Language and Culture

 Culture is made up of a number of symbolic systems, which allow us to find meaning in our experiences. Language, Race and gender of three of these systems which seem particularly important to understand right now.

Language and Culture are intimately connected, but what is the nature of this relationship?

• no relationship
• language determines culture (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis)
• Culture determines language
• Language and culture are part of a larger cognitive system (influence each other)

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis states that language determines the way we think by setting up cognitive structures through which we interpret the world around us. This in turn patterns our thoughts and behaviors.

Anthropologists analyze human language across time and space and always with a mind to its relationship to culture. They may also study primate communication for a window into early human language as well as a way to identify the unique features of human language. 

The parts of language are:

• phonology: the study of sounds that each language has in its phonetic inventory and how these sounds are put together in speech
• phonemics: the rules for determining significant features of sounds which carry meaning
• morphology: the study of the smallest units of meaning. )words -free morphemes and affixes, bound morpheme) and how to structure these
• syntax: rules for structuring phrases
• semantics: rules for transmitting and interpreting meaning.
• paralingusitics: additional features including nonverbal communication, tone, loudness, mood, voice, silence, etc.?

Language & Culture: Boundaries

wherever we see a difference in culture, we will see a difference in Language. Therefore, we see language vary by

• ethnic group
• gender
• socio-economic status
• age/generation
• occupation
• etc.

Language & Power:

Language as a very important symbolic system in culture. Therefore whoever controls language, and the rules for using language holds much power in society. Language is also a strong marker of Identity. When someone criticizes the way you speak, it is felt as a criticism of you. We are judged by the way we speak because language forms carry social meaning (MARKED)

• Standard vs nonstandard
• Language vs dialect vs accent
• "...a language is a dialect with an army" (Gumperz)
• distinctions
• mutual intelligibility
• national/cultural boundary
• political definition
• creole (Basilect) vs Official (Acrolect) languages

The Arbitrary Relationship Between Language and Meaning:

Meaning is determined by the (sub)culture in which the language is contained. Language is the largest symbolic system in culture. This can be seen in the relationship between the parts of language and their meanings, which is arbitrary (not intrinsic). 

NonVerbal Communication (Birdwhistle)

• proxemics
• kinesics
• microsignals

2nd grade class photo

RACE AS A SOCIALCONSTRUCTION:

• Jeffery Fish and the notion of HYPODESCENT
• Haiti
• Latin America
• New Orleans

What's in a NAME?

Who is Rachael Dolezal?

Racial Draft?

Gender as a "Cultural construct": Does this all mean that race and gender are not REAL?

GENDER AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

Anthropology, Sex, Gender, Sexuality: Gender is a Social Construction

WALK LIKE A MAN

When social scientist say gender is a social construction they do not mean:

1. in no way denying that humans vary biologically in many different ways, or claiming that biology is irrelevant;
2. not trying to say that these social effects are somehow not real or important; and
3. not saying that they are necessarily subject to extensive individual manipulation.

The reality of social constructions is something anthropologist Jeremy Trombley succinctly tackled:

We have to get past the idea that things that are socially constructed are somehow not real. I encountered it again today in something I was reading. “X is socially constructed” or “X are social constructs” as if to say they are only or just social constructs–as if to say X is not real. But social constructs are real–that’s what makes them so powerful. Race, Class, Gender–these are all social constructs, but it is because they are socially constructed that they have tremendous effects on the lives of people who live in a particular society.

Clarifying Sex, Gender, and SexualityWith that in mind, we can return to the issue of sex and gender. Initially, social scientists sought to distinguish sex from gender. (1) sex: “observable physical characteristics that distinguish the two kinds of human beings, females and males, needed for reproduction” (Lavenda and Schultz 2015:375). As is clear in this definition, sex is mostly experienced as dimorphic, although the textbook does talk about various ways “genetic or hormonal factors produce ambiguous external genitalia.” So there are some ways biologically in which we might talk about a male-female continuum, or even contemplate other-sex categorizations. 

Understanding human sex differences would be incomplete without considering gender, or “the cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex” (Lavenda and Schultz 2012:365). Social scientists introduced the term gender as a way of talking about all those expectations and beliefs we load onto people with certain physical characteristics. This does not mean there is no biological variation, nor does it mean those beliefs and expectations don’t have very real effects, nor does it mean a particular individual can “generate their own truth” about gender. 

Gender roles and identity have often come as a duality, but there are a number of societies where “supernumerary gender roles developed that apparently had nothing to do with morphological sex anomalies” (Lavenda and Schultz 2012:368). Many of these cases are from the peoples indigenous to the Americas, which very often had a third-gender (or even fourth-gender) roles for “Two-Spirit Peoples” (which the French denigrated as berdache). These people typically took on tasks appropriate to the other gender; they often but did not always “cross-dress,” and many had special ceremonial roles in their communities. 

BINARY as a social construction?

Of course given this biological sex variation and gender role variation, the question of sexual identity and sexual practices gets really tricky. We have typically thought of heterosexuality as both normal practice and identity. More recently there has been an idea that both homosexuality and heterosexuality are normal variants, and surely there are biologists searching for that “gene for homosexuality.” Others have talked about homosexuality and heterosexuality as a continuum. However, none of that gets at the even crazier range of human variation.

• For example, sex with a “Two-Spirit Person” would be considered neither strictly homosexual or heterosexual. 
• There are also societies in which male homosexual practices are considered vital in order for men to later engage in heterosexual intercourse. 
• Other societies gauge homosexual or heterosexual activity not by the biological sex of the partners but by their role in the sex act–a man can be perfectly “heterosexual” and have sex with other men, depending on the type of sexual practice involved. Hopefully we’ll soon be finding the genes to explain all that stuff…

Many analysts therefore wanted to push the point further, showing how our gendered social expectations actually become embodied, incorporated into our developing motor habits, musculature, and bodies, so that it was not just gender that was socially constructed, but sex too. In other words, the bodies we see as male and female are in part due to social environments.

• For example, many societies actively discourage females from participating in sports or other activities that would build muscle mass, as this would be unfeminine. While there are some who believe such differential expectations have lessened or disappeared in the industrialized world
• technologies like the ultrasound now enable people to frontload gender expectations in ways that would have been impossible in the past–many people have their nurseries appropriately decorated and buy gender-coded baby clothes months before the baby is born!