Week 4
This week we talked about topics like culture and stereotypes. Different theories about what culture is were studied. The main one and the one i think is the one that most fits my position is the theory of Clifford Geertz that says that culture is developed by humans the same as a spider develops a spider web and the one of Claude Levi Strauss who also says that culture is the residues of rules of traditions acquired in the different types of social structure through which each human group has passed.
Then we talked about stereotypes and we agreed that a stereotype is a generalization of values and attitudes from one person you know to the whole group that person belongs to. For example, you meet a Chinese and he is very intelligent, then you would think that all Chinese people are intelligent.

We also practiced for our listening test next week watching videos about different cultures, manners and verbal expressions across different cultures and listening skills.

What is Culture?

In class we tried to define the concept "culture" and we saw that it is very difficult to do so. There's not a specific definition but different scientist postulate different theories trying to define culture.

1. Matthew Arnold's theory was the first one we discussed about. He  says that culture is the study of perfection. Its origin is not curiosity but the love of perfection, thus, meaning that culture is something we aspire to.
2. Then we tried to discuss about culture being  something outside of us that we learn or are born into. For example Claude Levi Strauss says that culture is made up of rules of conduct, which are not invented and whose function is generally not understood by people who obey them. Also, Edward Tyler states that culture is acquired by a man as a member of a society. Both scientist think that culture is something outside of humans.
3. Finally we read about Clifford Geertz that says that culture is developed by humans the same as a spider develops a spider web. Claude Levi Strauss also says that culture is the residues of rules of traditions acquired in the different types of social structure through which each human group has passed.
4. In my opinion, culture is something developed by humans as Geertz and Levi Strauss said.

Language and Parole

Which comes first: thought or language? Can we think without language? Is it possible that we think in images?

Talking about this topic is complicated. We are used to think in words and hear our own voice while we think but, how do deaf-mute think if they have never heard a word or sound? Do they think with a voice? If so, how do they know what sound does each combination have?

In my personal opinion, and based on my previous knowledge, thought was first than language. As Plato explains in his world of ideas, we come to the world with knowledge of what everything is, ideas are immutable and innate, so we always have the “concept” of the objects, when we grow up, we learn a specific combination of sounds for that concept and so language comes to our life. For example: We know what a chair is, it doesn’t matter if it’s blue or brown, it’s still a chair. We know that since we are born and when we grow up, our parents or tutor teaches us that the combination of sounds and letters of “C-H-A-I-R” means that thing that we use to sit down.

Do we learn to think before we speak, or does language shape our thoughts? New experiments with five-month-olds favor the conclusion that thought comes first. Do we learn to think before we speak, or does language shape our thoughts? New experiments with five-month-olds favor the conclusion that thought comes first “Infants are born with a language-independent system for thinking about objects,” says Elizabeth Spelke, a professor of psychology at Harvard “These concepts give meaning to the words they learn later “. It seems to me that the opinion that thought is independent of language has been adopted of late by many linguists only as a theoretical axiom, by those who wish it to be so, without any proof, and that the writers who present this idea as if it were a scientific finding are themselves guilty of a fallacy, because they are treating a presumptive axiom of a school as if it were a conclusion. (http://www.kingcountydirectory.com/king-county-business-directory-resources/which-comes-first-language-or-thought/)

With the information above, we can deduce that we can think without language, no one knows how but theories say that images are another option. Picture thinking, visual thinking, visual/spatial learning or right brained learning is the common phenomenon of thinking through visual processing using the part of the brain that is emotional and creative to organize information in an intuitive and simultaneous way. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_thinking) Another options is that we can think in something that we can’t define, not images nor words.

The tower of Babel

1. What does the image, and the story, suggest about the benefits of everyone speaking the same language? What are the drawbacks?

        If everyone speaks the same language, we can all understand each other and work together for a better world. By the other hand, it wouldn’t be good to speak the same language because we would lack of ethnical identity and we would all have basically the same pas and culture.

2. What does the story suggest about the social functions of language?

Language is used to communicate with each other. If we can understand our peers, we can work together for the same objective.

English class 3/13/12 used to learn how to create online mind maps.

The History of Language

1. Why is it said that people in East Africa developed more than the rest?

         Because they developed a better language and spread the word, so it was finally the best language to acquire.

2. What happened to the earlier languages on Earth?

         The earlier languages were erased (lost) due to evolution and constant change in language.

3. According to Dr Johanna Nichols, what were the first utterances made by Humans?

         The first utterances were calls and different types of sounds.

Language: Constant Change

1. What is the biblical story of "the Tower of Babel"?

         The story is about a group of people who wanted to build a tower high enough to reach the sky. God punished them by giving each one of them a different language so that they couldn’t communicate. This story tries to explain how languages were created.

2. What does historical evidence tell us of this biblical event?

         Now days we have many languages around the world, and by the time the story takes place, many cultures and civilizations began.

3. What's the relationship between genes and language?

         There’s no relation between the genes and language, just that similar genes talk the same language because of the social context, but it has nothing to do with the genes.

4. Why do languages constantly change?

         Because of the relation with our peers and slang being used.

Why do we talk?

1. Which is the 'trick' (process) that enables us to communicate something to others?

            The trick is that we push air out of the mouth and the sound depends on many factors such as mouth position, amount of air, etc. While we talk, we tell our thoughts (we push them out of our mind).

2. Do animals talk? If not, What do they do to communicate?

            Animals do not talk, they just make sounds. We think they’re communicating, and that’s what they try to do, but experts found out that the animal “language” has no defined patterns. That’s why we can say they don’t talk.

3. What do we express when we talk?

            When we talk, we express our feelings and thoughts that are in our mind.

4. What did Dr Deb Roy try to achieve in his house?

            Dr Deb tried to discover how a child learns to speak in the earliest stages. He also wanted to discover the patterns of language development.

           

5. Which are the earliest stages in language for a child?

            The earliest stages in language for a child are: babbling and then some short words. By the time, those short words start being longer words and two-word phrases. Finally, children start using more complex sentences.

6. What external and internal factors made the data recollected in the experiment into something they could use?

        Everything collected by the cameras was important for the experiment. They focused in words and sound said by the child and his parents 24 hours a day. The child’s language was influenced by the parents words because of the repetition factor.

           

7. How did the parent's speech change from their son's first word until he could utter more complex structures?

            At first, parents used simple words and sentences for the child to understand. As the child grew up, more complex words and sentences were used.

8. What does Dr Deb Roy compare the "blossoming" of a speech form?

            Dr Deb compares the blossoming of a speech to the blossoming of a flower.

Reflect on the following statements about language:

- "Language surrounds us every day and we know how to recognise it" (Language A: Course Companion)

            Every day we hear different things. Dogs barking, wind blowing, waves of the ocean splashing, people talking... All of these are sounds that we hear but when we talk to someone, or we hear others talking, language is applied and we know what it is, and if it’s English or Spanish we understand it. Not everything is language, as Wikipedia defines:”Language may refer to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication (...)” We know when we are listening to language or not. We use our brain capacity of attention to determinate if it’s language or not.

- "A word is one or more sounds that in combination have a specific meaning assigned by the language"

(http://anthro.palomar.edu/language/language_2.htm)

            “Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard” With this definition, everything we can hear is called “sound”. Different sounds (or the same), when put together in a certain way, form a word that has a meaning to us. That meaning comes from our brain which has the ideas of the object that WE put a word to define. When we know the word of a specific object, we know the meaning of the word. If we use the sounds in a different order, the meaning of the word is missing or changed. As said in the statement, the meaning to that specific combination of sounds is assigned by the language.

- "The most powerful tool known is the one we use to build every other tool"

(http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/blog/what_language)

            Even the smallest tool, or the biggest, can be a master tool which is used to create every other tool. The simplest tool will be the most efficient because it is the beginning of every other, without it, other tools can’t be created. Referring to language, without it, no society or community could have been created. No communication at all. No understanding, no learning. Language is the simplest but most efficient and powerful tool.