Christian Evidences - C.D. #4 - The Trustworthiness of the Bible

Cultural Anthropology

Bible 238

Dr/Brother Michael Landon, PhD

Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge

Chapter 4: Language and Communication

Review #4

Statement:

I read the whole text.

Outline:

What is Language? A system of communication using sounds and /or gestures that are put together according to certain rules, resulting in meanings that are intelligible to all who share that language. How is Language Related to Culture? Human culture is ultimately dependent on an elaborate system of communication far more complex than that of any other species. How Did Language Begin? One theory of the origin of language is that early humans began using gestures as a tool to communicate within a social setting. In the bible, we see God creating man in his image (Genesis 1:26-27) with a full capability of verbal speech (Genesis 2:19-20).

Summarize the Content:

All functioning humans are born with the ability to communicate through language (verbal or non-verbal, such as gestures or even sign language). Each culture has a language that uses sounds or gestures that are put together according to certain rules that result in meaning. The sounds and gestures we use in languages are labeled as symbols that communicate a certain meaning. Take the word sneezing, someone around you may not be sneezing, but there is a symbol (or word) that labels that gesture when it occurs.

Any human language whether French, Espanola, or Greek, transmit information and share collective and individual experiences with others in a shared culture. The nature of language starts by taking sounds and developing rules for them and putting them together in meaningful ways. The root of understanding languages is through linguistics (descriptive, historical and ethnolinguistics)—the modern scientific study of all aspects of language.

Descriptive: The branch of linguistics that involves unraveling a language by recording, describing, and analyzing all of its features.Historical: The branch of linguistics that studies the histories of and relationships among languages, both living and dead.Ethno: A branch of linguistics that studies the relationship between language and culture.

Through phonetics and phonology you are able to identify, describe and study distinct sounds in languages. In order to analyze and describe any language, one needs first an inventory of all its distinctive sounds. Certain languages are similar but some have distinct sound patterns only that culture may use in their language (for example, the “th” sound common in English does not exist in the Dutch language). While collecting speech sounds, the linguistic works to find the phonemes – smallest units of sound that make a difference in meaning such as the alphabet.

Once linguistics have discovered distinction in certain sounds of language, they look into morphology, the study of the patterns or rules of word formation in a language (including such things as rules concerning verb tense, pluralization, and compound words). Marked out sounds in a language are called morphemes – the smallest units of sound that carry a meaning in language. They are distinct from phonemes, which can alter meaning, but have no meaning by themselves (for example, the word cow is a morphemes, a meaningful combination of the phonemes c, o, and w). Other rules like syntax (The patterns of rules for the formation of phrases and sentences in a language) and grammar (The entire formal structure of a language) give structure to languages (morphemes and syntax work together to develop sentence structure). There are many possible uses for words but some only work together in form classes (the parts of speech or categories of words that work the same way in any sentence, such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives).

Languages can be efficient through naming and talking ideas, actions, and things. Languages can be insufficient to some degree in communicating certain kinds of information that people need to know in order to fully understand what is being said. For this reason, human language has a gesture-call system (that also relates with monkeys and apes, consider Chantek the orangutan found on page 90-92, in the Original Study). The gesture-call system consists of facial expressions and bodily postures and motions that convey intended as well as subconscious messages. Body-gesture or “body language” is known as kinesics (A system of notating and analyzing postures, facial expressions, and body motions that convey messages).

Historical linguistics deals with the fact that languages change. The historical section on language talked about dead languages (Latin) and how to interpret it from languages that are a derivative. I reflected on how God’s word is everlasting and unchangeable throughout the ages (Psalm 119:89). On the discussion of language family – A group of languages descended from a single ancestral language, I thought about Genesis 11: 1-9, The Tower of Babel. The book calls this event glottochronology – A method for identifying the approximate time that language branched off from a common ancestor. It is based on analyzing core vocabularies.

One force of change is selective borrowing by one language from another. Words from one language appear in another due to modern-day globalization. Technology places a big part in linguistic shifts. Professional specialization is another force that has shifted language creating a language strictly in the work force. Also, in society, there is a tendency to change the meaning of existing words and inventing new meaning. You see this today from members of an “in-group” or as I call them “a click” using different meaning to exclude those not apart of their group.

A powerful force in the change of language is colonialism. This is when a country fights to take over another country and instills their culture’s rules, beliefs, customs, and language. A good example of this is Alexander the Great, conquering other countries and instilling in his captives the Greek language and its social beliefs. A lot of languages do not exist today for this very reason. Some countries notice how another language has a major influence around their culture. In France, the word email has been substituted with the government-approved term couriel.

Ethnolinguistics is the study of relationships between language and culture. Languages are spoken by people who are members of distinct societies. Each society has its own unique culture, and individuals within a society tend to vary in the ways they use language based on social variables such as gender, class, and ethnicity. How we choose words and sentences to communicate meaning in one community or culture may not be in another. The use of language is reflected by your culture.

A closely related point of view is that language mirrors or reflects, rather than determines, cultural reality. If language does mirror cultural reality, then changes in a culture will sooner or later be reflected in changes in the language. The example given for this is the word marriage, which its meaning has been stretched and in some societies marriage just isn’t between a man and a women, but same sex marriages have been accepted in certain cultures.

Although language is flexible and adaptable, a term once established tends to be responsible for it and reflect much about the speaker’s beliefs and social relationships. Kinship terms for example help reveal how a family is structured, what relationships are considered close or distant, and certain attitudes toward relationships. Also, gender language reveals how men and women relate to one another.

Reflection:

One thing I disagree with is the writer accrediting body-gestures to man having a link with primates and receiving the “body language” gesture from them. As clearly seen, man can communicate with animals (primates, dolphins, and certain birds) but that doesn’t mean man originated from them. The one thing man and animals do have in common is that God both made them (Ecclesiastes 3:18-21).

Besides my disagreement with scientific evolution I feel chapter four is really informative in the area of communication through language (fluctuation in voice, tone, and from arrange of voice qualities), body-gestures (facial expressions, proximity of space), languages changing, and understanding mans theory of the origin language and writing. This chapter further broadened my scope on the world. One thing I learned is that culturally there are differences and similarities. This study helped me to become more aware of how certain cultures relate to one another and how they adopt certain qualities from other societies. One thing I really appreciate about this reading is the helpful examples that follow the author’s point.

I focused on the descriptive side of the study of language in my summary for it was more practical to me. That part of the study helped me to understand what to look for when I begin to study another language. I have an interest to learn Spanish, and before this class I found myself watching a lot of Spanish networks. Since a few weeks have gone by I find myself recalling the information learned in this class. So far, the chapters and other resources we have studied on culture have brought amazement to my mind because though we learn culture and different types of languages, God understands it all. Wow!!!

As I think about Jesus before he prepared a place for those who love him, I am reminded that he wanted all his believers to become one in purpose and thought. We see in Genesis 11:1-9 the whole world had one language and a common speech. Verse 6 of the text reads, The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this (building the tower), then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” Since, there are so many languages today, how can the believers of Christ (from different nations) unite to become one? Well, in Acts 2: 1-13, we see the work (or baptism) of the Holy Spirit falling upon men of different cultures and languages who heard others declaring the wonders of God in their own tongue (language). Surely the Baptism of the Holy Spirit age has come and gone but this story shows me that with careful studying of the tools provided (to understand culture and different languages) in chapter four and the Holy Spirit serving as an interpreter all mankind will be given a chance to hear the gospel of Christ so that no man has an excuse on judgment day (Romans 1:18-20).