DANCEST 805 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Linguistic Determinism, Social Constructionism, Linguistic Relativity
Document Summary
Chapter 2 language: the key to communication. Displacement: the ability to talk about things other than the here and now". Arbitrariness: linguistic signs sounds, letters and words have no inbuilt connection with what they represent. Duality: the idea that the smallest building blocks of language sounds are themselves meaningless, but become meaningful as soon as they are combined into words. Productivity: with the help of rules, the various building blocks of language such as sounds and words are combined in new ways all the time. Cultural transmission: languages are passed on from generation to generation through social/cultural contact, and not through genes (what is genetically transmitted, however, is the ability to learn language in general terms) Arbitrariness and displacement allows us to talk about abstract ideas; to make plans, and to evaluate and debate them; to coordinate group activities in response to unexpected challenges; and to resolve complex conflicts without resorting to physical violence.
