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Fundamental Question
a. What is the relationship between language and culture? b. Humans are the only animal to have culture. c. Humans are the only animal to have language. d. How do the two connect? e. What is language? what members of a particular society speak (Wardhaugh 1).
Language as Grammar
The object of a science of linguistics (Saussure).
Universal Grammar difference between surface structure and deep structure in language
Grammar
Three sub-systems Representational Phonology (sounds), graphic, gestural Lexical
morphology; words and morphemes
(Syn)tactic = syntax
Language as communication
Language as Text. The Interaction of People The Interpretation of Texts What do you communicate? Ideas? Emotions? Intentions? How do you communicate? Messages: The interpretation of messages The construction of messages
Language as thing
Language as an element in social constructs. Language planning, code switching, dialect debates.
Note: to distinguish between and language and communication, look at the following questions:
1. Is language as Dawkins suggests part of the DNA of homosapiens? 2. Is there a creative component (the horrible honeybee story)
Competence v. Performance
Langue Structure Structural universal v v v v parole event communicative dialect
Lets take five more minutes to chat about discussion questions 2, 5, and 6 on pp. 15 and 16 of Wardhaugh.
Desperate Definitions: Sociolinguistics is an attempt to find correlations between linguistic structure and social structure
Sociolinguists whatever it is, is about asking important questions concerning the relationship of language to society (Wardhaugh 11)
Methodological principles
Wardhaugh p. 18
1. Cumulative 2. Uniformation 3. Convergence 4. Subordinate shift 5. Style shifting 6. Attention 7. Vernacular 8. Formality
More Discussion
There is a connection between questions 1 and 4 on p. 19 of Wardhaugh. What can we say about historical vs synchronic linguistics, about written vs spoken language?
Squishy
I told you sociolinguistics is squishy. Can you all remind me what we learn about our topic of study from chapter 1 of Wardhaugh and this pitiful powerpoint? What is most important? 3 things? 5 things? 10 things? What will you remember in 10 years about it?
L. Ron Hubbard
All men are your slaves," he once wrote in a diary entry unearthed during a 1984 lawsuit. He reportedly once claimed to have written a manuscript that contained such brutal truths that anyone who read it went insane or committed suicide.