Kottak Ch. 4: Language and Communication

NOTE: Post a comment once a week to one of any of the posts made since the previous Friday by Prof. Gaunt. Be sure to "surf" through any links. Strongly suggest composing your response in MS Word, then cut and paste as a comment. Avoid grammar and spelling mistakes; use spell and grammar check. Also rewrite your post at least once and don't forget to read other comments first so you all are not saying the same thing 30 times. Differentiate your thoughts or concur with someone early (i.e., @Paul: I agree with your thinking here and...).

Chapter 4 introduces the study of language, communication and linguistics.
Revised, Originally posted 2/24/08 2:40pm
It discusses the basic categories and definitions used to study language, and the many ways in which linguistic, cultural, and social variables are interrelated. It also presents how language uses reflect differences among groups. Language is amazing and it can be used to debilitate and malign. Yes, socio-linguistics, as it could be called, can be both adaptive and maladaptive.

You will love checking out the enculturation process of a 1 year old in the following video who has learned a significant sign language vocabulary:



Since BEV or Black English Vernacular is a topic in the chapter, here's segment from "Why Ebonics is No Joke," which aired on ABC Radio National's Lingua Franca October 17, 1998:

The Economist picked it up and printed a brief story headed 'The Ebonics Virus', a tasteless reference to the then recent outbreak of the horrible Ebola fever in Zaire. The subliminal link there is clear enough: nasty things out of Africa!...

I don't know how you measure poverty in a language. But on the bit about grammatical mistakes... There is a difference between making grammatical blunders in Standard English and speaking correctly in a different variety of the language, one that has a slightly different grammar. And that's the case here. African-American Vernacular English has a regular, systematic grammar of its own.

People who don't know [Black English vernacular] talk about how the word 'be' is used in the wrong places. They think black Americans say, 'He be laughin'.' When they should say 'He is laughing', and that's treated as one of the many amusing pieces of evidence that they don't speak English correctly. It's not true. The African-American Vernacular English usage they're referring to is in fact a device for expressing what's called 'habitual aspect'. 'He be laughin' is grammatical in African-American Vernacular English but it doesn't mean 'He is laughing', it means 'He habitually laughs.' If you want to say 'He is laughing' right now, in this language, you say 'He laughin'.'

In the 4:10 section we also analyzed the uses of language in the video The Leech and the Earthworm about how an indigeneous people tell a story about colonialization and exploitation by the white man. Check it out! You'll notice the use of storytelling, visual, oral, musical and other kinds of language in this TITLE sequence from the documentary.

You might also get something from this splicing of routines by comedians Richard Pryor and George Carlin. You may have to Google each to get a better grasp of their style of comedy. Carlin does "black" comedy--meaning it's intellectual as well as vernacularly (is that a word) straight and to the point. This clip supports the argument that signs, like the word "nigger", are inherently devoid of any natural meaning.

MODERN TRIBALISM (Chap 7 Political Systems)

TRIBALISM IN OUR MODERN WORLD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5XusQuHiJE
When reading the chapter on political systems we realized that the word “tribe” is not a word of past but is still present in our modern society. In the tribal system there were “village heads” and “big men,” who had control over the population but didn’t have the authority to enforce rules. The village head and the big man are still present in our society. Men of wealth who demonstrate hard work and potential become leaders in our modern society. Often these people aspire masses by their intellect, actions, but most importantly their wealth. The big men of our modern society could be the owners of corporations that control the world and influence the political decisions. These people posses a great amount of wealth that allows them to use it to lobby the politicians and create changes in the system that benefit them.

Here is a short video about this:
WHO OWNS AMERICA?
In this video George Carlin talks about politics and the effect of "big men" - the “owners” of America on our society. In this case the big men are the corporation owners who influence the politics and basically run the country even though they are not put in power by people.
http://www.youtube.com/v/9KVTfcAyYGg

How is tribal culture still present in our society? We can see the evidence of modern tribalism in our culture every day. People often try to differentiate themselves from one another and they form groups that share similarities with the old tribes that existed in the past. An example of this would be the street gangs. In such gang there is always a leader who is respected by the gang members. This gang leader would be a modern type of a village head. We all in some way participate in some kind of a tribal life.

MODERN TRIBALISAM
This short clip illustrates the importance tribalism in our modern world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5XusQuHiJE

Greatest force in nations, markets, business: TRIBALISM
http://www.youtube.com/v/HzKOu0UKCL4

What is the reason that people start to come back to tribalism? Many believe that the reason for the rediscovery of tribalism is descending in education and cultural intelligence. People lose the connection with the world and what is happening around them, they become apathetic and try to find their way through life in some kind of modern tribalism. What do you think about this? Is it necessarily a bad thing?

Questions to consider for this chapter:
Has the mankind start descending back to tribalism because of decline in education and cultural intelligence?

Is tribalism still prevalent in our modern lives? How is tribal life in the past similar to the life in our today’s society?

Political Systems - Boxer Muhammad Ali & Comedian George Carlin resist the Big Men

This segment of a 2007 ESPN documentary video about Muhammad Ali brings the issues in Chap 7 of the Kottak into the present.

"Ali's 65" debuts Jan. 3, 2007 on ESPN
Ali's 65, produced by Televersemedia, a Stamford, Connecticut production company, is a one-hour special that will explore the impact and true meaning of Muhammad Ali's life, exploring why there had never been an athlete like Ali before and why there will likely never be anyone like him again. Ali's 65 captures never before told stories of "The Greatest" from Spike Lee, George Foreman, Lennox Lewis, Ali's brother Rahman Ali, and in his final interview, Ed Bradley. For more information, please visit www.televersemedia.com

The 2:30 section shared a great video remix of a George Carlin's HBO Special called 'This Life is Worth Losing'.



Wikipedia's biography of Carlin states:

Grammy-winning American stand-up comedian, actor, and author.

Carlin is especially noted for his political and black humor and his observations on language, psychology, and religion along with many taboo subjects. In fact, Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5-4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's right to regulate Carlin's act on the public airwaves.

A good cultural anthropologist, an ethnographer who does their job well, always does a "background check" so to speak, on things they present publicly. I request we all be good ethnographers and do our scholarly homework on anything we present to the class and briefly contextualize the facts (For instance, "This is a YouTube video remix of comedian George Carlin, known for his black humor, speaking about the "Big Men" of corporate America"....etc.)

Here is the remix of a segment from his HBO special shown with graphics signifying all the corporate brands of the "owners of America" -- the BIG MEN. Great example of how the polities described in the chapter are present in our state polity.

The group in the 2:30 section will post their videos soon. Prof. G

Chapter 5 – Language and Communication

Many of us do not realize how the development of language has actually affected not only our world and culture, but more specifically shaped our ideas. Since the development of language around 5000BC the human race gained a new form of expression that each culture developed into its own unique form.

What we as a group decided we should further examine is the Sapirwhorf hypothesis. This states that different languages produce different ways of thinking. Therefore each language should have certain aspects that wouldn’t translate into another or wouldn’t convey the same meaning, so consider…

Take an idea like freedom or slavery and questioning the fact of whether these things would exist without the actual word (Freedom) existing. (Let’s say a totalitarian government in America takes control and decides to remove the words rebellion, disloyalty, traitor, coup, and revolution or there exists a culture without these words, would these ideas still exist for the people without language to express them?) After you have responded to this question, then try to think of some words in your language that would be hard to translate and explain why. (If you only speak English, consider English words that would be hard to express in another language.)

Here are some interesting, perhaps even funny videos that could aid you in your thinking process about language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHQ2756cyD8

George Carlin explains how perception changes with words, but the overall idea or fact is the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67k9eEw9AY