BUILDING BLOCKS OF LANGUAGE

Phonetics

Human languages use only a limited number, out of the thousands of sounds human vocal tract can produce. These speech sounds are the object of study of Phonetics. In this session we will learn about the human vocal apparatus and study the articulatory mechanisms and acoustic parameters which matter for human speech. We will also familiarize ourselves with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the speech sounds equivalent of the periodic table. This class will be a foundation towards learning to produce, perceive and transcribe sounds of the world’s languages.

Phonology

Languages make a limited number of distinctions in a continuum of sounds. Individual languages differ in the kind of distinctions they make and consequentially speakers of different languages differ in the kind of sound distinctions they can perceive. These sound differences are used to distinguish and create an inventory of meaningful forms (lexicon). This lecture discusses Phonology, the component of language responsible for the above perceptual and functional differences. We learn about how languages varyingly categorize sounds, combine sounds hierarchically, restrict certain combinations and apply various processes to create a meaningful form.

Readings

• Gussenoven, Carlos and Haike Jacobs. Understanding Phonology. Routledge, 2013.
• Hayes, Bruce. Introductory Phonology. Blackwell, 2011

Morphology

What is a word? It is often not easy to recognize one word from another, especially in languages which don’t have a writing convention. In this session we look at the internal structure of words. We will learn about morphemes: meaningful units smaller than a word, and the processes through which morphemes together or alone build up a word.

Syntax

Syntax is the component of language which relates sound to meaning and makes possible, the unique ability of human language to communicate myriad ideas. In this session, we will learn about how world’s languages classify words, order and combine them hierarchically to form phrases and sentences and the different sentence constructions that languages use. We briefly survey select models of Syntax.

Semantics

This lecture introduces Semantics- the component of grammar which allows us to convey meaning through linguistic forms. We will learn about word meaning and sentence meaning and their properties and the relationships between meaning and grammar, context and thought.

Reading

• Elbourne, Paul. Meaning: A slim guide to Semantics. Oxford University Press, 2011.

LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Language and social action

The study of language is typically discussed either as part of “grammar” as an inherent part of the brain (Saussure, Chomsky) or as “discourse” (as in the cultural studies framework). This course will provide another paradigm for language, which is the study of language as ongoing social action. We will study how language and culture are mutually inter-related; how cultural beliefs shape linguistic form; and how, vice versa, linguistic form shapes our social relations. We will introduce language as not an object to be studied in the world, but as an ongoing human activity that exists between people. Readings

• Ahearn, Laura M. Living language: An introduction to linguistic anthropology. Vol. 2. John Wiley & Sons, 2016.
• Duranti, Alessandro, et al. "Language as culture in US anthropology: Three paradigms." Current Anthropology 44.3 (2003): 323-347.
• Sidnell, Jack, et al. "Language diversity and social action: A third locus of linguistic relativity." Current Anthropology 53.3 (2012.)

Language, thought, and culture

Language and thought have been a hotly debated issue within linguistics, anthropology, and other allied fields. At stake is the effect that growing up in a particular culture or with particular languages has on our perception of the world. In this session we will introduce students to the work of Benjamin Lee Whorf and Edward Sapir, the pioneers in the thesis that language shapes our perception and familiarize students with recent research on the subject. We will cover experimental and ethnographic studies.

Readings

• Whorf, Benjamin Lee. Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge: Mit Press, 2012.
• Lucy, John A. Language diversity and thought: A reformulation of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
• Enfield, Nick J., et al. "The body as a cognitive artifact in kinship representations: Hand gesture diagrams by speakers of Lao." Current anthropology 46.1 (2005): 51-81.

Anthropology of scripts

While in traditional linguistics, writing is seen as simply a representation of speech, the study of writing offers a different window into examining social relations than spoken language. Writing combines visual form and embodied practice in unique ways, and its durability allows for a different circulation than spoken language. Scripts (the graphic repertoires that make up orthographic systems) can both cross-cut languages, and individual languages can also be written with multiple scripts. This session will cover how we can approach and analyze cases of “multiscriptality” with a focus on India.

Readings

• Webster, Anthony and Debenport Erin. From Literacy/Literacies to Graphic Pluralism and Inscriptive Practices. Annual Review of Anthropology (2019)
• LaDousa, Chaise. "Advertising in the periphery: Languages and schools in a North Indian city." Language in Society 31.2 (2002): 213-242.
• Choksi, Nishaant. "Surface politics: Scaling multiscriptality in an Indian village market." Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 25.1 (2015): 1-24.

Language and social differentiation

Traditional anthropological research often assumes a one to one relation between language and culture. This however is not true, especially given the fact that many communities are multilingual and there are many times cultural relationships shared by people who speak different languages even more so than people who share the same language. This session will discuss the difference between a speech community, which is a group of speakers who live together and share cultural features though often speak different languages, and a language community, speakers who speak different languages though affiliate with a linguistic code. We will then discuss how language ideology plays a role in interpreting linguistic differences as social differences, and creating boundaries between “ethno-linguistic communities” which may not have existed before.

Readings

• Irvine, Judith T. “Language and speech community” Encyclopedia of language and Linguistics. Elsevier (2006).
• Hymes, Dell. "Linguistic problems in defining the concept of ‘tribe’." Essays on the problem of tribe University of Washington Press (1968): 23-48.
• Irvine, Judith T., and Susan Gal, "Language ideology and linguistic differentiation." Linguistic anthropology: A reader Wiley-Blackwell (2009).

Conversation analysis

This session will discuss conversation analysis, which is the way linguists and anthropologists look at face-to-face interaction. We will discuss “turn-taking” and “floor-taking” and how conversational organization is shaped by cultural practices and vice-versa. We will practice with activities such as recording data and creating transcription.

Readings

• Sidnell, Jack, and Tanya Stivers, eds. The handbook of conversation analysis. Vol. 121. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
• Goffman, Erving. Forms of talk. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.
• Brown, Laura C. "A public backstage: The pleasures and possibilities of roadside shop talk in Tamil Nadu, India." Language & Communication 34 (2014): 35-45

ANALYZING GRAMMAR

In this course students experience hands-on, their learning from theory lectures. Under guidance, they engage with the native speaker of a lesser-known language and work towards developing a grammatical sketch of that language. The first two sessions will cover the sounds and sound structure of the language and the final two sessions will cover the morphological and syntactic structure of the language. Foundational training is given in the requisite technology and software for language documentation.

Readings

• Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. Art of Grammar: A Practical Guide. Oxford University Press, 2015.
• Bowern, Claire. Linguistic Fieldwork: A Practical Guide. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
• Abbi, Anvita. A Manual of Linguistic Fieldwork and Structures of Indian Languages. LINCOM Europa, 2001.