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Fundamentals of Anthropology: Lecture # 10 (Part: A) Language and Communication

This document provides an overview of language and communication. It begins by outlining the learning objectives which are to understand the meaning of language, its origin, and its structure. It then asks questions about how language emerged and how grammar could have evolved. Several key points are made: language allows humans to conceptualize in complex ways; nonhuman primates have limited call systems but great apes can learn sign language; the FOXP2 gene may explain why humans evolved to speak; and language provides an adaptive advantage. The document also discusses the structure of language including phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax. It notes debate around the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis about the relationship between language and thought.

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Anam Saghir BSPSY-M
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55 views24 pages

Fundamentals of Anthropology: Lecture # 10 (Part: A) Language and Communication

This document provides an overview of language and communication. It begins by outlining the learning objectives which are to understand the meaning of language, its origin, and its structure. It then asks questions about how language emerged and how grammar could have evolved. Several key points are made: language allows humans to conceptualize in complex ways; nonhuman primates have limited call systems but great apes can learn sign language; the FOXP2 gene may explain why humans evolved to speak; and language provides an adaptive advantage. The document also discusses the structure of language including phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax. It notes debate around the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis about the relationship between language and thought.

Uploaded by

Anam Saghir BSPSY-M
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Fundamentals of Anthropology

Lecture # 10 (Part: A)
Language and Communication

BS.PSY.4th SEM.
Ambrin Kosar
Visiting Lecturer
Department of Applied Psychology
1
Learning Objectives
You will be able:
• To understand the meaning of language .
• To understand the origin of language.
• To describe the structure of language.

2
Questions to be Consider

 How did Language emerge?


 How could grammar have arisen in the evolution of language?
 What makes language different from other forms of
communication?

3
The Over View
 What is language?
 Nonhuman primate communication.
 Sign language.
 The origin of language.
 The structure of language.
 Language, thought, and culture.

4
What is Language?

Language: Primary means of communication (spoken or


written)
• Transmitted through learning as part of enculturation
• Based on arbitrary, learned associations between words
and the things they represent.

5
What is Language?(Cont…)

Allows humans to:


• Conjure up elaborate images.
• Discuss the past and future.
• Share experiences with others.
• Benefit from their experiences.
-Anthropologists study language in its social and cultural context.

6
Nonhuman Primate
Communication
Call Systems: use a limited number of sounds that
are produced in response to specific stimuli, automatic and
cannot be combined.
• At some point in human development, our ancestors began
to combine calls and to understand combinations.

7
Sign Language
• More recent experiments show that apes can learn to use, if
not speak, true language.
• Washoe, a chimpanzee, eventually acquired vocabulary of
more than 100 American Sign Language (ASL) signs began to
combine signs into elementary sentences.

8
Sign Language (Cont…)
• Lucy, another chimpanzee, lived in a foster family and used
ASL to converse with her foster parents.
Cultural transmission: Transmission through
learning, basic to language.
• Washoe and Lucy tried to teach ASL to other animals.

9
Sign Language (Cont…)
• Koko, a gorilla, regularly uses 400 ASL signs and has used
700 at least once.
– Cultural transmission of communication system
through learning is fundamental attribute of
language.

10
Sign Language (Cont…)
Productivity: Combining two or more signs to
create new expressions.
Displacement: The ability to talk about things
that are not present.

11
The Origin of Language
• A mutated gene, FOXP2, helps explain why humans
speak but chimps do not.
• Language offered an adaptive advantage.
• Adaptation can occur more rapidly in Homo than other
primates, because Homo’s adaptive means more
flexible.

12
Language Contrasted with
Call Systems

13
The Structure of Language
• study of speech sounds.
Phonology
• The study of the forms of the
Morphology things. Aparticular shape,form or
structure.
• The vocabulary of a
Lexicon person,language or branch of
knowledge .

• The arrangements of words and


Syntax phrases to create well formed
sentence in a language.

14
Speech Sounds

Phoneme Phonetics Phonemics

A sound Studies
contrast that The study only the
makes of human significant
a difference speech sound
or sounds in contrasts of
differentiates general. a given
meaning. language.

15
Vocal Phonemes in
Standard American English

16
Language, Thought, and Culture

Chomsky: Human brain contains limited set of rules


for organizing language, so all languages have common
structural basis.

17
The Sapir-whorf Hypothesis

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: Grammatical


categories of different languages lead their speakers to
think about things in particular ways.

18
Focal Vocabulary

Focal vocabulary: Specialized sets of terms and


distinctions that are important to certain groups.
– Vocabulary is area of language that changes the most
rapidly.
– Language, culture, and thought are interrelated.
– Semantics: Language’s meaning system.

19
Meaning
• Speakers of particular languages use sets of terms to
organize their experiences and perceptions.
Ethnosemantics: Study of lexical (vocabulary)
categories and contrasts
– Kinship terminology and color terminology well
studied.

20
Focal Vocabulary for Hockey

21
Further Readings
• Kottak, Conrad Philip, (2002). The Exploration of Human
Diversity, McGraw Hill. (9th ed).

22
Questions and Answers

• In case of any query?

• You can contact me at: [email protected]

• Your Query will be answered within one working day.

23
Thank You

24

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