Final exam Anth-281 – Flashcards

A "morpheme" is a short segment of language that meets three basic criteria: 1. It is a word or a part of a word that has meaning. 2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful segments without changing its meaning or leaving a meaningless remainder. 3. It has relatively the same stable meaning in different verbal environments.

There are two types of morphemes-free morphemes and bound morphemes. "Free morphemes" can stand alone with a specific meaning, for example, eat, date, weak. "Bound morphemes" cannot stand alone with meaning. Morphemes are comprised of two separate classes called (a) bases (or roots) and (b) affixes. A "base," or "root" is a morpheme in a word that gives the word its principle meaning. An example of a "free base" morpheme is woman in the word womanly. An example of a "bound base" morpheme is -sent in the word dissent.

An "affix" is a bound morpheme that occurs before or after a base. An affix that comes before a base is called a "prefix." Some examples of prefixes are ante-, pre-, un-, and dis-, as in the following words:

An affix can be either derivational or inflectional. "Derivational affixes" serve to alter the meaning of a word by building on a base. In the examples of words with prefixes and suffixes above, the addition of the prefix un- to healthy alters the meaning of healthy. The resulting word means "not healthy." The addition of the suffix -er to garden changes the meaning of garden, which is a place where plants, flowers, etc., grow, to a word that refers to 'a person who tends a garden.' It should be noted that all prefixes in English are derivational. However, suffixes may be either derivational or inflectional.

There are a large number of derivational affixes in English. In contrast, there are only eight "inflectional affixes" in English, and these are all suffixes. English has the following inflectional suffixes, which serve a variety of grammatical functions when added to specific types of words. These grammatical functions are shown to the right of each suffix. -s noun plural -'s noun possessive -s verb present tense third person singular -ing verb present participle/gerund -ed verb simple past tense -en verb past perfect participle -er adjective comparative -est adjective superlative

An allomorph is a different phonological version of a morpheme. This occurs when the surface detail of the morpheme is different, but the deeper meaning remains the same. This commonly occurs when the letters performing the same function, such as plurality or time, produce a different sound or use different letters. Examples of plural allomorphs include the difference between 'pots' and 'taxes.' The studying of allomorphs is part of the studying of morphology in linguistics.

a morpheme that comes at the beginning (prefix) or the ending (suffix) of a base morpheme. Note: An affix usually is a morpheme that cannot stand alone. Examples: -ful, -ly, -ity, -ness. A few exceptions are able, like, and less.

a morpheme that gives a word its meaning. The base morpheme cat gives the word cats its meaning: a particular type of animal.

an affix that comes before a base morpheme. The in in the word inspect is a prefix.

an affix that comes after a base morpheme. The s in cats is a suffix.

a morpheme that can stand alone as a word without another morpheme. It does not need anything attached to it to make a word. Cat is a free morpheme. bound morpheme: a sound or a combination of sounds that cannot stand alone as a word. The s in cats is a bound morpheme, and it does not have any meaning without the free morpheme cat.

this morpheme can only be a suffix. The s in cats is an inflectional morpheme. An inflectional morpheme creates a change in the function of the word. Example: the d in invited indicates past tense. English has only 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.

this type of morpheme changes the meaning of the word or the part of speech or both. Derivational morphemes often create new words. Example: the prefix and derivational morpheme un added to invited changes the meaning of the word.

: different phonetic forms or variations of a morpheme. Example: The final morphemes in the following words are pronounced differently, but they all indicate plurality: dogs, cats, and horses. is a variant form of a morpheme. The concept occurs when a unit of meaning can vary in sound without changing meaning. The term allomorph explains the comprehension of phonological variations for specific morphemes.

morphemes that are spelled the same but have different meanings. Examples: bear (an animal) and bear (to carry), plain (simple) and plain ( a level area of land). homophones: morphemes that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings. Examples: bear, bare; plain, plane; cite, sight, site.

add grammatical information tenses, aspect, number, gender,etc. s,'s,ing,ed,en,er,est

create new words added to existing words or bases to create new words change meaning change grammatical class (noun to verb)

besides using affixes, English uses compounding -putting two existing bases together acronyms (and abbreviations) blends-putting together segments of other bases

morphemes

added to the middle of a word

colloquialsms: iz (shiznit, hizouse, etc.) chemisry: pe (hydrogenation process)- pipedine- peperidine et (ethyl radicals) -xanthoxylin= xanthoxyletin English does use tmesis (full word inserted between two others) what so ever, how so ever, etc. and in obscenities

is a language that conveys grammatical relationships without using inflectional morphemes. A grammatical construction can similarly be called analytic if it uses unbound morphemes, which are separate words, and/or word order. Analytic languages are in contrast to synthetic languages. English(some morphology, but not a lot, comparatively. word order very important) if (almost) no affixes at all, called isolating; e.g. Mandarin

is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio, as opposed to a low morpheme-per-word ratio in what is described as an isolating language. This linguistic classification is largely independent of morpheme-usage classifications (such as fusional, agglutinative, etc.), although there is a common tendency for agglutinative languages to exhibit synthetic properties.

is a type of language with a low morpheme-per-word ratio - in the extreme case of an isolating language, each word contains a single morpheme.

many morphemes stuck together, but easy to separate; word order a little more flexible e.g. Hungarian can easily construct very long words in aggultinative languages

3 main types: agglutinative, fusional, polysynthetic

also uses many bound inflectional morpheme; morphemes may carry greater semantic 'weight'(more meaning per affix) and harder to separate e.g. Spanish (and other Romance languages; Slavic languages

many bound morphemes that can be difficult to separate from each other; may incorporate nouns into verbs e.g Sora (India), Yupik (Alaska)

Native American languages African-Americans other immigrant groups (German, Spanish, Irish)

are attitudes, opinions, beliefs, or theories that we all have about language language ideologies can be about language as a whole(e.g language is what separates humans from other species), about a particular language (e.g. French is such a romantic language) and they can be about particular linguistic structures (e.g. Spanish is complicated as it has two forms of the verb 'to be'), language use (e.g. never end a sentence with a preposition), or about people who employ specific languages or usages (e.g. people who say ain't are ignorant, or people who live in the U.S. should speak English

Beliefs about the way language should be used are passed down and protected in much the same way that religious beliefs are passed along and cherished 1-which language(s) we choose to use in a particular situation 2- which language(s) we learn or pass on to children 3- How we separate a language and a dialect 4- which language is chosen as a standard for a country 5- which languages have prestige, or are 'preferred' (more 'useful' etc.) 6- How language marks identity

someones social standing, working class, middle class, upper class

language ideologies are "the cultural (or sub-cultural) system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests" "maybe it's not always about class, but it's never really about language. it's about the kind of people who speak it. predictably, the kinds of accents and languages which get dumped on the most, and get branded the "ugliest," always wind up being spoken by socially disadvantaged people." "if as a nation we are agreed that it is not acceptable or good to discriminate on the grounds of skin color or ethnicity, gender or age, then by logical extension it is equally unacceptable to discriminate against language traits which are intimately linked to an individual's sense and expression of self."

if you look at language-focused discrimination, you will find that it is not language per se that is relevant; instead we need to understand the individual's beliefs about language and following from those beliefs, institutional practices. in short, these beliefs and practices are the way in which individuals and groups are denied recognition. in this study i use ideology as a framework to examine and understand the subordination process. exploring how arguments for standardization reproduce "cultural conceptions which are partial, contestable and contested, and interest-laden. stand language ideology is defined as: a bias toward an abstracted, idealized, homogeneous spoken language which is imposed and maintained by dominant bloc institutions and which names as its model the written language, but which is drawn primarily from the spoken language of the upper middle class Language subordination model 1- Language is mystified "You can never hope to comprehend the difficulties and complexities of {your mother tongue} without expert guidance" 2- Authority is claimed "Talk like us. We know what we are doing because we have studied language/because we write well." 3- Mis- (Dis- ?) information is generated "That usage you are so attached to is inaccurate/ugly/against common sense. The one I use is superior on historical, aesthetic and/or logical grounds." 4- Non-mainstream language is trivialized "Look how cute! How homey, how funny, how quaint! Your accent has a lilt/twang. Where are you from?" 5- Conformers are held up as positive examples "See what you can accomplish if you only try, see how far you can go if you see the light. Lift yourself up like she did." 6- Explicit promises are made "Employers will take you seriously; doors will open. You'll have a future in Corporate America/the City/etc." 7- Threats are made "No-one important will take you seriously; doors will close. That way of talking will keep you in the ghetto, with those friends of yours." 8- Non-conformers are vilified or marginalized "See how willfully stupid, arrogant, ignorant, uneducated, deviant, unrepresentative these speakers are!"

the process of language subordination targets not all variation, not all language varieties, but only those which are emblematic of differences in race, ethnicity, homeland, or other social allegiance which have been found to be less than good enough first, one person or group must want to make another person or group believe that their language-and hence their social allegiances and priorities-are inferior. Second, that targeted person or group must become complicit in the process. language subordination is about taking away a basic human right: to speak freely in the mother tongue without intimidation, without standing in the shadow of other languages and peoples. to resist the process, passively or actively, is to ask for recognition, and acknowledgment. it is a demand for the simple right to be heard.

1- invariant or habitual 'be' not a failure to conjugate the verb. indicates habitual behavior or a usual state of being vs. temporary or present state. example "he be singin 2- Copula deletion: the dropping of the present tense conjugated from of 'to be' example "she happy" 3- the double negative- found in many dialects of English (and in Middle, Early Modern English)- only late 18th c. did they fall out of fashion 4- Reduction of final consonants- stopped consonants may be omitted only if it is preceded by a consonant of the same voicing example lef (left) ol (old)

The African American verbal tradition clashes with the European American tradition because there are different. Because AAVE is seen as a language spoken by poor people, victims or criminals. AAVE is tangible and irrefutable evidence that there is a distinct, healthy, functioning African American culture which is not white, and which does not want to be white.

some people believe that this accents indexes people who are uneducated, poor, lazy and possibly a criminal

In the youtube clip there was to African Americans who started speaking into cell phones using AAVE because they want to intimidate each other. To make the other one think they were street thugs and not to mess with them. In American Tongues there was that guy who used his Italian dialect as well to intimidate others into think he was a person that would hurt you if you messed with him and he also said it made the girls go crazy.

The most common process leading to language death is one in which a community of speakers of one language becomes bilingual in another language, and gradually shifts allegiance to the second language until they cease to use their original (or heritage) language. This is a process of assimilation which may be voluntary or may be forced upon a population. Speakers of some languages, particularly regional or minority languages, may decide to abandon them based on economic or utilitarian grounds, in favour of languages regarded as having greater utility or prestige. This process is gradual and can occur from either bottom-to-top or top-to-bottom. from the top-down language is no longer used in the public domain just in the home and bottom up language is no longer used at home but kept in official or limited shared public context

the reason for maintenance of indigenous and minority languages is so that descendants of speakers can discover this beauty can profoundly enrich their lives, much like music, literature, or art. each language carries with it an unspoken network of cultural values. Although these values generally operate on a subliminal level, they are, nonetheless, a major force in the shaping of each person's self-awareness, identity, and interpersonal relationships (Scollon & Scollon, 1981). These values are psychological imperatives that help generate and maintain an individual's level of comfort and self-assurance, and, consequently, success in life. In the normal course of events these values are absorbed along with one's mother tongue in the first years of life. For that reason, cultural values and mother tongue are so closely intertwined in public consciousness that they are often, but mistakenly, seen as inseparable. For the majority of young Natives today, culture and language have, in fact, been separated. As a result, most of these young people are trying "to walk in two worlds" with only one language. This is a far more complex and stressful undertaking than the "two worlds" metaphor would suggest (Henze & Vanett, 1993). what is lost when a language one lost is the erosion of the human knowledge base, especially local ecological knowledge. the second lost is the loss of cultural heritage and the third loss is failure to acquire a full understanding of human cognitive capacities

the metaphor endangered makes languages sounded like endangered species Why are these problematic? Pay attention in the Ahearn chapter... 1. Muelhmann(2007:15): This essentializeslanguage‐nature‐indigenous people, does not take into account complex multilingualism and marginalization 2. Cameron (2007): problem to treat languages as 'endangered species', to talk about the DNA of culture and use genetic metaphors ◦What about multilingualism? (Problem of the 'monoglotideology': Silverstein 1996) ◦What about differing ideologies in a community? ◦Internal change over time? ◦Multiple, fluid identities?

A loss of language does mean a loss of an entire culture because language and culture are intertwined with each other. Individuals learn their culture through their language.

living Hopi is to speak the Hopi language and learn, think, feel Hopi. when one participates along with others in the Hopi way of life one becomes Hopi.The role of the Hopi language in the contemporary lives of Hopi

A lot of people think that the way you talk relates to where you can go in life. That to speak Standard American English is the way to get ahead in the world. people are constantly making judgments about how we speak; language is deeply tied to patterns of discrimination accent or dialect discrimination is universal. Languages always "points to" (indexes) a social meaning in a society.

speech style- set of linguistic variants with specific social meanings

register- specific variety for a particular purpose, setting, etc. are usually characterized sole by vocabulary differences; either by the use of particular words, or by the use of words in a particular sense. registers = a particular kind of language being produced by the social situation "register" to connote "a linguistic repertoire that is associated, culture-internally with particular social practices and with persons who engage in such practices" Examples of registers include what people metalinguistically label as "polite language" "geek Speak" Even monolingual individuals can generally code-switch among several different registers during early contact, Anglo-Saxon (old English) was restricted to the lower classes; the upper classes spoke Norman French

Accents = if there are phonological differences only dialects = besides phonology, we see morphological, synoptical and lexical/semantic differences languages = also have different literatures, orthographies, geopolitics

A language is a dialect with an army and navy. His point being that the difference between a language and a dialect was ultimately a political distinction and had little to do with linguistics per se. Thus, German and Dutch are separate languages, but Mandarin and Meixian Chinese are supposed dialects. Two languages where speakers can understand each other are considered dialects of the same language, whereas two languages where the speakers cannot understand each other are, indeed, separate languages.

the branch of linguistics that deals with systems of sounds (including or excluding phonetics), especially in a particular language. • the system of relationships among the speech sounds that constitute the fundamental components of a language.

Linguistics the study of the forms of words.

of or relating to the words or vocabulary of a language: lexical analysis. • relating to or of the nature of a lexicon or dictionary: a lexical entry.

the conventional spelling system of a language. • the study of spelling and how letters combine to represent sounds and form words.

politics, especially international relations, as influenced by geographical factors.

Languages in the former Yugoslavia Serbian: written in Cyrillic alphabet (Latin sometimes used in media/internet) = historical connections to Eastern Orthodox church Croatian: written in the Latin alphabet = historical connections to Roman Catholic church Bosnian uses Latin; pre-dissolution, was seen as dialect of Serbo-Croatian (also seen as one language) Uniters vs. dividers Montenegrin uses both, though independence from Serbia has led some to push for Latin)

Hindi vs. Urdu (in India; Pakistan and Western India) - "Hindustani" ◦ Both have roots in the Khariboli dialect of the Delhi area Same grammatical system; same everyday register Differences ◦ Hindi written in the Devanagari script ◦ Higher or formal registers (e.g. religious) influenced by Hindu history ◦ Urdu written in a modified form of the Persian script ◦ loanwords from Persian and Arabic (Islamic vocabulary)

based on the structure of the language (linguistic system)

based on social factors (age, status, gender, situational context, etc.)

Midland America

Because we didn't want to sound like Londoners

no single reason why variability occurs in a given circumstance or interaction linguistic and social factors interact in complex ways some variables 'weight' more than others normal variation can add up to changes in the language over time

Children 5-6 years of age ◦ from Chicago and a small town in Tennessee ◦ shown pictures of people accompanied by a brief 3 second audio clip of speech in either a Northern or Southern accent. Not much difference at that age for Tennessee kids, but Northern kids stated they wanted to be friends with Northerners By 10 years old, Ten-year-old children from both Chicago and Tennessee thought the Northern-accented individuals were "smarter" and "in charge," and that the Southern-accented individuals were "nicer." Attitudes passed on from parents: we remain neutral (although influenced) in early childhood, but as we age (even by 10 years old) we been acculturated

Part of the US's historic self-image It serves a sociopolitical role ◦ Mistakes and progress - need to set it apart from North ◦ Southern regional pride that resists this ◦ Strong "rural" associations by non-locals: connected to lack of education, literacy ◦ Northern belief that people there are racistmust be "stupid" (see L-G) ◦ Hypocrisy: Northerners may also associate all Southern dialects with AAVE (Cukor-Avila 2003) ◦ By stigmatizing all Southern accents, making racist judgments themselves...

yes they believe that working class use those kinds of accents

"Maybe it's not always about class, but it's never really about language. It's about the kind of people who speak it. Predictably, the kinds of accents and languages which get dumped on the most, and get branded the "ugliest," always wind up being spoken by socially disadvantaged people. What exactly did this woman in particular do to deserve having a candid video of her slapped up on Gawker as an example of just how "ugly" the Chicago accent is? She works in a warehouse supermarket, that's what." (Fruehwald 2014, for Slate) "If as a nation we are agreed that it is not acceptable or good to discriminate on the grounds of skin color or ethnicity, gender or age, then by logical extension it is equally unacceptable to discriminate against language traits which are intimately linked to an individual's sense and expression of self." (Lippi-Green 2011)

Within linguistics, the term is used to refer to groups of language users but never defines or details the nature of those communities... 1. Frequent interaction amongst members must take place 2. Need to share a 'verbal repertoire' even if they don't all share the same style, dialect, or even language 3. Members of a speech community must share social norms regarding appropriate language use (language ideologies) pragmatics= the rules (norms) for using language (forms) within that speech community

Saussure(1986[1916]:77) "In order to have a language, there must be a community of speakers" ◦Noted that time and social forces play a role in changing the language, but never specified how it occurs Chomsky(1965) noted that there is "an ideal speaker-listener" in a "completely homogenous speech-community" ◦And admitted that this does not exist in the real world (1975)

Hymes focuses on "a social, rather than linguistic, entity" (1974:47) ◦His idea is that sociolinguistics needs to study "not the language but the speech community" (1974:35) ◦Beliefs, values, attitudes and ways of speaking within a community Gumperz also stressed studying language in actual social context ◦"any human aggregate characterized by regular and frequent interaction by means of a shared body of verbal signs and set off from similar aggregates by significant differences in language usage" (2001[1968]:43)

Gumperz's amended definition: "The speech varieties employed within a speech community form a system because they are related to a shared set of social norms... they can be classified according to their usage, their origins, and the relationship between speech and social action that they reflect" (Gumperz2001[1968]:66) According to Labov, like Gumperz, speech communities could be heterogenous: ◦"The speech community is not defined by any marked agreement in the use of language elements, so much by the participation in shared social norms" (Labov 1972:120-121)

1. Dialectal relationships ◦Here, this doesn't mean two varieties of one language, necessarily ◦Can also mean different languages (majority and minority) ◦ English and French in Canada, etc. 2. Superposed relationships ◦Variations and distinctions between different activities within the same group ◦Social barriers -different people in a speech community may have wider or narrower ranges of styles

Could we see the entire Central Northwest Amazon as a single, multilingual community? ◦ People share most of the same cultural and religious practices even if they speak different languages Reminds us that language diversity is not the same as cultural diversity! Better to talk about a 'linguistic area', like a Sprachbund ◦ Rules for speech are shared, even though some verbal repertoires do not overlap ◦ The longhouses or villages would be the speech communities (face‐to‐face interaction)

estimates more than half the world's population

because some people don't want you to know they are multilingual because of the myths about it being intellectually detrimental

negative

"If it were possible for a child to live in two languages at once equally well, so much the worse. His intellectual and spiritual growth would not thereby be doubled, but halved. Unity of mind and character would have great difficulty asserting itself in such circumstances" (Laurie 1890:15) Bilingualism myths: 1. split personalities 2. lack of political allegiance 3. inability to master any one language (inhibits intelligence, confusing) 4. laziness due to language mixing

◦ Bilingualism does not subtract, but adds ◦ Strengthens cognitive functions (working memory, other executive functions) ◦ Whether it improves grades still up for debate ◦ recent study with Welsh-English bilingualism... ◦ Dementia prevention; eases coping with dementia

almost 95%

English top 3 English, Spanish, Chinese

tagalog

18%

no the U.S. doesn't have an official language. Some states have American English only English only laws mean that people can only speak English in those placesArizona has some of the strictest laws in the country: anti-bilingual and anti-immigrant ideologies ◦ 2000: ballot forbidding use of any language other than English in the classroom was passed ◦ 2010: HR 2083 - no courses that "advocated ethnic solidarity" or "cater to specific ethnic groups" ◦ Teachers can be fired if heard speaking Spanish, even outside of the class (Bratt 2007) ◦ Linguistic segregation: English speakers and learners do not interact, and so those learning English become more isolated (Gandara and Orfield)

Immigrants from Asia are learning English at the same rate as European immigrants a century ago, or even more quickly 1. Third generation usually English‐only (Alba et al 2002:480) 2. Slightly slower among Spanish speaking groups Dependent on whether second‐generation bilingual marries another similar bilingual And whether there is a large community for the third‐generation speaker

Linguistic diversity is not antithetical to national unity ◦despite pushes for raising the status of one language or another, still a strong sense of being Indian Monolingualism might be a problem in many places there -it would be an educational, political, and socioeconomic disadvantage to know one language (even if it was Hindi!)

Dialect - often refers to ways of speaking that are of lower status; compared against the standard Register - different ways of speaking the same language

that the students at Georgetown need to switch their language depending on their social setting

Pressure from within the community and outside of it to conform to standard ◦ Tensions highlighted in an analysis of Oprah episode discussing Black English ◦ The need to speak SAE balanced with sadness over discrimination of AAVE ◦ Emotional costs of assimilation - the loss of networks ◦ Yet associations with slavery persist ◦ Will African Americans be able to assimilate just by "talking white"?

"an individual's use of two or more language varieties in the same speech event or exchange" 1.Code switching -at the boundary between sentences (intersentential) 2. Code mixing -within the sentence (intrasentential)Often not highly valued, even by speakers who do it -but they still do it... Not a sign of 'linguistic deprivation' -though some speakers will talk about a 'lexical gap' People who are bilingual are often accused of being "semi-lingual" (speaking 'Spanglish') and "alingual" (Zentella 2006; see discussion in Lippi-Green Chapter 14) ◦ There is a system and a reason - even if "unconscious"

switches to English when the discussion calls psychological terminology or expression when Spanish provides stylistic embroidering to amplify the speaker's intent

Situational switching -topics, situation, e.g. accommodate other speakers -alternation redefines the setting ◦Metaphorical switching -more socially indexical - alternation enriches the setting ◦ E.g. around dinner table, talking in local dialect - switch to standard to talk about school or work

Diglossia-bilinguals using two different languages for distinct purposes; High and Low codes e.g. library (Russian = biblioteka) V biblioteke= Russian 'in the library' Biblioteka-gha= Sakha'in the library' OR bibilietieke-ghe= Sakha'in the library'

Sakha (indigenous North Siberian Turkic language with a lot of Mongolic influence), spoken in northeast Russia In contact with Russian (East Slavic language) since mid- 1600s *While over 90% of Sakha (both urban and rural) speak both Sakha and Russian... ◦ generally speaking, urban Sakha in Yakutsk are more likely to use 'More Russian' variants of Sakha words than those in the villages To speak like your conversation partner -show shared identity and solidarity; accommodate elders and those who speak Russian less well Political and socioeconomic situation developed such that Sakha and other indigenous people became bilingual in Russian... Whereas fewer and fewer local Russians learned Sakha as time went on The ideology of purity - for many cultures, pure speech always better than mixed Globalization and mixed discourse in youth culture ◦ How does this ideology play out in new forms of music, e.g. hip hop, being created? ◦ Some show creative mixed use of Sakha, Russian, and English ◦ Djukka and Lucky Mig ◦ All swears in Russian or English; hip hop vocabulary in English ◦ Other artists oppose this use of mixing - the language of hip hop needs to be pure ◦ Saas Ustar, InVent ◦ use of proverbs, like "Норуот күүһэ Көмүөл күүһэ" (The strength of a people is like the power of the ice-break) ◦ alliteration (feature common to Olonkho speech) ◦ "The Olonkho of my ancestors is a eloquent language [...] with thousands of words truly resounding" ◦ "With our mother's milk we absorb with the language the strength to live life / let there always be a voice expressing humanity in Sakha"

1.Will always be multifunctional -multiple potential meanings and functions 2. Will come to be associated with some meanings and identities more than others, through practice 3. Index particular relationships, meanings and hierarchies, which change over time 4. Opinions and attitudes develop about these ways of speaking; these are language ideologies and they will come to influence future practice

A social construct, "built upon a set of culturally and historically specific practices that amplify, simplify, and give meaning to perceived or actual biological differences" (Ahearn 2011) Men's and women's speech styles vary widely cross‐culturally Nothing inherently 'feminine' or 'masculine' about a way of speaking - all about social and cultural context

The grammar of some languages (but not all) require speakers to assign a gender when using a personal pronoun ◦ 'he' or 'she' as second‐person singular in English In other languages, all nouns are 'masculine' or 'feminine' (e.g. Spanish el/la, French le/la, etc.) ◦ In German, Russian, etc. also a 'neuter' category ◦ Does not always correlate with a social gender... e.g. German das madchen 'the girl' (not feminine 'die') However, many other languages have very different noun classifiers e.g. Dyirbal (Queensland, Australia) has 4 classes of 3rd person pronoun ◦ Bayi (human) - males, animals Balan (human) - females, water, fire, lightning ◦ Balam - food that is not flesh ◦ Bala - everything else not covered in other 3 categories

The use of particular linguistic features, styles, or discourses that "index" gendered practices ◦ they allude to, and help constitute, other domains of social reality, which then relate to gender

The Genderlect Theory (Tannen 1990) ◦ assumes there are categorical, dichotomous, essential differences in how men and women speak ◦ that men and women are dealing with 'cross cultural communication' between two dialects ◦ What is your impression of this statement/theory?

E.g. Rapport (feminine) vs. Report (masculine) talk ‐‐ Men more likely to interrupt, more Competitive ‐‐ Women more likely to Cooperate, ask more questions, rarely interrupt, make more links between their comments and others' comments... -- Women seek connection, men seek status -- Women talk more in private, men talk more in public -- Women tell stories about others, men often tell stories about self (more jokes, etc.) -- Women are active listeners (ask more questions), men are passive listeners -- Women avoid conflict, men more comfortable initiating conflict... etc.

Hyde (2005, 2007): Gender Similarities hypotheses ◦ Genderlect (Differences model) is inaccurate at best, harmful at worst ◦ Within‐gender variability is typically greater than between‐gender variability ◦ Analysed verbal and non‐verbal behaviors, men and women of various ages... ◦ However, these were meta‐analyses, which cuts out all the context and nuance... Mehl et al. (2007) ◦ Investigating talkativeness (supposedly a female trait) ◦ Dispel myth that women speak 2-30000 words a day, and men 7000 ◦ Found that there was no statistical significance (men: 15 669, women: 16215)

Focuses on the 'performativity' of gender. Not something we are, something we DO.

6909 languages in 2009. since 1960 we have lost as many as 28 entire language families. loss of 220 languages just in the last 50 years top three languages Mandarin, Spanish, English

Languages not spread evenly across the globe; diversity 'hotspots' and language 'deserts' the coastal areas have more traffic of people coming in and out of the country than the inland Plentiful, diverse ecological resources enable greater linguistic diversity either: 1. By engendering more competition and adaptation to more complex environments (Pagel & Mace) 2. By reducing the likelihood of having to communicate and share resources with other groups in times of need (Oviedo et al.; Sutherland; Nettle).

Speakers stop transmitting; or all the speakers die = simple answer In reality, more complex, and often gradual Colonialism: direct and indirect - a major role Leads to language contact - less dominant group (economically, politically, socially) must shift ◦ Different kinds of bilingualism ◦ "Ideology of contempt" (Grillo 1989) But also direct targeting and violence ◦ Peasant uprising in El Salvador 1932 led to the murder of 25 000 indigenous people ◦ Ongoing in North America since 1492 - disease, violence (both physical and psychological - boarding schools)

I learned that because of persecution many indigenous tribes have loss their native languages and it is difficult to regain this languages because there is a small minority of people who still speak the language and it is time consume to write the language down and make dictionaries and other reference materials so that others can learn the language

Intergenerational Transmission (How old are the youngest speakers and is the language passed on to younger generations?) Absolute number of speakers Speaker number trends (Is the number of speakers declining, stable or increasing?) Domains of use of the language (Is the language only used in certain (e.g. informal) contexts or for every domain in life from home to media, education and government?)

because in connects them to their inheritance and culture we need diversity because language expresses identity because languages are repositories of history because languages contribute to the sum of human knowledge because languages are interesting in themselves

Muelhmann (2007:15): This essentializes language‐nature‐indigenous people, does not take into account complex multilingualism and marginalization 2. Cameron (2007): problem to treat languages as 'endangered species', to talk about the DNA of culture and use genetic metaphors ◦ What about multilingualism? (Problem of the 'monoglot ideology': Silverstein 1996) ◦ What about differing ideologies in a community? ◦ Internal change over time? ◦ Multiple, fluid identities?

1. From the top down The language is no longer used in the public domain or in official institutions but remains, for a time, in the home 2. From the bottom up Language is no longer used at home or in everyday contexts but kept in official or limited shared public context

Escaping persecution in the year 70; persecution and pogroms followed Late 1700s‐1800s, idea of creating a Jewish state - what will the language be? Hebrew (high prestige) vs. Yiddish (low prestige) Adapting Ancient Hebrew for the modern era: Eliezer Ben Yehuda How did they manage? ◦ Part of a very powerful nation=state and identity building campaign Now: Hebrew spoken by millions, Yiddish at risk... Wampanoag/Wômpanââk in Massachusetts ◦ Language was "sleeping" for 150 years... (Hinton 2001) ◦ "We Still Live Here - Âs Nutayuneân" clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUEj8QrCXzA "Reclaiming our language is one means of repairing the broken circle of cultural loss and pain. To be able to understand and speak our language means to see the world as our families did for centuries. This is but one path which keeps us connected to our people, the earth, and the philosophies and truths given to us by the Creator." -- Jessie Little Doe Baird (founder of the project)

New languages always developing - numerous causes for this ◦ Nicaraguan Sign Language, as we saw earlier ◦ The need to communicate ◦ Light Warlpiri, in Lajamanu, N. Territory, Australia ◦ Long-term bilingualism and code-mixing in a community ◦ Nouns tend to be Warlpiri, Verbs in English, influence from Kriol ◦ Similar to Haitian Creole, Michif (in Canada), etc.