ANTH 1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: English-Based Creole Languages, African American Vernacular English, Nonverbal Communication

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH 1001
• Professor: Marieka Sax

Document Summary

Verbal language is often seen as the main discriminating feature of humanity. All human societies have language it is universal, but there is great variation from language to language. Saussure defines language as a system of interdependent terms n which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of other terms. Linguistic anthropology: the study of how language shapes social & cultural life. Although linguists may study a single language or group of languages, the aim is to come to a general understanding of language as a human phenomenon. Linguists also study language variation: why variations exist, how the variations are used (e. g. do you say tomato" or tomahto". Language doesn"t just describe our world it creates it. It is not a value-free set of labels for describing reality . Perceptions, feelings, & interpretations are all shaped by the possibilities of our language.