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Week 8

The document discusses several linguistic concepts including kinship, taxonomies, color terms, prototypes, taboo and euphemism. It examines how these concepts relate to culture and language. It provides examples of kinship systems and color categorization across cultures. It also discusses the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that one's language influences one's worldview.

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eve25lyn08
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12 views

Week 8

The document discusses several linguistic concepts including kinship, taxonomies, color terms, prototypes, taboo and euphemism. It examines how these concepts relate to culture and language. It provides examples of kinship systems and color categorization across cultures. It also discusses the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that one's language influences one's worldview.

Uploaded by

eve25lyn08
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Words and

Language
Week 8
Culture

• “I intend to use it in the sense of whatever a person must know in


order to function in particular society.” （ Wardhaugh, 2007, p.
230 ）
• This is the same sense as in Goodenough’s well-known definition
(1957,p. 167): “a society’s culture consists of whatever it is one has to
know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its
members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any one of
themselves.”
Whorf (Whorfian Hypothesis)

• Whorf said that “there was merely a ‘predisposition’; in Whorf’s view


the relationship between languages and culture was a deterministic one.”
（ Wardhaugh, 2007, p. 231 ）
• Different speakers will therefore experience the word differently insofar
as the languages they speak differ structurally, and not even the more
sophisticated linguist aware of all the subtleties of structural differences
among language can escape to see the world as it is rather than as it is
presented through the screen of this language or that.
Whorf (Whorfian Hypothesis)

• One claim is that, if speakers of one language have certain words to describe things
and speakers of another language lack similar words, then speakers of the first
language will find it easier to talk about those things.
• A stronger claim is that, if one language makes distinctions that another does not
make, then those who use the first language will more readily perceive the
differences in their environment which such linguistic distinctions draw attention to.
• The strongest claim of all is that the grammatical categories available in a particular
language not only help the users of that language to perceive the world in a certain
way but also at the same time limit such perception.
Whorf (Wofian Hypothesis)

• In the Whorfian view, language provides a screen or filter to reality;


it determines how speakers perceive and organize the world around
them, both the natural word and the society world. Consequently,
the language you speak helps to form your would-view.
• The language a person speakers affects that person’s relationship to
the external world in one or more ways. For example, gender, time,
number, and animacy.
Whorf (Whorfian Hypothesis)

Syntactic evidence
( Which draws defensible conclusion)
• At best, the syntactic evidence suggests that languages allow their
speakers to make certain observations more easily in some cases
than others.
Kinship

• Kinship systems are a universal feature of languages, because


kinship is so important in social organization.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCFRoILS1jY
Kinship

• It is often virtually impossible to devise an exhaustive account of a


particular system. You may also be unable to account for the many
instances you may find of terms which are very obviously kinship
terms but are used with people who are very obviously not kin by
any of the criteria usually employed.
• Such an approach also misses the fact that certain terms recur to
mark different relationships
Kinship

• It is important to remember that when a term like father, brother, or


older brother is used in a kinship system, it carries with it ideas
about how such people ought to behave toward in the society that
uses that system.They are assumed to have certain rights and duties.
• As social conditions change, we can expect kinship systems to
change to reflect the new conditions.
Taxonomies

• A folk taxonomy is a way of classifying a certain part of reality so


that it makes some kind of sense to those who have to deal with it.
Taxonomies

• One of the best-known studies of a folk taxonomy is Frake’s


account (1961) of the terms that the Subanun of Mindanao in the
southern Philippines use to describe disease.
• Burling (1970, pp. 14-17) has applied this same kind of analysis of
part of the vocabulary of a language to the pronoun system in
Palaung, a language spoken in Burman.
Taxonomies

• Analyses into taxonomies and components are useful in that they


help us to organize data in ways that appear to indicate how
speakers use their language to organize the world around them. they
also show how systematic much of that behavior is and do so in a
rather surprising way. A folk taxonomy of disease is something that
develops with little or no conscious attention. That it can be shown
to have a complex hierarchical structure is therefore a rather
surprising finding.
Color

• The terms people use to describe color give us another means of


exploring the relationships between different languages and
cultures.
• We also find that we sometimes cannot directly translate color
words from one language to another without introducing subtle
changes in meaning.
Color

• All languages make use of basic color terms. A basic color term must
be a single word.
• There is some reason to believe that communities that show little
technological development employ the fewest color terms
• On the other hand, technologically advanced societies have terms that
are more than that little technological development.
• Even in the same society there may be differences in color awareness.
Color

• One approach to investigating color terminology in languages is


predicated on the scientific fact that the color spectrum is an objective
reality.
• Moreover, as cultural and technological changes occur, it becomes more
and more necessary for people to differentiate within the color spectrum.
• In this alternate view, color systems are social constructions rather than
biologically determined ones.
Prototypes

• Rosch(1976) has proposed an alternative to the view that concepts


are composed from sets of features which necessarily and
sufficiently define instances of a concept. Rosch proposes that
concept are best view as prototypes.
• We constantly “type” things and events in the world around us as
we manage our lives, and sometimes we do it well and at other
times we do it badly.
Prototypes

• Hudson (1996, pp. 75-8) believes that prototype theory has much to offer
sociolinguists. He believes it leads to an easier account of how people learn to use
language, particularly linguistic concepts, from the kinds of instances they come
across.
• According to Hudson, prototype theory may even be applied to the social
situations in which speech occurs.
• Prototype theory, then, offers us a possible way of looking not only at how
concept may be formed, but also at how we achieve our social competence in the
use of language.
Taboo and Euphemism

• Taboo is the prohibition or avoidance in any society of behavior believed


to be harmful to its members in that it would cause them anxiety,
embarrassment, or shame.
• Tabooed subjects can vary widely: sex; death; excretion; bodily function;
religions matters; and politics.
• Linguistic taboos may also be violated on occasion to draw attention to
oneself, or to show contempt, or to be aggressive or provocative, or to
mock authority.
Taboo and Euphemism

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB-fTZ5pzXM
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UnAtD8iSVw
Taboo and Euphemism

• Recent decades in the English-speaking world at least- as certain social constraints have
loosened. However, that decline may have been more than matched by the marked increase in
the use of euphemistic language, the 'dressing up' in language of certain areas in life to make
them more presentable, more polite, and more palatable to public taste.
• Euphemistic words and expressions allow us to talk about unpleasant things and disguise or
neutralize the unpleasantness.
• Taboo and euphemism affect us all. We may not be as deeply conscious of the effects as are
the Nupe, but affect us they do.
• Each social group is different from every other in how it constrains linguistic behavior in this
way, but constrain it in some such way it certainly.
Taboo and Euphemism

• We know that "Language is a cultural symbol, culture is the language of the pipe rail.
• Second, differences in taboo words in English and Western both have different
cultural backgrounds, habits, values, etc.
1. Religion is religion taboo word in English there is an important aspect.
2. The name and title in "title are a particular human social relationships, in
particular, the identity of a particular color called coke.“
3. The topic of personal privacy and privacy aspects of the word.
4. The number of taboos Chinese figures four, five and so on.
Task: Work in a group of 3

1. Conclude what are kinship, taxonomies, color, prototypes, taboo, and euphemisms.
2. Explain the relation between the words and culture by using your own words!
3. Explain the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
• source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8SCy6lhK6U
4. Make your family tree with your own local language
• source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCFRoILS1jY
5. Find examples of at least 5 taboos that you know
• Examples:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB-fTZ5pzXM
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UnAtD8iSVw
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