ANTH 005 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Moe Williams, Linguistic Performance, Facial Expression
9 May 2020
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Document Summary
Usually performed with discrete or continuous signals (ex: bird calls), the number of potential messages is limited. Performed under direct control of stimulus or at a specific time (ex: mating calls). Who produces messages may be predetermined genetically (ex: worker bees find honey). Communicative acts are performed to fulfill immediate survival needs of individual and its social group. Body posture, facial expression, raised body hair, body odour, blushing. Performed by producing units perceived as discrete, unlimited messages. Any message produced at any time in any location, who produces specific messages is restricted by cultural convention, all humans have the potential to produce any message. Humans communicate to fulfill individual and group survival needs (understood or not) as well as to create a sociocultural reality, humans create parts of world by characterizing it linguistically. Language is made up of phonemes (units of sound), morphemes (smallest meaningful units in language), semantics (meaning of words) and syntax (set of rules to arrange words).
