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Talking About Talking

Jennie Munguia
Anthropology 1070

Author Note
Final Essay

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Talking About Talking
Anthropology 1070 is not only an insightful class but also a great tool for those interested
in experiencing the world in a profound way. This course allows you to better understand the true
complexity of language. Which enables you to learn more about any given culture and their
specific dialect. Before taking this class I, like many others did not question my surroundings but
merely went with the flow or the status quo. Now I find myself asking why and that has opened
my dialog with those around me.
Language
Cultures and languages have always fascinated me. Previously I thought the way to
experience a culture is thorough their language. Little did I know that those are not
interchangeable but instead entities of their own that come together to form what many call
Speech Communities. As a Spanish speaker I should have realized that knowing Spanish
would not be enough if I were to travel to other Spanish speaking countries. You see, even within
Mexico Spanish is not always spoken with the same Dialect.
Instead it is broken down into regions and each region has its own tone or dialect that
differs from my own. After taking this class I have come to realize that this happens to all
languages across the world. If you dont believe me take a closer look at America itself and you
will find a numerous variety of dialects imbedded within each region. This variety is what makes
it difficult to communicate to one another even when speaking the same language.

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The feature of language
There are five features of spoken, written, and sign language: 1.) Conventionality- which is
symbols we use to bring together a representation and an object. 2.) Productivity-which is a
number of parts that can be arranged to form an infinite amount of phonemes. 3.) Displacementis our ability to talk about things that are not there. 4.) Reflexivity- the act of speaking about
language with language itself. 5.) Performativity- the process in which we create social roles.
Stratification, Roles and how they affected Language.
Languages have quite different ways of encoding information about the world and our
experience of it. (Durant pg. 11) As humans we have a tendency to stratify ourselves by
implying roles. Which changes how we speak to one another. Example:
Speaker and
You have two people having a conversation say they were strangers.
addresse

The way the speaker starts this converstaion gives the addressee a representation of whatinformal
this person is
formal greeting
like and vice versa.
greeting

low clase, rasist,

politeness,
So you see the way you are spoken to or speak to some one immediately put you into
a category.
think
they are
respectful , etc.
better, etc.

This stratification divides us into different groups that do not actually exist they are made
up and upheld or validated by us. When we take part in enclosing ourselves in a role. Not only
does this imaginary thing divide us but it also makes room for discrimination to any given
individual that is not on the higher end of this social role. It is in this illusion that language is

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broken down further: language family language- example English dialects- example
standard and non-standard of course determined by the elites speech communities
identities status- Ascribed meaning who you are or what you are, things that dont change such
as gender, race, etc. and Achieved meaning things you can change or obtain such as employment
status, economic status, etc. It is crazy to believe that said thing can be the base of almost if not
all our communication.

Things I found interesting.

Multilingualism: People routinely switch within a predictable range of linguistic
varieties, a general term that covers language, dialect, style, and register (Ferguson &
Gumperz 1960:3). This concept was described in a couple videos seen in class as the ability to
shift from one language, dialect, or style to another on demand.
There was a video about the African American vernacular English and how people felt
the need to change the way they spoke in certain environment such as the work, or school area in
order to be taken seriously as a well-educated professional. Where as in other environment they
would revert back to AAVE such as friend groups and family event or gathering. In another video
we watched the Government of Singapore was concerned with how loosely English was being
spoken by the Singaporeans. They called this particular form Singlish, a mixture between their
own language and English. This grabbed my attention because, I was always aware of how and
why I switched from English to Spanish. What I didnt realize was that the main group of people
I speak Spanglish to, is my friends I wouldnt speak in that form with anyone else even if that
option was there because of the expectations of what is socially acceptable with in an
environment.

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In this class we also talked about Kant and his model for how we process the world
around us. This has been the building block of modern psychology. He describes the mind: how
there is stuff out there in the world that then comes into our mind and is placed into set
categories.Kant goes on to saying that our mind is not made to imagen infinity. This subject led
us to discussion of; who do we know that we know?
Truth is we do not know. In fact when we realize that we can no longer explain the
sublime we give it a name. By naming the unthinkable we give it meaning as though the name
itself were the explanation to why it is wat it is. For example time no one can truly explain time
without comparing it to something tangible such as water. I am happy I took this class for it has
reshaped my outlook on every day conversation and experiences.

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References

Duranti, F. M. (2001). Linguistic Anthropology A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.