Week 2: Linguistic Diversity vs. U.G.

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TOPIC: THE SOCIAL LIFE OF LANGUAGE (INTRO)

Blogging / Interactive reflection (BLOG) (20%)

  • In this section you will write a 300-500 word reaction segment to each week’s material. You may talk about: (1) what you found interesting in the material covered that week and why, (2) what you found challenging, (3) how it ties to your research interests, (4) whether you’ve read related material, (5) whether it reminds you of real life situations, etc.
  • (Or) You may submit a ‘linguistic artifact’ or interesting piece of linguistic evidence (this may be an image, a YouTube video, a news article on a language-related issue) that you feel relates to the classroom material as part of your weekly reflection. Along with this artifact, you are expected to provide a description on why you believe that artifact ties to discussed material.

Reflection pieces are to be left in the “comment section” below, including your full name and word count. The deadline for each weekly assignment is Saturday at 5:00pm of that week.

Write Aug 13 – 16th 2019 reflection assignment below:

21 thoughts on “Week 2: Linguistic Diversity vs. U.G.”

  1. After reading the assigned Socially Charged Life of Language (Sounds like the secret sex life of language, but you are afraid to ask), one aspect that shocked me is the treatment of the Chomskyian notion of UG. Chomsky never downplayed the importance of social influence on language as part of the competence in language acquisition. But his primary interest was to explain the phenomena of how humans acquire the ability of learning languages, in spite of the “poverty of stimuli” from birth and the ability to create an infinite amount of sentences with few rules, thru the use of a recursive system. It is also important to find a reasonable explanation for syntactical structures, how they are formed although individuals are barely aware of it. Of course variation is important, but modelling is essential to picture the functions of many components compared to other languages, such as negations, queries and movements. No anthropologist can explain languages from a structural point of view. Any discipline trying to explain not so obvious complex behavior must simplify the explanatory variables by model abstraction. In this case, what make humans the “talking apes”?. No matter how well you train a chimp to “communicate”, he/she will always be that: a smart chimp, no chimp language. Any other considerations can be expanded and enriched by means of other variables such as biology, evolution, history, social mores, etc. That’s fine but does not add any theory on cognition in language acquisition at the brain level. Linguistic anthropology (sorry, whatever that means), cannot explain the prevalence of certain language patterns that are favored on a neurolinguistic level. Did you know that 45% of all languages follow the subject (S), Object (O), Verb(V) sintaxis whilst 40% use the SVO canonical order? Only 9% use the VSO and the paltry rest, follow other uncommon patterns. This is a hot issue among cognition experts that really are not interested in other matters, but society is not considered irrelevant in the whole picture of human behavior. Please excuse me if any of you feel offended by this, but hard science cannot be kicked to the corner by calling it deterministic. It is not, but without it, we cannot explain a myriad of human actions. It would be lovely to read your reactions. I love a fight!!!!

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  2. After reading mandatory Socially Charged Life of Language (sounds like Secret Sex Life of Language, but you’re afraid to ask), I’m compelled to make a couple of observations regarding the author’s treatment of the Chomskyian theory of UG. Chomsky never ignored the importance of social forces shaping language acquisition in children. These variables are part of the individuals language competence in any society. However, his interest is mainly in the creation of language at the brain level. There is no doubt that the ability to create and learn a language needs the inseparable triad of brainware, software and hardware. Regarding this last one, no matter how well you train a chimp to “communicate”, he/she will remain what it is: a smart chimp. You must have millions of years of evolution and random mutations to, perhaps, end in a planet of the apes (maybe in a parallel universe). So yes, language is embedded in our genes, like it or not. All animals (us included) have the FOXP2 gene, but they cannot talk, period. And the basic aim of Chomsky is how a human cub can understand and create it, being born with “poverty of stimuli” and how can it develop an infinite number of sentences with very few rules in a recursive manner. There is no doubt that other variables intervene in language development like history, social mores, biology, etc. But no linguistic anthropologist (whatever that means, sorry) can explain how humans develop syntatic structures, linguistic variations included. Although there exist a lot of variations in languages, there are certain patterns that prevail in common by clusters, in the 7000 languages existent today. Did you know that 45% of languages follow the Subject (S), Object (O), Verb (V) canonical order whilst 40% follow the SVO order (like English and Spanish)? Only 9% follow the VSO and the paltry rest, other syntaxis and these observations are in dispute. What kind of neurological efficient processing exists that gave rise to these patterns? And don’t forget that syntaxis is a central part of communication skills. The author treat language variation as a helter-skelter mumbo-jumbo of languages that really do not exist. Even genetic studies by Cavalli-Sforza can trace language families correlated to genetic haplo-groups and all these findings are consistent with the Chomskyian notion of UG. Don’t kick hard science to a corner because not even anthropologists would be unable to explain many human actions. I love a fight!

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  3. While reading Holmes’ (2013) introductory text, it was interesting to me how broadly sociolinguists use the term of ‘variety,’ including not only differences in accents, dialects, and registers (Ahearn, 2016, p. 30), but also less easily perceptible ones, like specific sounds (Holmes, 2013, p. 4-6). One case study I found noteworthy was William Labov’s (1963) study of Martha’s Vineyard, which illustrates 2nd wave sociolinguistics and their concern over social identity and language use (p. 7). As described on the study, people on the island, particularly the fishing community, chose to not accommodate to mainland US English (from New England) and resisted to the incoming ways of speaking that were already influencing the island’s population. This reminded me of how we sometimes choose to pronounce words in a Hispanic-influenced English so as to not sound pretentious.
    I would say this also relates to two questions that were mentioned in Ahearn’s text, which tie into my research interests. The first one was “How might people’s ideas about language (for example, what ‘good’ language is and who can speak it – in other words, their ‘language ideologies’) affect their perceptions of others as well as themselves?” (Ahearn, 2016, p. 7). In my thesis, I intend to look at perceptions of ‘Puerto Rican Spanish and English’ and how people’s ideologies impact identity, perspective, culture, etc. The second question was “What do you need to know in order to ‘know’ a language?” (Ahearn, 2016, p. 9). This is an important question that we must continuously ask before we present judgment on the language use of others. There are harsh criticisms of Puerto Rican Spanish/English, but which standards does a language have to comply with to be acceptable? Who sets these standards? As teachers, we should constantly challenge these ideologies, which sometimes perpetuate in our very own classrooms. We must reflect on this because, as expressed by Ahearn, we “may not be conscious of [our own language ideologies]” (2016, p. 23). We may be unconsciously portraying our habitus, which is based merely on “how we have been socialized” (Ahearn, 2016, p. 26).
    Because of what I’ve expressed above, I’m very interested in reading what these linguists have to say about both questions. It was already noted by the previous student that Ahearn rejects the traditional Chomskyan distinctions. Rather than finding this challenging, I find it refreshing. While Chomsky’s ideologies have been helpful in the advancement of linguistics, they are limited in that they insist on looking at language in a systematic manner that ignores the impact of society and context. By looking only at ‘competence’ and ‘performance,’ we limit our ability to capture the nuances of language-use, which are inevitably impacted by our environment, upbringing and social interactions, among many other factors.
    Other interesting ideas were those of “imagined communities” (Eckert, 2005, p. 16) and “style as persona construction” (Eckert, 2005, p. 30). They reminded me of ‘figured worlds,’ which I’ve read about in James Paul Gee’s (2011) work. These words (imagined, constructions, figured) all point towards the fact that language is a ‘socially-oiled machine’ that builds upon past and present social encounters to be created and evolve. It is shaped through individual experience, and thus cannot be minimized to sets of rules made-up by figures of authority/institutions.

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  4. Something I found interesting about the article was that there are different ways to say the same thing. In this case, it was the anti-drug class that used a different way to say stoned. Some students laughed and others were left wondering what the word “stoned” was and they proceeded to mention how they say it. However, the last student says “That’s kind of tight”, as in acceptance that there are different ways to say the same thing. Here in Puerto Rico we have the same issue when it comes to empanadilla and pastelillo. Whichever one Puertoricans want to use to mean the same thing, we cannot come to an agreement that both could be correct.
    Another section which I was interested in was the ideologies that we have towards language. One of the four categories that Kroskrity features in that we may be more or less aware of their own or other languages ideologies (24). This reminds me of when elder people hear younger people talking in their slang and believe that they are not speaking correctly. Because they are from a different generation and their ideologies may be different from ours, does not mean that theirs is in any way better or “correctly spoken”.

    There is a series in Netflix called Unabomber who retells the story of a domestic terrorist, Ted Kaczynski. The interesting fact about this is that the FBI had absolutely no clue on who the bomber was at the time. It wasn’t until Ted released this manifesto to the New York Times that linguistic anthropologist began to dissect the manifesto that they began to close in on who it could be. Because Ted used specific words repeatedly, they concluded that he must have been an educated individual. Also, because of the specific use of words, they pinpointed where he must have grown up. All these linguistic clues eventually lead to the capture of Ted Kaczynski in 1996.

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  5. Words are not arbitrary or isolated units that we are supposed to use, in order to communicate thing to others. The chapter offers an interesting view of how language is inherently cultural, social and also individual. It is a product of the pre- existing reality, the interaction between people and the inner world of each speaker. When it comes to how people acquire language in the early stages of life, the Universal Grammar theory of Chomsky is always relevant. Do we really have a Language Acquisition Device that allows us to acquire language? Is it that innate predisposition what lets us to communicate through words? Or it is an ability that we develop during our first years of life? This particular topic can be controversial, since there are different theories, as the one developed by Skinner. He claimed that human behavior is a result of a series of stimulus and language is an imitation process. Instead to engage to a particular theory, it would be helpful for language teachers, people who study linguistics and sociolinguistics, psychologies, etc., to analyze those theories and construct knowledge out of them all.

    Those theories are still debated. But we can almost all agree about something; all languages are dynamic. They are developed over time and their evolution depends on economic, political, cultural situations and even moral standards. As a research project, it would be interesting to analyze the social factors that affect languages and how people transform a language, in order to respond to specific situations or emergent needs. During my bachelor I read a fascinating article about Mexican-Americans in the United States and the constant struggle that many of them have with both languages, Spanish and English.

    In the chapter, there is an example of linguistic diversity in a Nepali dialect. This dialect has different forms of the pronoun “you”. These forms are used according to status and relationships. There are two forms of this pronoun in Spanish, the formal “usted” and the more informal “tu”. Using “usted” to address to people in a respectful manner and “tu” for a more casual manner seems to be the general rule. However, in my homeland Colombia those pronouns are used in a particular way. People from the center of the country use the pronoun “usted” to address all people; teachers, seniors, friends or family, without any distinction. While in the northern region, from which I am from, people do not use the pronoun “usted” frequently. In cities like Bogota, addressing someone like “tu” could be considered disrespectful, but in cities like Barranquilla, using “usted” could be seen as a slight. This is a good example of how the words we use are determined not only by phonetic or semantic structures, they are also defined by cultural and social rules.

    Laura Buitrago .(464)

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  6. Words are not arbitrary or isolated units that we are supposed to use, in order to communicate thing to others. The chapter offers an interesting view of how language is inherently cultural, social and also individual. It is a product of the pre- existing reality, the interaction between people and the inner world of each speaker. When it comes to how people acquire language in the early stages of life, the Universal Grammar theory of Chomsky is always relevant. Do we really have a Language Acquisition Device that allows us to acquire language? Is it that innate predisposition what lets us to communicate through words? Or it is an ability that we develop during our first years of life? This particular topic can be controversial, since there are different theories, as the one developed by Skinner. He claimed that human behavior is a result of a series of stimulus and language is an imitation process. Instead to engage to a particular theory, it would be helpful for language teachers, people who study linguistics and sociolinguistics, psychologies, etc., to analyze those theories and construct knowledge out of them all.
    Those theories are still debated. But we can almost all agree about something; all languages are dynamic. They are developed over time and their evolution depends on economic, political, cultural situations and even moral standards. As a research project, it would be interesting to analyze the social factors that affect languages and how people transform a language, in order to respond to specific situations or emergent needs. During my bachelor I read a fascinating article about Mexican-Americans in the United States and the constant struggle that many of them have with both languages, Spanish and English.
    In the chapter, there is an example about linguistic diversity in a Nepali dialect. This dialect has different forms of the pronoun “you”. These forms are used according to status and relationships. There are two forms of this pronoun in Spanish, the formal “usted” and the more informal “tu”. Using “usted” to address to people in a respectful manner and “tu” for a more casual manner seems to be the general rule. However, in my homeland Colombia those pronouns are used in a particular way. People from the center of the country use the pronoun “usted” to address all people; teachers, seniors, friends or family, without any distinction. While in the northern region, from which I am from, people do not use the pronoun “usted” frequently. In cities like Bogota, addressing someone like “tu” could be considered disrespectful, but in cities like Barranquilla, using “usted” could be seen as a slight. This is a good example of how the words we use are determined not only by phonetic or semantic structures, they are also defined by cultural and social rules.
    Laura Buitrago. (464 words)

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  7. Society and nature are words that should be connected every time we want to explain a language. During this reading, I could appreciate the fact that speaking is seen as a common social interaction, and language is seen as a tool that helps us to connect with the culture. What I could understand is that it is difficult to try to impose a general concept or even a just standard language to an entire population, because as this book said: “language is a socially charged life”.
    As it is explained the nature of language can be understood by its multifunctionality, it means the different kinds of words that language does (Jakobson, 1960) by its ideologies, practice, and indexicality. All those elements are connected to human action or interaction
    According to the previous one, our environment is the one that shapes our repertoire and it does not mean, that because of it, we cannot communicate successfully. This reading helps me to understand a very important situation in English learners. In the case of my students, their English speaking is, in some cases, shaped by their social interaction and their speech is full of cultural and social context, so in this case, I have to take into account students background in order to implement teaching methods that could be helpful for them to acquire the language.
    Language diversity is another important point presented in the reading because in real life we could see the speaking diversity that is presented in the society, in many situations, people who speak the same language use different terms to refers to the same thing. For instance, the word in Spanish “Guiar” is used by Puerto Ricans to refers to drive, but in Colombia, it means to direct or guide a person. Taking into consideration this situation, we can assume that a language cannot be judged without its essence, and that essence is full of situational context.

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  8. While reading, Ahearn’s Socially Charged Life of Language, I was very interested in the examples Ahearn used. These examples showed that languages are different and that even in one language there is a lot of diversity. I think the drug class example was something that I could relate to and have seen happen before. In one language there are different ways to say the same thing with different words. It also shows you how language changes through generations. The Papua New Guinea example was very short and had no detailed explanation as to why these children chose or didn’t want to learn and or speak their Taiap language. In my opinion this made the example unnecessary because it didn’t really tell you anything more about language in regards to society. Language in regards to society ties really well with my interests because I’ve previously researched how people use language in social media, in memes, to oppose the Jones Act. I’ve also studied how people codeswitch in social media and how people perceive this phenomena. Language ideologies are very prevalent in Puerto Rico and the US and being a native speaker of both Spanish and English, I have experienced these ideologies first hand. I have been made fun of for speaking mostly in English and made fun of when I don’t know the meaning of a word in Spanish. I have also been told that in order to be more Puerto Rican I have to speak more Spanish than English. And when I tell people that English is the language I feel the most comfortable using, they tell me I a “gringa.” I think that language is heavily dependent on society and social interaction. Without these what would be the point of using language. In the Sociolinguistics class I previously took we have read about the points that Ahearn makes about language in society.

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  9. After readig the assignment there were some of the things that caught my attention. Like when it talks about both the Chomskyan and Suassurean aproaches to language that being “the abstract knowledge of a language is primary, and the performance or parole is irrelivent” (Ahearn,2017). But both of them talk about how language is acquired , as where sociolinguists and anthropologist use some “reference [in] social contexts”(p.8). This does not mean that they are disregarding Chomsky and Suassure work but more that they should include social contex in language acquisition and language production. We are also informed that the field of linguisitic anthropology are interested in a few things like: practices embeded in the language, linguistic diversity and more. One of the things that this text wants to insure is that “every aspect of language is socially influenced and culturally meaningful”(p.12). Which futher implements that although it is know that language is learned by some set of rules we should also make room for social influences. In my introduction to linguisitcs class I focused my research on more of linguistic ideologies and identities from students in the UPRM system. And seeing how in linguistic anthropology focuses a lot on those aspect, I will definetly use more of the practices seen in this text in the future. Something that could have come to as a great deal of help in my research was the analogy written in page ten about the type of questions a linguist anthroplogist. And another things that I could have also help was to incorporate Paul Kroskrity (2008b:8-23) four features that characterize language ideologies that were featured in the chapter Socially Charged Life of Language. As an aspiring linguist and speech pathologist having knowledge of this branch in anthropology could definitely influence how to approach some topics in the future in my desired area of study.

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  10. The first chapter of Ahaern’s book was a great re-introduction to sociolinguistics as it provides many of the core ideals that sociolinguists or linguistic anthropologies work with. Ahaern was able to introduce them with the knitting allegory, pointing out that all the questions she posits Chomskians would not be interested in, because of their close-minded approach of almost exclusively being interested in competence. As the author states “to reduce language solely to these [abstract and biological] dimensions… is to miss the richness and complexity of one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence.” (Ahearn, 2016, p. 11) Society and culture mold our personalities and changes who we are, of course, it would impact language in an extremely meaningful way. As valuable and an important building block Chomsky’s theories and thoughts are, there is an entire world of knowledge outside of theoretical linguistics to be studied and they should not be demeaned or seen as lesser.

    Sociolinguistics is a wonderful field, there are so many different things that can be researched under this discipline, which makes it extremely appealing to me. Many of the research that has been completed, has the possibility of having a real impact on the world and bettering the life of minorities. Some time ago I read Purnell, Isardi and Baugh’s (1999) study, Perceptual and phonetic experiments on American English dialect formation. Seeing these researchers publish concrete scientific evidence, detailing how a person’s dialect is a cause of discrimination, not just in social interactions but in professional and business ones fueling housing discrimination was impactful. In sociolinguistics you can study many phenomena that, when you think about it, you could think “yeah it’s obvious you could guess at a person’s ethnicity through their voice and create your perception of them with that knowledge and discriminate them”, but having real evidence to support these possibly obvious thoughts can be just the thing to incite change. Sociolinguistics can help create a better world, or at least a more educated world, about variation, how it is natural and in no way lesser. For all of these reasons, I’m interested in pursuing sociolinguistics as my main field of linguistic study, along with other fields (like pragmatics, rhetoric, etc), in order to help create that more understanding world for anyone who has been marginalized due to their dialect or place of origin.

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  11. In regards to Ahearn’s Socially charged life of language, what I found interesting where the different perspectives regarding language. Personally, being a fan of Noam Chomsky, I was quite surprised to see that linguistic anthropologists disagree with his theories regarding Universal Grammar. Granted, they do not reject this theory as a whole, rather they see it differently. This is evidenced by Nicholas Evans and Stephen Levinson, who state that, contrary to chomsky’s Universal grammar and his idea that all human languages share a similar underlying structure, they say that the true Universal constant is the diversity that exists between all languages. This was a rather shocking idea for me to digest, because I had subscribed to Chomsky’s ideas for quite some time, but I am keeping an open mind, seeing as though I have not studied every human language that has ever existed and am in no way, shape or form an expert in the field of linguistics, and am a newcomer in the field of sociolinguistics. Speaking about sociolinguistics, I had never truly given much thought to the fact that language is shaped by society, and Society is also shaped by language. This symbiotic relationship between the two is obvious once it is studied, but is not a connection I had personally made. Another idea I found quite interesting was Mayr’s Emergence Theory, where I understood that simply studying grammar can never lead to a complete understanding of a language. To reach that goal, one must study people within a society, their culture, their history, beliefs, Etc. In the same way that each individual person is shaped and formed by the events in their own life, with their upbringing, their personal beliefs and everything that makes a person who they are, language, too, is molded by each individual and the events in a society in a specific point in time. I look forward to reading more about Mayr, Evans, and Levinson in the future.

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  12. Something that brought out my interest regarding Ahearn’s chapter, “Socially Charged Life of Language” was the value given into the consideration of analyzing how society applies and uses language every day in contrast to Chomsky’s systematic approach to language. Although De Saussure’s posture on decontextualizing the study of language is practical for observing how the components of language function as part of the elaborate mechanism that is language, this vision leaves other aspects of language outside the scope of research. There are plenty of angles from which any natural phenomena, such as language, can be observed, questioned, and examined, that by only emphasizing a single perspective many potential contributions to the field may be hindered.

    As was mentioned in class, language does not only exist in our minds. Language is most evident when we, as humans and social beings, use it during our interactions with each other and the world, which brings the idea of “language ideologies” to my attention. Language ideology is a fairly new concept for me, and for that reason, I found it to be the most fascinating of the ideas introduced in the chapter. In previous applied linguistics courses, I briefly came in contact with related terms and approaches such as translanguaging or raciolinguistics, which do not directly describe language ideology but address its influence regarding language use and foreign or second language learning. However, in most of the linguistic courses I had taken, what people thought about language did not matter for the advancement of linguistics. Yet, I could see in the example of language loss in Papua New Guinea that perspectives on language do impact language. The language ideology the youth of the village held regarding their native languages, Taiap and Tok Pisin, is making both languages gradually extinct. Surprisingly, this situation breaks with the commonly held assumptions on why a language is lost; there is no prestige or utilitarian motive connected to the reasons the younger generation’s lack of knowledge.

    Ultimately, language ideologies are everywhere and held by everyone. It seems that these ideas influence strongly our language use. After reading this chapter and introducing myself into what language ideologies are, I think I can begin to see them around me and my surrounding contexts, not only through articles and studies from other countries and languages, but here in Puerto Rico with the use of English and Spanish.

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  13. I mostly had a clear idea of what I wanted to pursue after graduating as an English major. Loving languages made switch to the English department and I immediately grew attached to children language acquisition. To understand how children learn language in order to find and understand better ways to reach and teach them was my goal. With this in mind I’ve always accepted the Innate language acquisition theory with Chomsky as its lead exponent. I’ve read and study about the similar journey of a child learning one or multiple languages and I’ve wondered for a while now, what are the limits one can handle during the critical period? Reading The Socially Charged Life of Language didn’t change or answered my questions, but it clearly added more of them. It didn’t also took away any of my previous beliefs about Chomsky’s theory but It felt incomplete. I agree that learning a language is so much more that learning its grammatical features and In order to go beyond that one most focus and expand on all of the linguistic levels; phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Chomsky’s theory feels narrow at best because even though he might not deny completely the social factors when learning language, in my opinion it focus heavily on the first three. A five year old kid addressing a school principal in a different way he would to kids on a play ground with out being taught why, in my opinion has as much to do with language learning as the structural aspect of it. The reading also took me back to personal experiences when I was doing research on campus. I was once running at the track field at the UPRM when I noticed some lost car keys. When I took them and looked around, the first person I saw was an older Asian man. When I went to ask him if the keys were his, for some reason I did it in English. After he replied to me in perfect Spanish I was surprise, not because he spoke to me in Spanish but because I couldn’t understand why I switched languages and chose a specific set of words without planning. There were so many different ways I could had communicated the same message to him but for some reason and without thinking about it, there were a specific set of words and language for him. It was an experience, just like language is. You learn constantly by living. More than being out of words to describe the infinite aspect that sociolinguistics bring to the table when it comes to language learning, I’m kind of overwhelmed with respect to the linguistic anthropologists, who pinpoint and study case by case emerging themselves in different cultures so we can have and Idea and be able explain better how and why we learn and use language in a specific way. I have so many additional questions regarding reaching and teaching children. If society is such a big part of language learning. Is there a ideal social atmosphere, which would help a children learn faster and more effective?

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  14. After reading the chapter “The Socially Changed Life of Language” I have been relating what Chomsky believes are in which basically all human beings are able to acquire a language like the same time children manage to coordinate their body in order to be independent and start interacting with the world around. “The basic design underlying the grammars of all human languages; [it] also refers to the circuitry in children’s brains that allows them to learn the grammar of their parent’s language” (Aheam 8). An example which I related to this belief is a student with autism. Depending on the level of autism, some individuals might encounter difficulties to acquire a language. But those who have a lower level of autism might learn a language. Of course not everyone is the same, thereby, some individuals might develop different areas more than others such as: listening, speaking, reading, writing and language. If a well-known language is not acquired the individual will try to create their own language to communicate with their surrounds such as what infants do.
    The examples that were provided in the reading, especially the one of “you” and all the formal and informal concepts in that language, reminded me of Mandarin. Mandarin is the official spoken language China in order to communicate from one part of the country to the other. Why so? Since the country is enormous different dialects were created. In order to communicate from one corner to the other it was important to have a general language for the whole country. The same way “you” has different meanings in Mandarin “ma” (or different syllables) have the representation of a variety of meanings. In this case instead of being the written part it has to be the speaking one (intonation) in order to know what is person trying to convey in the message. I have always asked if languages around the world are basically arbitrary in the sense that there is no rule to structure sentences or convey meaning for lexemes? Or is there at least one language in which you can let yourself learn it and know that nothing will change and everything will be exactly what the rules expose?
    Unfortunately, I have never been a linguistics tracks student, thereby, it does not connect with the research or topic I am preparing for the evaluative test. On the contrary, my topic is more into the pedagogic area in which establishes the bondings between teacher and student and how can students improve on their learning process and become better individuals for society. But something that is linked for sure is language. In order to have this bonding there has to be communication, regards. I do have to admit that some subtopics or better yet, technical words were quite a struggle since I could not get the context clues of the sentence in order to make connections to the reading. But I did grasp the basic ideology of language.

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  16. Juan Rodriguez, student of psychology department:

    Hello there, my name is Juan Rodríguez. I’m a guest student with neuroscience, cognitive and psychological background. My current research interests range from cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, learning and the role of language in cognition. I came across a paper by Feldman and Johnston (2014) that introduced me to basic concepts of sociolinguistics, such as ideology. I heard about this course and asked if I could participate as a guest student.

    The readings seemed to focus on the internal debate of linguistics where one part focus on genetics and argues that language occurs in poverty of stimuli, and the other argument exposes that language is a social mechanism (Ahearn, 2012). While I agree with Chomsky that biology (genetics and evolution) plays a major role in language acquisition, I don’t agree with his notion of UG, nor with his concept of poverty of stimuli.

    According to Cook and Newson (2007) in ‘Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: An Introduction, and Dabrowska (2015) ‘What exactly is Universal Grammar and has anyone seen it?’, some the arguments in favor for UG are: 1) Language Universals: All human languages share certain properties. 2) Poverty of the Stimulus: Children acquire knowledge for which there is no evidence in the input. 3) Neurological Separation: Different brain circuits are responsible for representing/processing linguistic and non-linguistic information.

    All human languages share certain properties, not necessarily on their grammar, but in its teleology. Teleology is the branch of metaphysics responsible for deconstructing a construct to its smallest element and inquire about its existence. In other words, why does a construct exist? In this case, why does language exist? For purposes of this argument, I’ll use a reduced definition of the language’s purpose. I suppose that we can all agree that language at its core, consists of signs that denote meaning and thus the purpose of language is to express this meaning. The purpose of language is achieved when the meaning expressed is understood.

    The second argument in favor of UG is constructed rhetorically in which it contains an implicit conclusion: “therefore, language acquisition must be genetic”. According to psychologists, language is a cognitive ability organized in the second stratum of intelligence, and this stratum is influenced by the general intelligence factor (g factor or third stratum). Researchers, particularly psychologists, have been studying intelligence for decades and they have conceptualized it as a collection of cognitive abilities (McGrew, 2009; Eysenck & Keane, 2010). McGrew (2009) provides a conceptual diagram of the statistical factors of intelligence (pp. 4). Take a look at the Gc factor and Gf factor and their descriptions (pp. 5). This theory argues that human intelligence consists of general intelligence that has a verbal and non-verbal component that influences language acquisition and domain-specific abilities. The g factor is considered to be highly related to the neuroanatomical structure of the brain which is highly inherited. That is, genetics predispose an individual to learn and acquire cognitive abilities, and language is one of them. Therefore, genetics enables individuals to learn and acquire abilities in spite of the poverty of stimuli, regardless of the ability (e.g., language, math, kinesthetics, etc.).

    The third Chomskyan argument indicates that there’s a specific neuroanatomical brain structure responsible for language. When studying deep neurosciences, one realizes that this argument is almost impossible to be true. The brain functions as an orchestra, some areas are more activated than others in front of particular stimuli, but the brain functions in relation to its whole (see Green, 2005; Eysenck & Keane, 2010; Siegel & Sapru, 2015). Wernicke’s Area is highly responsible for speech decoding and Broca’s Area is highly associated with speech production (Siegel & Sapru, 2015). Halpern and Goldfarb (2013) provide a detailed mapping of the neuroanatomical structures and pathways involved in the complete process of the conversation. The two mentioned neuroanatomical structures are specifically associated with understanding and producing speech, but it is not related to indexicality or meaning construction (see Cruse, 2000; Halpern & Goldfarb, 2013; Siegel & Sapru, 2015; Miller, 2018).

    Up to this point, I’ve exposed my agreements and disagreements on the Chomskyan notion. As for the linguistic anthropologists, I’ll express my agreements since they expose their argument as complementary to Chomsky and not as the opposite. Since we’ve argued that the whole concept of language is to express meaning through signs and its purpose is achieved when the receptor understands the meaning, then, language is a social mechanism. Through signs, language allows (e.g., words, images, sounds) a mental representation of the concrete world but this meaning is only achieved through dialectics (ideas exchange between two parts) (see Cruse, 2000; Eysenck & Keane, 2010; Miller, 2018). Two parts must ‘debate’ or argue about what is real, whether if a particular sign does refer to an entity (something that exists either in the concrete world or in the abstract world) or does not (Cruse, 2000; Miller, 2018). For these parts to achieve understanding, they must agree on what are they referring to (their word meanings) (Cruse, 2000). This dialectical agreement on word meanings has led to socially construct (constructivist paradigm) the reality through indexicality and pragmatics (Cruse, 2000; Silverstein, 2003). The same process goes for macro-systemic forms of dialectics such as ideologies, discourse, and even history by which institutional power is exerted and group dynamics emerge (Foucalt, 1975; Silverstein, 2003; Halpern & Goldfarb, 2013). Thus, based on this argument, I conclude that the fundamental aspect of language consists of a bidirectional process between meaning and expression within a social context that constantly produces an ever-evolving social agreement through dialects, indexicality, and ideologies which some intellectuals refers to as The Living Language.

    References
    – Ahearn, L. M. (2012). Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Wiley-Blackwell.
    – Cook, V. & Newson, M. (2007). Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: An Introduction. (3rd. Ed.) Blackwell Publishing.
    – Cruse, A. (2000). Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford Linguistics.
    – Dabrowska, E. (2015). What exactly is Universal Grammar, and has anyone seen it? Frontier Psychology. Vol. 6, No. 852, pp. 1-17.
    – Eysenck, M. W. & Keane, M. T. (2010). Cognitive Psychology: A Student’s Handbook. (6th Ed.). Psychology Press. Taylor & Francis Group.
    – Foucault, M. (1975). Vigilar y Castigar: Nacimiento de la prisión. Siglo Ventiunio Editores Argentina.
    – Halpern, H. & Goldfarb, R. (2013). Chapter 2: The Neural Basis of Speech and Language. In Language and Motor Speech Disorders in Adults. (3rd Ed). Pp. 10-39. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
    *Link for the chapter http://samples.jbpub.com/9781449652678/74738_CH02_FINAL.pdf
    – McGrew, K. (2008). CHC Theory and the Human Cognitive Abilities Project: Standing on the Shoulders of the Giants of Psychometric Intelligence Research. Intelligence. Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 1-10.
    – McGrew, K. (2009). Cattel-Horn-Carroll (CHC) Broad and Narrow Cognitive Ability Definitions. [Working Draft].
    – Silverstein, M. (2003). Indexical Order and the Dialectics of Sociolinguistic Life. Language & Communication. Vol. 23, No. 1, pp.193-229.
    – Zeitlin, I. M. (1968). Ideology and the Development of Sociological Theory. Prentice-Hall Sociology Series.

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  18. I’m so sorry for not submitting my comments about the article I posted in the blog, relating to the possible changes in phonology during human history. I found it “curiouser and curiouser”, as Alice in Wonderland (I loved that story!), that an overlooked detail as a change in dietary patterns can affect language. Furthermore, these overlooked physiological characteristics can be misinterpreted in any diachronic sociolinguistic study as a modification of speech imposed by the elite or a colonial power, according to a particular linguistic ideology (more on that later). Remember that even in the 19th century, some of these homophonic patterns prevailed, thus, compelling the Cheshire Cat to reappear and ask Alice: “Pardon me, did you say a pig or a fig?” Another issue that came to my mind is that in our age of model perfect physiognomy, where a person must exhibit their perfectly straightened pearly whites, I wonder if any study was made comparing speech analysis (through spectrograms) between the fore mentioned and populations with overbite, specially the most pronounced cases. We can suspect that some sociological issue can also be pinpointed here, since orthodontics are very expensive and not available to everyone. This can be an interesting research for a thesis or a paper in a peer reviewed journal.

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