CRS-1200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Everything To Everyone, Practice Theory, Phatic Expression
8 Jul 2018
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Document Summary
Language can be de ned as a set of socially embedded practices. Every social interaction is mediated by language; spoken, written, verbal, or nonverbal. (non-verbal communication, often leads to misunderstandings and con icts. This will be addressed later on in the term). Scholars like linguistic anthropologists maintain that the essence of language cannot be understood without reference to the particular social contexts in which it is used. Ferdinand de saussure, a famous swiss linguist argued: it is necessary to decontextualize the study language, by only studying structure, we are not able to dispense other elements of language. It is only possible if other elements are kept separate: noam chomsky, an american linguist agreed with ferdinand and argued: universal. Reducing to one side is to miss the richness and complexity of language. Except, language must not be studied in isolation from social practices or cultural meanings.
