Communication lectures on:

1. Communicationlectures on: Language: Using Patterned Sound Non-Verbal Communication: Using the Body The Meaning of Objects: Using Style Manipulating Space: Using our Surroundings

2. Language and Society Language • Distinguished from a call system by the use of arbitrary symbols • Arbitrary symbols are culturally agreed-upon meanings for sounds that are not like the thing they describe • Non-human chimps cannot speak but can communicate (as does Koko, with American Sign Language)

3. Language Origins • Have long been debated • Due to language’s characteristics (it is performative and ephemeral, like dance) and the difficulty of connecting language with durable physical characteristics (except for the hyoid bone) a definitive answer is unlikely

4. What is clear is that the activities of our human ancestors, at least since H. erectus times, would have required some sort of sophisticated communication system to indicate abstract concepts such as time, distance, longing, intent, etc

5. Language History • (of the more recent sort) is considerably easier. • Termed historical linguistics, the relationships between languages can be discerned through comparison. • Glottochronology studies the rate of linguistic change to derive approximate dates for when languages split from one another (e.g., Latin into French, Spanish, Italian)

7. Latin English German French

9. Language Change • occurs all the time slang, regional dialects, borrowing from other languages • an example of English language change is Chaucer’s fourteenth century English Canterbury Tales

10. The Canterbury Tales1347-1400 Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan Zephiruseek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne, And smalefoweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open eye So prikethhem Nature in hir corages Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

11. Slang:can you date these? • “I’m down with that.” • “Cool.” • “Twenty-three skidoo.” • “Awesome.” • “Bad.” • “Whatever.” • “Dig?” • “Groovy.” • “Sweet.” • “Hidey-ho!”

12. The Most Highly Conserved Words in All Languages are: • I/me, you, two, who, language, name, eye, heart, tooth, no/not, fingernail/toenail, louse/nit, water, tear(drop), death, hand, night, blood, horn (animal), full, sun, ear, salt.

13. An Example of Conservationand Loss • ouche (Fr) from olca (Celtic) from oc* (Indo-European) • “terre de bonne qualite” --a good parcel of land near a dwelling for overflow gardening and keeping small or sick animals • read about ouches on the class website in the article “From Garden to Globe” under Handouts]

14. Transmitting Identity across Generations • transmitted in large part by language • people let their language stand for much else in their culture • language, dialect, accent, and speech are always political and have power • think about the importance of: speaker’s language choice among potentially usable languages the power of an accent to telegraph to the listener the speaker’s class, gender, ethnicity, etc

15. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis • is that language predisposes people to see the world in a certain way and guides their thinking and behavior • For example, ‘sustainable’ in English characterizes a renewable resource like well-managed agricultural land or wind power • First used by scholarly, then business community • But sustentable from Fr. sustenter (‘support’) is not understood. • Instead durable, (‘hardy’, lasting) or l’entretien du paysage (land management) is used • Used by agricultural community

16. Faux Amis • A foreign word that looks deceptively like a word in one’s own language • preservatif, je suis pleine examples • Note gesture in photos

17. Code Switchingan example at the dialectical level • the smooth movement a person makes from one dialect to another in different circumstances • includes grammar and syntax, word choice, tone, volume, gendered speech differences, etc • roof (“rooof” “ruf”), tomato, orange • NC dialectical differences: Kerrville (“Cur-ville”) but Carr Mill and Kerr Drugs and Kerr Lake; Carolinian pronounced Caroleenian

18. Male/Female Communication • Studies show that, in general, • women ask questions, keep the conversation going with verbal and non-verbal responses, and protest using silence • men interrupt more, challenge more, more direct declarations of fact and opinion

19. Phoneme • A minimally distinct sound in the context of a particular spoken language • For example, in American English /p/ and /b/ are distinct phonemes because pat and bat are distinct; however, the two different sounds of /t/ in tick and stick are not distinct in English, even though they are distinct in other languages such as Thai.

20. Morpheme • The smallest contrastive unit of grammar. • A minimally distinctive unit of meaning in the context of a particular language. • For example, cats consists of two morphemes: cat and -s, the plural suffix. The -s is called a bound form while cat is a free (or stand alone) form. dogs also has the -s but it is pronounced /z/.

21. Phonetics and Phonology • Phonetics is the study of the production, transmission, and reception of speech sounds • Phonology is the study of rules (grammar)

22. Signals • Signal = a gesture with (culturally) self-evident meaning. Silent non-verbal communication by signals or signs • Examples: "He signaled his disapproval with a dismissive hand gesture"; "The diner signaled the waiter to bring the bill"

23. Symbols • Symbol = stands for something else. Nixon’s V and Bush’s ‘hook em’ are interesting non-verbal (but not cross-cultural!) examples, but all language is symbolic