Language, an Introduction to the Study of Speech
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Structuralism 1. the Nature of Meaning Or Understanding
Structuralism 1. The nature of meaning or understanding. A. The role of structure as the system of relationships Something can only be understood (i.e., a meaning can be constructed) within a certain system of relationships (or structure). For example, a word which is a linguistic sign (something that stands for something else) can only be understood within a certain conventional system of signs, which is language, and not by itself (cf. the word / sound and “shark” in English and Arabic). A particular relationship within a شرق combination society (e.g., between a male offspring and his maternal uncle) can only be understood in the context of the whole system of kinship (e.g., matrilineal or patrilineal). Structuralism holds that, according to the human way of understanding things, particular elements have no absolute meaning or value: their meaning or value is relative to other elements. Everything makes sense only in relation to something else. An element cannot be perceived by itself. In order to understand a particular element we need to study the whole system of relationships or structure (this approach is also exactly the same as Malinowski’s: one cannot understand particular elements of culture out of the context of that culture). A particular element can only be studied as part of a greater structure. In fact, the only thing that can be studied is not particular elements or objects but relationships within a system. Our human world, so to speak, is made up of relationships, which make up permanent structures of the human mind. B. The role of oppositions / pairs of binary oppositions Structuralism holds that understanding can only happen if clearly defined or “significant” (= essential) differences are present which are called oppositions (or binary oppositions since they come in pairs). -
Linguistic Determinism and Mutability: the Sapir-Whorf "Hypothesis" and Intercultural Communication
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 403 761 FL 024 384 AUTHOR van Troyer, Gene TITLE Linguistic Determinism and Mutability: The Sapir-Whorf "Hypothesis" and Intercultural Communication. PUB DATE Dec 94 NOTE 18p. PUB TYPE Reports Evaluative/Feasibility (142) Journal Articles (080) JOURNAL CIT JALT Journal; v16 n2 p163-78 Dec 1994 EDRS PRICE MFO1 /PCO1 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Foreign Countries; *Intercultural Communication; *Language Research; *Linguistic Theory; Research Methodology; Scientific Methodology IDENTIFIERS *Sapir (Edward); Whorf (Benjamin Lee); *Whorfian Hypothesis ABSTRACT The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, long considered a factor in intercultural communication, is discussed. Empirical studies that have tended to validate the hypothesis are reviewed, and the hypothesis is then considered from the standpoint of empirical and scientific research requirements. It is shown that the hypothesis has never been formally defined for testing, and therefore does not exist as a scientifically testable thesis. As a result, all studies that have attempted to interpret empirical data accorded to the hypothesis are either flawed or invalid because they have tested something other than the hypothesis. It is concluded that the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis exists only as a notion, and has no meaningful relation to intercultural communication. Includes an abstract in Japanese. Contains 22 references. (Author/MSE) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION AND CENTER (ERIC) DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL This document has been reproduced as HAS BE N GRANTEDBY ceived from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. -
Edward Sapir J 1884-1939
EDWARD SAPIR J 1884-1939 1 Hew shall we approach Sapir in an lecture? There is really no need nowadays for an introduction to this important anthropological linguist. The student has all the materials readily to hand, or so it would seem. There is first of all his original famous work, entitled Language, in 1921 (refer red to by his memorialists quite frequently as his only real book, as opposed to papers and monographs). Then there is that compend iouswork of riety, the Selected Writings, collected by David G. Mandelbaum (1949). 2 Its 617 pages largely fill the gap between his 'real book' and his life's output - even this volume does not contain the exhaustively complete works. Then there is the centenary volume, Eaward Sapir: AppraisaZs of his Life and Work~ edited by Konrad Koerner of the University of Ottawa and published (1984). This latter is what in English Depart- ments would be called the 'Critical Heritage'. It contains nine obituaries and memorials, dated 1939-52, reviews, mostly early, of language (1921) and of the monograph Time Perspective in Aboriginal American Culture (1916), several reviews of the Selected Writings (1949), and finally various re-reappraisals dated 1956-198 O. One begins to. expect the centennial volume to be in the centennial volume by some version of the Russellian paradox! We may add to all of this a small paperback of selections from the Selected Writings (Mandelbaum 1956), the early memorial volume edited by Spier and others in 1941, and many more. There is, 1 Delivered in the series General Linguistics for the of Linguistics, Oxford University, May 1987. -
Edward Sapir and the Origin of Language
EDWARD SAPIR AND THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE ALBERT F. H. NACCACHE Archaeology Department, Lebanese University, (ret.) Beirut, Lebanon [email protected] The field of Language Evolution is at a stage where its speed of growth and diversification is blurring the image of the origin of language, the “prime problem” at its heart. To help focus on this central issue, we take a step back in time and look at the logical analysis of it that Edward Sapir presented nearly a century ago. Starting with Sapir’s early involvement with the problem of language origin, we establish that his analysis of language is still congruent with today’s thinking, and then show that his insights into the origin of language still carry diagnostic and heuristic value today. 1. Introduction The origin of language is a challenging problem to focus upon. Language, like mind and intelligence, is a phenomenon that “we find intuitive but hard to define” (Floridi, 2013, p. 601), and a century of progress in Linguistics has only heightened our awareness of the protean nature of language while exacerbating the fuzziness of its definition. Meanwhile, research in the field of Language Evolution is blooming and the sheer variety of available approaches, though highly promising, has blurred, momentarily at least, our perception of the issue at the core of the field: the origin of language. We do not propose a solution to this problem, just an attempt to put it in perspective by looking at it through the writings of a researcher who had nearly no data with which to tackle the issue and could only rely on his analytical abilities. -
Grammar: a Historical Survey
IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 10, Issue 6 (May. - Jun. 2013), PP 60-62 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.Iosrjournals.Org Grammar: A Historical Survey Dr Pandey Om Prakash Associate Professor, Dept of English, Gaya College, Gaya (Under Magadha University, Bodh Gaya India) The term grammar has been derived from the Greek word ‘grammatica or grammatika techne’ which means ‘the art of writing’. The Greeks considered grammar to be a branch of philosophy concerned with the art of writing. In the middle ages grammar came to be regarded as a set of rules, usually in the form of text book, dictating correct usage. So in the widest and the traditional sense, grammar came to mean a set of normative and prescriptive rules in order to set up a standard of ‘correct usage’. The earliest reference of any grammar is to be found in 600 B.C.. Panini, in 600 B.C., was a Sanskrit grammarian from Pushkalvati, Gandhara, in modern day Charsadda District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Panini is known for his formulation of 3959 rules of Sanskrit morphology, syntax, semantics in the grammar known as Ashtadhyayi meaning eight chapters. After Panin observations on Language are found in the records we have of pre-Socratic philosophers, the fifth century rhetoricians, Plato and Aristotle. The sources of knowledge of the pre-Socratic and the early theoraticians are fragmentary. It would be wise therefore to begin with Plato. The earliest extinct document in Greek on the subject of language is Cratylus, one of Plato’s dialogues. -
On Sapir's Notion of Form/Pattern and Its Aesthetic Background
Chapter 3 On Sapir’s notion of form/pattern and its aesthetic background Jean-Michel Fortis cnrs, Université Paris Diderot “I find that what I most care for is beauty of form, whether in substance or, perhaps even more keenly, in spirit. A perfect style, a well-balanced system of philos- ophy, a perfect bit of music, the beauty of mathematical relations — these are some of the things that, in the sphere of the immaterial, have most deeply stirred me.” Sapir, letter to Lowie, 29 Septem- ber 1916 (cited in Silverstein 1986: 79) On Sapir’s view, units of cultural behaviour (such as linguistic units) can only be identified through the relations they maintain to other elements of the samekind. This set of interrelations is what Sapir calls a “pattern”, or refers to simply as “form”. The chapter begins by examining Sapir’s notion of pattern in his analysis ofphono- logical systems. It is shown that, to a certain extent, Sapir conflated the notion of pattern with that of Gestalt, yet his own conception was idiosyncratic insofar as it placed much emphasis on the purely formal potency of patterns, understood as aesthetic configurations existing for form’s sake and independent from functional motivations. The second part of the chapter is devoted to Sapir’s description of how patternsare formed and grasped. Complex interrelations are not laid bare in ordinary conscious Jean-Michel Fortis. 2019. On Sapir’s notion of form/pattern and its aesthetic background. In James McElvenny (ed.), Form and formalism in linguistics, 59– 88. Berlin: Language Science Press. -
Edward Sapir's View About International Auxiliary Language
EMANUEL KULCZYCKI EDWARD SAPIR’S VIEW ABOUT INTERNATIONAL AUXILIARY LANGUAGE Introduction The search for common attributes of all languages is connected with the search for characteristics which differentiate languages. If some attributes cannot be found in every language, what is cause of this situation? Is it linked up with the origin of language or with users of the language? People inquire about such matters because the multiplicity of natural languages generates incomprehension and handicaps human communication. The minimum number of languages in the world has been set at 4,000 and the maximum at 8,000. In spite of this people can communicate over communication’s barriers which are generated by the multiplicity of mother-languages. But that diversity worries and disturbs. A Danish linguist Otto Jespersen wrote: „An American may travel from Boston to San Francisco without hearing more than one language. But if he were to traverse the same distance on this side of the Atlantic, he would have a totally different story to tell (…) he would then hear perhaps Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, Czecho-Slovakian, Hungarian, Rumanian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Greek, and then in Egypt Arabic and a little English (…) He would not have heard of the languages spoken in Europe. The curse of Babel is still with us”1. It means that we have to use more than one language to 1 O. Jespersen: An International Language, Allen & Unwin, London 1928; <http://www.geocities.com/ /Athens/Forum/5037/AILneed.html>. 66 Emanuel Kulczycki communicate with another man. So some universal language – an international auxiliary language could make whole social communication easy. -
Reilly, Colin (2019) Language in Malawian Universities: an Investigation Into Language Use and Language Attitudes Amongst Students and Staff
Reilly, Colin (2019) Language in Malawian universities: an investigation into language use and language attitudes amongst students and staff. PhD thesis. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/41150/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Language in Malawian Universities: An investigation into language use and language attitudes amongst students and staff Colin Reilly, MA (Hons), MPhil Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Critical Studies College of Arts University of Glasgow April 2019 © Colin Reilly 2019 Abstract It has been suggested that poor and ill-fitting language policies within Africa have led to a majority of its population being unable to effectively engage with education systems within their countries (Djite 2008). Language-in-education policies in Malawi are a prime example of this as Malawi’s language planning has repeatedly been criticised and epitomises the tension between the competing positions of English and the twelve Malawian languages in the country (Kayambazinthu 1998, Moyo 2001, Breton 2003). -
SM 11 Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry
CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by eVols at University of Hawaii at Manoa Savage Minds Occasional Papers No. 11 Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry By Edward Sapir Edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub First edition, 11 March, 2014 Savage Minds Occasional Papers 1. The Superorganic by Alfred Kroeber, edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub 2. Responses to “The Superorganic”: Texts by Alexander Goldenweiser and Edward Sapir, edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub 3. The History of the Personality of Anthropology by Alfred Kroeber, edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub 4. Culture and Ethnology by Robert Lowie, edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub 5. Culture, Genuine and Spurious by Edward Sapir, edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub 6. Culture in the Melting-Pot by Edward Sapir, edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub 7. Anthropology and the Humanities by Ruth Benedict, edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub 8. Configurations of Culture in North America, by Ruth Benedict, edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub 9. The Methods of Ethnology, by Franz Boas, edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub 10. The Science of Culture: The Bearing of Anthropology on Contemporary Thought, by Ruth Benedict, edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub 11. Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry, by Edward Sapir, edited and with an introduction by Alex Golub Copyright information This original work is copyright by Alex Golub, 2014. The author has issued the work under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States license. -
Type Title of Your Paper Here
THE APPLICATION OF SAPIR–WHORF HYPOTHESIS IN ENGLISH TEACHING IN CHINA Approved by Richard Garrett on May 12, 2013 1 THE APPLICATION OF SAPIR–WHORF HYPOTHESIS IN ENGLISH TEACHING IN CHINA __________________ A Seminar Paper Presented to The Graduate Faculty University of Wisconsin-Platteville __________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree Master of Science in Education English Education __________________ By Yuan Huiling(Rosemary Yuan) 2013 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is completed with the assistance of many individuals. Without their generous and expert help, insightful comments and continuous encouragement, I would not have been able to complete my research and thesis. First of all, I would like to express my deepest and warmest thanks to my advisor, Dr. Yuanyuan Hu, for her great help, considerable patience and understanding. She gave me so many constructive suggestions on how to conduct the research. Much of the thinking that went into this thesis grew out of discussion with her. I would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me during the writing of this thesis. I gratefully acknowledge Dr. Richard Garrett, for his great patience and deeply trust. It really means a lot to me. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Mr. Valleymist, who has offered me valuable suggestions and provided me with inspiring advice. The most important is I can't finish this paper without his emotional support. I should finally like to express my gratitude to my boss, who gives me some valuable news, and my classmates, who have always been there to help and support me. -
Abstracts General Sessions
1 Preparing a grammar for Beserman Udmurt Timofey Arkhangelskiy ([email protected]) Universität Hamburg / Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Maria Usacheva ([email protected]) Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences Beserman is an endangered unwritten dialect of Udmurt (Uralic > Permic). Its existing descriptions (Teplyashina 1970, Lyukina 2008, 2016) mostly deal with phonology and morphemics. In the talk, we are going to discuss our efforts in preparing a comprehensive Beserman grammar (which is in its initial stages) and present some thoughts on developing grammars for endangered languages in general. This includes primarily collection of data, writing the text and technical infrastructure. 1. Collection of data. Corpora of endangered languages are usually very small and do not contain all the data needed for writing a grammar. One can gather missing data through elicitation, but this method has its limitations. We propose the following workflow: · formulate hypotheses based on material from corpora; · conduct experiments to test them; · use elicitation to gather whatever data remains to be gathered. We use different experimental methods to get different types of texts: referential communication tasks, postscoring of mute cartoons, telling stories based on a series of pictures, adopting games, etc. The experimental texts are transcribed and sound-aligned in ELAN with the help of the native speakers. 2. Writing the text. When writing any kind of text, it is very important to keep in mind its target audience. Unfortunately, there are several target audiences in our case, who require different data and structure. For example, typologists need plenty of glossed examples and a very detailed text in English; syntactitians need examples (both positive and negative) which illustrate outcomes of syntactic tests; regional linguists from Russia who work with Permic languages need a text in Russian and terminology based on Russian linguistic tradition, etc. -
DOCUMENT RESUME RC 021 339 Issues in Language Textbook
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 415 069 RC 021 339 AUTHOR de Reuse, Willem J. TITLE Issues in Language Textbook Development: The Case of Western Apache. PUB DATE 1997-00-00 NOTE 14p.; In: Teaching Indigenous Languages; see RC 021 328. PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070) Reports Descriptive (141)-- Speeches /Meeting Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS American Indian Education; *American Indian Languages; *Apache; Elementary Secondary Education; *Language Maintenance; Learning Strategies; Linguistics; *Second Language Instruction; Teaching Methods; *Textbook Preparation; *Textbooks IDENTIFIERS Total Physical Response ABSTRACT Two experimental language-learning textbooks were developed in collaboration with Apache-speaking scholars from the San Carlos and White Mountain Reservations. One was written in the grammar-translation tradition and modeled after successful textbooks for Navajo and Papago. While the text's main purpose is to teach elementary conversational Western Apache with some emphasis on reading and writing, it also teaches some of the linguistics of Western Apache to Apache students and speakers. Educators can apply linguistics knowledge to contrast the languages in bilingual situations and as a tool for teaching children about scientific inquiry (analyzing their own intuitive knowledge of language rules). Also, exposure to linguistics may spark some Native American students to enter the field and apply themselves to the problems of endangered Native languages. The other textbook is a guide to teaching Apache with the Total Physical Response (TPR) method, based on. Asher's (1982) teacher's guidebook. The approaches of the two textbooks raise various problems that can be partially solved by combining approaches. For example, classificatory handling verbs are best taught by a grammar-translation method, supplemented by TPR-style exercises; straightforward syntactic structures (in Apache), such as negation and yes/no questions, can be taught through TPR exercises, supplemented by grammatical explanations.