses (LiveScience).

[4] Lakoff and Johnson. Philosophy in the Flesh. (4).

[5] “Conceptual Metaphor.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Mar. 2012. Web. 10 Mar. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_metaphor&gt;. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Conceptual Metaphor).

Chapter 5: Keeping Consistent Perspective

Tabby Thinks She’s So Wise

When it was over, all I could think about was how this entire notion of oneself, what we are, is just this logical structure, a place to momentarily house all the abstractions. It was a time to become conscious, to give form and coherence to the mystery, and I had been a part of that. It was a gift. Life was raging all around me and every moment was magical. I loved all the people, dealing with all the contradictory impulses – that’s what I loved the most, connecting with the people. Looking back, that’s all that really mattered.

 ~Quiet Woman at Restaurant, Waking Life

“Certain ways of speaking the same language may differentiate men from women, the young from the old, the poor from the rich, and the like.”[1] Benjamin Lee Whorf set forth a double principle to further explain: the principle of linguistic determinism (the way one thinks determines the language one speaks), and linguistic relativity (differences among languages must therefore be reflected in the different worldviews of speakers) (Salzmann, 54). Because the world can be seen through different lenses and interpreted in multiple ways, the people, gestures, and moments each individual experiences create one’s own reality.

“Language makes us free as individuals but chains us socially.”[2] The social rules of language often force human beings to respond in certain ways. Dell Hymes’ mnemonic device, S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G (for setting and scene, participants, ends, act sequence, key, instrumentalities, norms and genre) helps us look at the complexity of speech events (e.g. interview, telephone inquiry, dialogue, confession to a priest, etc.). His model enforces the notion that to speak a language correctly, not only does one need to learn its vocabulary and grammar, but one also needs to learn the context in which words are used; speech does not occur in a vacuum, but within a specific context.

“Setting refers to the time and place of a speech act and, in general, to the physical circumstances.”[3] Settings will vary from one instance to the next, even if the events are the same kind, but the variation has culturally recognized limits (Salzmann, 249). For example, asking a friend if he wants to go out for drinks after watching a baseball game on a Friday night is an appropriate invitation; however, inviting a friend to a bar during a church service is inappropriate. Hymes distinguishes between setting and scene by designating scene as the “psychological setting” (Hymes, 55-56). One can imagine the identical setting and participants, but completely different scenes: for example, the announcement of a co-workers pregnancy versus the announcement of a fatal accident in a conference room. Setting and scene demonstrate how the context of situation matters.

The next component, participants, includes not only the sender of a message and the receiver, but anyone who perceives the message (Salzmann, 248). The characteristics of the participants: age, gender, ethnic affiliation, relationship among participants, social status, degree to which they are acquainted, and other factors influence communication (Salzmann, 248). For example, the utterance, “There aren’t enough chairs” to one’s wife means ‘Wow! I am popular;’ but to a janitor it means, ‘Go get some more chairs’ (Clark, 277). To understand meaning requires knowledge of social statuses, privileges and duties of both speaker and listener.

Ends, the next component, is purpose of communicative behavior. “An individual may make an offer or a request, threaten or plead, praise or blame, invite or prohibit some action, reveal or try to conceal something” (Salzmann, 249). Often more times than not, one’s goal determines how one speaks and acts. For instance, if Jill wants Jack to attend a party with her, she might say to him, “Even Bob is going.” The presupposition is that if Bob is going, then everyone is going, and therefore the person being spoken to should go. The manipulation is held in the word, even (Clark, 286). Other forms of indirect request are used in giving compliments, commands, and asking questions (Clark, 279). The problem with indirect requests is that they are often misunderstood. If someone says, “would you mind closing the window,” one is not seeking a yes or no answer, but is rather asking the receiver to shut the window. Someone of a different culture may not understand similar discourse routines.

Act sequence refers to the form and order of an event. Religious ceremonies have a specific sequential order. For example, a typical Episcopal Church Service looks like this: when one enters the church, one is greeted by an usher and given a service bulletin; one then sits in a pew and waits for the service to begin; the service begins with everyone standing and singing a hymn (usually there will be a procession consisting of acolytes, the choir, and the clergy); the priest then begins with a collect (a special prayer); following the collect, everyone sits for the first reading, a psalm, and a second reading; then, everyone stands for a hymn, and the Gospel reading; next everyone sits for the priest’s sermon; after the sermon comes the Nicene Creed, prayers, confession, and the exchanging of peace; this is followed by the communion; after communion the celebrant and congregation say a prayer of thanksgiving, and everyone stands for a recessional hymn; then the service ends with a dismissal to which the congregation replies, “Thanks be to God”. Attention to sequential structure demonstrates how discourse is not a meaningless string of words, but rather is interactional, and has intentions and purpose.

Key, also sometimes called frame, refers to what the participants in a face-to-face interaction are doing when they speak (Sauzmann, 254). “Acts otherwise the same as regards setting participants, message form, and the like may differ in key as, e.g., between mock [and] serious or perfunctory [and] painstaking”(Salzmann, 252). When studying language discourse it is important to pay attention to who is directing the mood, and how the mood is being controlled. Some words carry strong, emotional and social values, and failure to recognize such connotations can lead to offensive misinterpretation.

Instrumentalities refers to agencies of speaking and consists both of channels (the transmission of speech: oral, written, telegraphic, semaphore, etc.) and forms of speech (Hymes, 58, 60). With regard to channels, one must further distinguish modes of use. Among the Ashanti, the acoustic channel is diverse: Twi is their verbal language, characterized by give distinctive tones; the ceremonial language priests and priestesses use is a sub-code that Ashanti laypeople cannot understand; the language of the ghosts, cooing noises, is intelligible only to unborn babies and toothless infants; drum code, horn code, and gong code are used to convey messages and signals; and whistling is recognized as being used by the forest fairies and monsters who instruct the Ashanti’s medicine men (Salzmann, 250). How something is being said is part of what is said.

Norms refers to the social rules that govern the event and the participants’ actions and reaction. Norms vary from culture to culture, and within a single society. If the society is socially or ethnically diversified, not all members are likely to use the same rules of interaction and the same norms of interpretation (Salzmann, 252). When norms are shared, there is less room for misinterpretation and tension among individuals. For example, in a study done at the University of Colorado among male students from Arabic-speaking countries and male students from the United States, Michael Watson and Theodore Graves (1966:976-979) found that “Arabs confronted each other more directly than Americans when conversing…They sat closer to each other…[and] were more likely to touch each other…They looked each other more squarely in the eye…and…conversed more loudly than Americans…Persons from the various Arab countries [appeared to] be more similar to each other than to any regional group of Americans” (Salzmann, 254). Due to the fact that American communicative behavior is different than that of various Arab countries, misinterpretation leads to misunderstanding

Lastly, Genre refers to the type of speech act or event. Members of a speech community recognize genres as having beginnings, middles, and ends, and as being patterned. For example, the end of a joke is the punch line, often a pun – typically this is a stupid response by one of the characters showing that the character is lacking in some basic social knowledge or one in which the social meaning of an utterance is ignored and its literal meaning is taken instead (Clark, 277). An old Beetle Bailey cartoon illustrates a clear example: Sarge says to Zero “The wastebasket is full.” Instead of emptying the basket, Zero responds “Even I can see that” (Clark, 277). This demonstrates how words can be taken at face value rather than their intended interpretation.

My Kantian Expert

My Kantian Cat

For Hymes, speech cannot be separated from the sociological and cultural factors that help shape linguistic form and create meaning. Each person is the author of her own life; an author, when writing a piece of fiction, creates a narrative thread. Particular elements and techniques of writing lead the created characters to have certain experiences and commit certain acts. These narrative threads weave the characters’ individual world views (cultural norms) together and create the overall story. Does the author ever place herself in the story? The fact that the author stops to read her work before continuing on to further develop the plot line is enough evidence to say yes, the author is placing herself in this fictional life. These same techniques can be applied to one’s waking reality. The people, gestures, and moments an individual experiences on a daily basis make one’s life story and shape one’s language. The way one perceives and speaks about life and the way sequences of events play out works the same way an author perceives how his novel will develop. In both situations one is aware of reality because one has a consistent perspective.

[1] Salzmann, Zdenek. Language, Culture, & [and] Society: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Boulder: Westview, 1993. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Salzmann, p#).

[2] Clark, Virginia P., Paul A. Eschholz, and Alfred F. Rosa. Language: Introductory Readings. New York: St. Martin’s, 1977. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Clark, p#).

[3] Hymes, Dell H. Foundations in Sociolinguistics; an Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1974. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Hymes, p#).

Chapter 3: Why We Have Language

Nothing Like Finding a Voltaire Quote in a Fortune Cookie!

Why We Have Language

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

~Noam Chomsky

Language Selection

To begin to understand language, it is important to ponder how human language has evolved into a communication system different from other animals. The main question to ask is: what selected for language? Different theories have been proposed, but one that seems most plausible is the idea that our ancestor’s foraging strategies changed.[1] Human ancestors were likely faced with two constraints: On the one hand, predators called for an increase in the size of foraging groups, for protection. However, foraging in large groups would have been the least efficient mode for human ancestors because it would have been too hard to find enough food for everyone to eat in a relatively small area. This would have caused a strong selective pressure for them to break up into smaller groups. This adaptation would have caused language to develop out of a need for social control (Bickerton, 159).  Human ancestors had to develop a way to communicate with one another, and recruit members, to direct the group towards obtaining food.

Niche Construction Theory

This niche construction theory, the theory that gives animals themselves a vital role to play in their own evolution, demonstrates how genes and behavior change together (Bickerton, 93). The animals modify their environments, and these modified environments select for further genetic variations in the animals (Bickerton, 99). In the case of human beings, one of the main things gained over time is a large brain. Our need for language resulted in an increase in brain size (Bickerton, 34). The first human ancestors, Australopithecines, had a brain size of about 400-550 cm3. Then, the Homo Habilis had a brain size of about 600-800cm3. The brain continued to increase in size, reaching a measurement of 800-1000cm3 in Homo Erectus and then 1100-1500cm3 in Homo Sapiens.[2] The brain size increased as the need for a more developed communication system grew. Simple gestures and speech sounds moved to the articulation of words, which resulted in the need for a larger and more specialized brain. The human brain developed to be able to receive information from the senses, send it to be analyzed for identification, choose a course of action based on the analysis, and then send an order to execute that action (Bickterton, 193).

Additional Language Theories

Other theories regarding the evolution and adaptation of language have been proposed, and while philosophers and analysts have found flaws within each theory, they are worth taking a look at. Through a richer understanding of the thought process theorists went through when thinking about language, one can understand what needs to be taken into consideration when studying language. Looking at language patterns and comparing syntax and phonology cross-culturally are crucial when working to deepen an understanding of language usage. Below, four different language theories are outlined and one can see why in theory each sounds plausible, but in reality, none of these theories fully explain why humans today have such a unique and specialized communication system.

Ta-Ta Theory

One additional language theory that has been proposed is the Ta-Ta Theory, which holds the belief that body movement preceded language. Sir Richard Paget, who was influenced by Darwin, proposed that language began as an unconscious vocal imitation of bodily movements – such as the way a kid moves his mouth when they use scissors, or when one’s tongue sticks out when trying to thread a needle. Darwin agreed that human language represents the use of oral gestures that began in imitation of hand gestures that were already in use for communication.[3]  However, this raises the question of where did the sophisticated set of gestures for humans to imitate with their mouth gestures come from? This sign language consisting of iconic gestures had to have originated somewhere. It appears that this theory does not fully answer the question of where did language originate from.

Bow-Wow Theory

Another language theory that has been proposed by various scholars, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Gottfried Herder, is the bow-wow theory. This theory suggests that the first human languages developed as onomatopoeia, imitations of natural environmental sounds. These scholars believe that man, who was once mute, heard the music of birds, the thunder of clouds, the roaring of the ocean, and the rustling of the forest, and tried to imitate these sounds. These sounds became useful for identifying objects, and from this language became more sophisticated.[4] However, there are problems with this theory. There are very few onomatopoeic words in today’s languages, and these words vary from one language to another. For example, a dog’s bark is heard as au au in Brazil, ham ham in Albania, and wang wang in China (Ahmad and Shah).

Pooh-Pooh Theory

The pooh-pooh theory of language states that speech arose through people making instinctive sounds, caused by pain (Ouch!), surprise (Oh!), or other emotions. The belief is that these involuntary exclamations eventually lead to more developed ideas and emotions. However, the problem with this theory is that no language contains many of these interjections/spontaneous cries, and these noises bear little relationship to the vowels and consonants found in phonology (Ahmad and Shah). Wilbur Marshall Urban (1873-1952), and American philosopher of language, discredited this theory in 1951: “All attempts at explaining the language in this way have been fruitless. There is no tangible evidence, historical or other, tending to show that the mass of speech elements or processes has evolved out of interjections.”[5]

Ding-Dong Theory

One last theory worth thinking about is the ding-dong theory, which was proposed by Friedrich Max Müller, only to later be rejected by him. According to this theory, language began when humans reacted to stimuli in their environment and spontaneously started producing sounds to reflect harmony with the environment (Ahmad and Shah). This theory, favored by Plato and Pythagoras, has problems in that there is no evidence to show any innate connection between sound and meaning apart from some rare instances of sound symbolism.

Summary

Language is a key component of what it means to be human, and without an understanding of how human beings obtained language, it becomes impossible to explain and understand ourselves. Language evolution is part of human evolution, and it makes sense only if considered as a part of human evolution. “Language is what determines the meanings of words and signs and what combines them into meaningful wholes, wholes that add up to conversations, speeches, essays, epic poems. Language goes beyond that even; it’s what makes your thoughts truly meaningful, what builds your ideas into structured wholes.”[6] Once humans developed structural language, humans were able to think conceptually and abstractly; humans were no longer trapped in the here and now. These design features of language will be further explored in Part II. All one needs to understand right now is that social interaction is the pressure that selected for language, and when our ancestors began to learn language, symbols were also created. These symbols set the whole process of language evolution in motion. This language specialization is necessary to consciously perceive and understand how every single human experience plays a crucial role in defining one’s reality.

[1] Bickerton

[2] Salzmann, Zdeněk. Language, Culture, and Society: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. 4th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2007. Print. . Further reference to this source in parentheses (Salzman, p.#).

[3] Ta-Ta Theory.” Free Online Dictionary. Babylon, 2012. Web. 21 July 2012. <http://www.babylon.com/definition/ta-ta_theory/English&gt;. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Free Online Dictionary).

[4] Ahmad, Syed Sajid, and Zia H. Shah MD. “THE BEGINNING OF LANGUAGE: THE INCREMENTAL REVELATION THEORY.” N.p., n.d. Web. 21 July 2012. <http://www.alislam.org/egazette/articles/The-beginning-of-language-200908.pdf&gt;. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Ahmad and Shah).

[5] Marshall, Wilbur Urban. Language and Reality: The Philosophy of Language and the Principles of Symbolism. New York: Macmillan, 1951. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Marshall, pg.#).

[6] Bickerton, Derek. Adam’s Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010. Print. . Further reference to this source in parentheses (Bickerton, p.#).

Chapter 1: What is Language?

Trigger Attempts to Help Me Read

 

Chapter 1:

What is Language?

So this is the real mystery: Even under these loosened criteria there are no simple languages used among other species, though there are many other equally or more complicated modes of communication. Why not? …. This is an apples and oranges problem, not a complicated-vs-simple one.

~Terrance Deacon

 

The Five Key Aspects of Language

The English word language derives from the Latin word, lingua, “tongue,” via Old French. It is easily understood as the communication system that enables humans to communicate with one another. However, language is no easy system. Not only is there more than one type of communication system, but there is so much that goes into the makeup of each cognitive faculty. There are animal languages, computer languages, and human languages. Each system has its own series of signs for encoding and decoding information.

However, the purpose of this paper is not to explore these different methods of communication at large, but rather to strictly explore and analyze how language communication is more complex amongst humans. Language is often thought about in terms of the written word, because when something is written down it becomes a permanent idea. However, in linguistics, speech is valued as being more central to human language. The human ability to speak is often taken for granted. The ability to communicate effectively with one another is actually quite an intricate mental ability, and researchers today still do not have all the answers to how such a skill is possible.

Then He Goes and Rolls

While there are multiple forms of non-verbal communication amongst the human species, such as: sign language, whistle and drum languages, the focus of this paper will be on the acoustic channel, the form of communication used whenever people speak to one another. The words we wish to express at a given moment seem to emerge inexplicably from a sender’s mouth, as sound waves. Then, these sound waves travel to and hit the listener’s ear. Once the sound waves have hit the listener’s ear, an auditory signal is sent to the brain, where it is interpreted. This model seems simple enough, but it takes more valuable information to understand how the process effectively works.

Linguists typically recognize five key aspects of language: “phonology, the sounds of language; morphology, the way words are built; syntax, the ordering of words and other grammatical bits into meaningful language; semantics, the meaning system of language; and pragmatics, the way speakers use words on the basis of social contexts.”[1] Once these main features of language are explained, the significance of language becomes more apparent.

Then Trigger Steals My Food!

Phonology

There is a complex relationship between words and sounds. Understanding phonetics requires and understanding of a particular language’s sound system, an understanding of what goes on in the mouth and throat to produce speech. Phonetics deals with measureable, physical properties of speech sounds themselves, for example, precisely how the mouth produces certain sounds, and the characteristics of the resulting sound waves. When discussing phonetics, it is important to remember the letters are not what matter, but rather individual speech sounds.

IPA Alphabet

A good place to start discussion of the language system is with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. The IPA was first developed in 1886, but since then has undergone a number of revisions.[2] The aim of the IPA is to show pronunciation in a dictionary, to record a language in linguistic fieldwork, to form the basis of a writing system for a language, or to annotate acoustic and other displays in the analysis of speech (IPA, 3). Behind the IPA system are a few theoretical assumptions about speech: some aspects of speech are linguistically relevant, and others are not; speech can be represented partly as a sequence of discrete sounds (segments); segments can be divided into two major categories, consonants and vowels; the phonetic description of consonants and vowels can be made with reference to their auditory characteristics; and finally, some aspects of speech, such as stress and tone, need to be represented independently from segments (IPA, 4). These theoretical assumptions are further explored in this chapter, and a full chart of the IPA symbols can be viewed at the end of this chapter, but for now, it is easiest to focus simply on the symbols necessary to make the basic sounds of North America English, rather than to try and understand all the sounds of the world’s languages.

Vowels

It is difficult to try and understand the complex relationship between letters and sounds in the English language because in many instances, the same vowel sound is spelled differently. For example: heard, herd, turn.

Vowel sounds are produced with relatively free flow of air, and the tongue influences the ‘shape’ through which the airflow must pass. When talking about the place of articulation, linguists refer to the inside of the mouth as having a front versus a back and then a high versus a low area. Linguists would point out that vowel sounds are simply voiced air, meaning that when you produce these sounds, your vocal cords vibrate while you breathe across them. For example, the sound “EEE” is made with the tongue high in the front of one’s mouth, while the sound of “AHH” is made with the tongue low in the back of the mouth (Temple, 84). But this is only the beginning of the understanding of vowels.

There is then the difference between long and short vowels. This, for example, is the distinction between the sound represented by the letter a in mate (a long vowel sound) and the sound represented by the letter a in mat (a short vowel sound). With the pronunciation of each word, one’s mouth is doing something different. When one says a so called“long vowel,” one’s tongue muscles tense up. This is in contrast with what happens when one says a “short vowel.” When one pronounces mat, one’s tongue muscles relax. This is why linguists do not use the terms, long and short, but rather refer to the sound variations as tense and lax.

Now, there is something else Native English speakers do with their pronunciation of vowels that other languages do not do: They make double pronunciations of them (Temple, 85). Look for example at the word eye [aɪ̯]or same [seɪ̯m]. One might thing she is only pronouncing one vowel, such as the vowel “I,” but in fact, you actually run together “ah” and “ee.” These are called diphthongs.

One last common phenomenon in English but rare in other languages is vowel reduction (Temple, 85). In English, in words of more than one syllable, vowels in the unstressed syllable are called schwa; the vowel in the unstressed syllable is said to be reduced. For example, schwa corresponds to the ‘a’ in about [əˈbaʊt] and the ‘e’ in taken [ˈteɪkən].

Consonants

Another important part of phonetics to understand is what happens when breath flow is interrupted in some way. By using the tongue and other parts of the mouth to constrict and shape the oral cavity through which the air is passing, many different sounds can be created, and these various sounds are consonants. To describe the place of articulation of most consonant sounds, it makes sense to start at the front of the mouth and work back. When discussing place of articulation there are: bilabials, which are sounds formed using both upper and lower lips (e.g. pat, bat, mat); labiodentals, formed with the upper teeth and lower lip (e.g. Safe, save); dentals, formed with the tip of one’s tongue behind the upper front teeth (e.g. the, there, then); alveolars, formed with the front part of the tongue on the alveolar ridge (the bony ridge immediately behind and above the upper teeth) (e.g. the sound at the beginning of right and write); palatals, which are produced with the tongue and the palate (e..g. shout, child); velars, sounds produced with the back of the tongue against the velum (the soft palate) (e.g. car, cold); and finally, glottal, the one sound produced without the active use of the tongue and other parts of the mouth, which occurs when the glottis (the space between the vocal cords in the larynx) is open (e.g. the fist sound in who and whose) (Núñez).

The next big component in the discussion of consonants is the manner of articulation, which refers to the pronunciation of the sounds. When you momentarily stop the airstream and then let it go abruptly, you produce stop consonants or plosives, which are the sounds represented by [p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [g]; when you almost block the airstream and have the air push through the very narrow opening, a type of friction is produced and the resulting sounds are called fricatives, represented by, [f], [v], [θ], [d], [s], [z], [ʃ], [_]; if you combine a brief stopping of the airstream with an obstructed release, causing some friction, the sounds [tʃ] and [d_] are created, which are called affricates; nasals are described as the sounds [m], [n], and [ŋ], which occur when the velum is lowered and the airstream is allowed to flow out through the nose; glides, the sounds [w] and [j], are produced when the tongue is in motion to or from the position of a vowel; the glottal stop, represented by the symbol [ʔ], occurs when the space between the vocal cords is closed completely, then released; and lastly is the flap, represented by [D] or sometimes [ɾ] is produced by the tongue tip tapping the alveolar ridge briefly (Núñez).

Conclusion

Phonetic transcription, unlike orthography, displays a one-to-one relationship between symbols and sounds. The main purpose of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound, which allows for foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech-language pathologists, singers, actors, translators, etc. to better step outside of orthography and examine differences in pronunciation between dialects within a given language, as well as to identity changes in pronunciation that take place over time.

Morphology

Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of a given language’s morphemes and other linguistic units. Words have parts, and each additional part provides a change to the original word, which creates a new meaning. Below three different kinds of morphemes are described:

Free Morphemes

A free morpheme is a morpheme that can stand alone as a word; it does not require another morpheme to be attached to it. For example, Cat would be a free morpheme.

Inflectional Morphemes

Inflectional morpheme is a morpheme that can only be a suffix. It creates the change in the function of a word. In English, there are seven inflectional morphemes: –s (plural) and –s (possessive) are noun inflections; –s (3rd-person singular), –ed (past tense), –en (past participle), and –ing (present participle) are verb inflections; –er (comparative) and –est (superlative) are adjective and adverb inflections.

  • Examples:
    • Plural: Many people own cats.
    • Possessive: Jane’s cat has stripes.
    • 3rd Person Singular: She likes cats.
    • Past Tense: He liked cats.
    • Past Participle: The stolen cat was found unharmed by the police.
    • Present Participle: John told a very interesting story at dinner last night.
    • Comparative: A kitten is much smaller than an adult cat.
    • Superlative: The orange tabby cat was the smallest of the liter.

Derivational Morphemes

Derivational morphemes create a new word out of the word to which it is joined. The change can affect either the semantic meaning or part or part of speech. For example, when you attach -er to swim, you create the word swimmer. When you attach –ness to happy, you create the word happiness.

Conclusion

Understanding the role morphemes play in language acquisition is important in order to make connections between phonological and orthographic characteristics of speech. Without an understanding of the smallest unit in the grammar of a language, one can expect to be lost when trying to interpret larger concepts.

Syntax

Syntax, also referred to as grammar, refers to the set of rules that order words and their inflections meaningfully into sentences. Syntax can be understood as a type of code that allows speakers to encode meaning and for listeners to decode it (Temple, 96). Word order, parts of speech, and special uses of words all affect the meaning of a sentence or passage.

Conscious Knowledge

Syntax occurs at two levels: the conscious level and then the tacit knowledge level. At the conscious level, syntax can be thought of as the rules for how to build a sentence, such as the rule: a verb must agree with its subject in person and number. These rules throw us into a realm of technical notations. Suddenly, we are being asked to access and reiterate what a subject is, what a predicate is, and what other things are involved in constructing sentences.

Tacit Knowledge

However, this does not represent all the knowledge that allows one to produce and understand sentences. We all possess a highly intricate system that allows us to determine whether certain utterances correspond to sentences of our native language. This kind of knowledge, unattainable knowledge of language that allows one to judge whether or not a sentence is natively correct, is tacit knowledge. For example, look at these two sentences:

  • A. This book is difficult to read.
  • B. This book is difficult to be read.

One knows if one is a native English speaker that she can utter sentence A, and this corresponds to an English sentence. In contrast, a non-native English speaker can utter sentence, and while a message can be decoded from it, it does not correspond to any grammatically correct sentence of English. This kind of knowledge seems obvious, but not because of English lessons that are taught in a classroom; rather, because it is a sense of judgment acquired at a young age, that then becomes inaccessible to you.

Plato’s Problem

One might ask, so why do we call this knowledge at all? How can something be considered knowledge if nothing is being taught to anyone? Tacit knowledge appears to be more like instinct than knowledge. This discussion given the title, Plato’s Problem by Noam Chomsky, can be traced back to the fourth century BCE.[4] The argument is specifically seen in Plato’s Meno, in which Socrates demonstrates how an uneducated boy has innate knowledge, a priori knowledge, of geometric principles. Trying to close the gap between knowledge and experience involves working to explain the gap between what one knows and the apparent lack of input from experience, or the environment. Further discussion of this problem will be addressed in the next chapter, which deals explicitly with language acquisition in children.

Semantics

The third key component of language is semantics, best understood as the system of meanings in a language and the way those meanings are encoded in words (Temple, 100). Within this study of meanings, sounds, facial expressions, body language, and proxemics have semantic content. This is in contrast with syntax, which looks explicitly at the units of language without reference to their meaning. Semantic relations between words can be complex, but by going through some of the technical vocabulary that relates to semiotics, it should become a little easier to understand how words, phrases, signs, and symbols gain meaning.

Synonymy

Synonomy, in regards to meaning, refers to the degree of sameness between two terms. For example, eat and consume are two near-complete synonyms. In purely semantic terms, these two words mean the same thing (the ingestion of food), but their use depends on the context they are used in. Consume is more likely to be used by a person who is more intellectual, whereas eat is the more common word. One will find that English has a high number of synonyms because of French influence on the language.

Antonomy

Antonyms are binary oppositions, such as short and tall, big and little, right and wrong. The meaning of one term automatically rejects the other – someone who is short is not tall, someone who is big is not little, and someone who is right is not wrong. Another characteristic of antonyms is they can be gradable or not, depending on whether or not we attach inflectional morphemes to them to create a comparison: deep, deeper, deepest or, sunny, sunnier, sunniest.

Homophones, Homonyms, and Polysemes

Homophones are words that have a similar sound pattern, but are otherwise unrelated. The words may be spelled the same, such as wind (air movement) and wind (to move in a spiral course). Or, the words can be spelled differently. In this case they are also called heterographs. Examples of these include horse and hoarse; nun and none; buy and bye. Homophones are often used to create puns and to deceive the reader, seen in crossword puzzle clues, or to suggest multiple meanings, which are quite often seen in poetry and other forms of creative writing. Then there are also homonyms, which are terms that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings. Examples include: row (to propel with oars) and row (a line of arrangements); bark (the sound a dog makes) and bark (the outer layer of a tree trunk); bank (the edge of a river) and bank (a financial institution). Lastly there is a distinction to be made between homonyms, which are unrelated in origin, and polysemes, which have a shared origin, such as mouth (of a river) and mouth (of a person). For Dick Hebdife, polysemy means that, “each text is seen to generate a potentially infinite range of meanings.”[5] This, in the end changes the whole basis of creating social meaning.

Conceptual Metaphors

Now, discussion has moved away from basic language to an understanding of how descriptions are used to construct meaning. Based largely on ideas put forth by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their book Metaphors We Live By, a conceptual metaphor is an expression from ordinary language in which the meaning associated with a target domain is drawn from a source domain that is perceived as sharing certain traits of the target.[6] A few examples are:

  • “Anger is Heat”
    • He has a fiery temper.
    • She is about to explode!
    • “Love is a Journey”
      • This relationship isn’t going anywhere.
      • His marriage is on the rocks.

Conclusion

This is just the beginning of a complex discussion on how metaphors shape human lives. What at first appears as simple ordinary language soon is understood as transformative. “Language is what determines the meanings of words and signs and what combines them into meaningful wholes, wholes that add up to conversations, speeches, essays, epic poems. Language goes beyond that even; it’s what makes your thoughts truly meaningful, what builds your ideas into structured wholes.”[7]

Pragmatics

It can be understood at this point that language ability means more than making appropriate sounds, peaking in words, and stringing words together with understandable syntax. Hymes defined language as meaning having the ability to do things with words.[8] There is a distinction to be made between knowing language and knowing how to use language; linguists talk of language not only in terms of syntax and meaning, but also in terms of speech acts, which are attempts to accomplish things with language. This is one of the most challenging aspects of language learning, and often comes only through experience. Further discussion of pragmatics will take place later on in this paper, but for now, what is important to understand is pragmatics helps in overcoming language ambiguity, because meaning relies on the manner, place, time, etc. of an utterance.

Summary and Conclusion

With an in-depth analysis of the key aspects of language, one now has the necessary framework to begin exploration of more complex thinking. Next, one can look at children’s language-learning process. One will see how many children go through the stages of language learning in the same order, and thoughts behind this central human capacity will be discussed. Then, later on, one will see how when humans interact with one another, experiences are weaved into narratives, and special attention will be paid to words and their meaning.

[1] Temple, Charles A. All Children Read: Teaching for Literacy in Today’s Diverse Classroom. Boston: Pearson and B, 2005. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Temple, p#).

[2] Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (IPA, pg#).

[3] Núñez, Alejandro. “Phonetics and Phonology.” Phonetics and Phonology. Blogspot.com, n.d. Web. 26 June 2012. <http://alejandronunez-a-3.blogspot.com/p/c-ipa.html&gt;. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Núñez).

[4] Chomsky, Noam. Modular Approaches to the Study of the Mind. San Diego: San Diego State UP, 1984. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Chomsky, p#).

[5] Hebdige, Dick. Subculture, the Meaning of Style. London: Methuen, 1979. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Hebdige, p#).

[6] Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1980. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Lakoff and Johnson, p#).

[7] Bickerton, Derek. Adam’s Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010. Print. . Further reference to this source in parentheses (Bickerton, p.#).

[8] Hymes, Dell H. Foundations in Sociolinguistics; an Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1974. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Hymes, p#).