Term
| Language policy at the Federal level vs. at the state level in the USA |
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Definition
| no official language exists at the federal level. There have been several proposals to make English the national language in amendments to immigration reform bills,[4][5] but none of these bills has become law with the amendment intact. The situation is quite varied at the state and territorial levels, with some states mirroring the federal policy of adopting no official language in a de jure capacity, others adopting English alone, others officially adopting English as well as local languages, and still others adopting a policy of de facto bilingualism. |
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Term
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Definition
| also known as Official English movement, refers to a political movement for the use only of the English language in official government operations through the establishing of English as the only official language in the United States. There have been various unrelated incarnations of the movement throughout American history. |
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Term
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Definition
| an American movement formed in reaction to the English-only movement. The intent was to promote greater acceptance of language diversity in the United States in order to encourage a broader American cultural development and more international perspectives. This would be achieved by encouraging education in English as well as secondary languages across the entire population, for immigrants and natives alike. This movement has been supported by language education professionals and minority language advocacy groups. "English Plus" resolutions have been passed in the U.S. states of New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington. |
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Term
| How many states have official language policies? How many of them are English-only? |
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Definition
| In the past two decades, 23 states (?) have adopted English as the official language and curtailed use of other languages in government and public services, including schools. But New Mexico and Hawaii have developed a English-Plus policy, with New Mexico making both English and Spanish its official languages and Hawaii including both English and Hawaiian. |
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Term
| Australian language policy |
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Definition
"Australia's policy on languages recognises the nation's linguistic situation and declares national expectations on language matters publicly. It initiates action towards the achievement of these ends in a nonprescriptive way.
Basically, this would be accomplished through four strategies:
• conservation of Australia's linguistic resources;
• development and expansion of these resources;
• integration of Australian language teaching and language use efforts with national economic, social, and cultural policies;
• provision of information and services in languages understood by clients.
Australia's policy on languages will direct the multilingualism of Australia in accordance with national aims, stressing national unity but rejecting imposed uniformity. It will do this by:
• asserting the primacy of English in Australia;
• advocating the widespread learning of languages in addition to English;
• promoting the continued use of languages other than English, both aboriginal and nonaboriginal, by the Australian community.
Australia's policy on languages is based on six principles:
• Australian English is Australia's national language. It is the uniquely Australian way of speaking English which takes its place alongside other varieties of English. Australian English should be used with confidence in Australia and overseas.
• The social dialects of English in Australia serve valuable group identity functions for their speakers. Education must aim to enable all Australians to add Standard Australian English to the forms of language they may already speak, so that they will not be socially or economically disadvantaged.
• There is a need for public authorities to use plain English, to reject racist and sexist language and to retain the Australian character of our environment through the continued practice of using aboriginal place names.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait island languages, including creoles and pidgins, are legitimate forms of communication, and information about government programs and services should be made available in those languages. The very low level of awareness of these languages among most nonaborigines is deplored.
• Aboriginal people should be consulted and involved in all decision making which affects them.
• Community languages other than English, including Australian Sign Language used by the deaf, are firmly established in the Australian context and fulfill the communicative needs of large groups of Australians. These Australians are entitled to access to governments services in the langauge they know best and to increased opportunites to continue learning their first language in addition to English.
• Legislation on any aspect of language is inappropriate and undesirable for Australia …
• A national policy on languages would not discriminate in favour of or against any group in the Australian community ... groups at state/territory and local level should retain their traditional responsibility for their community and set priorities appropriate to the communities' needs within the broad framework provided by the policy." |
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Term
| Language Policy of South Africa |
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Definition
Languages
6. (1) The official languages of the Republic are Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
(2) Recognising the historically diminished use and status of the indigenous languages of our people, the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of these languages.
(3) National and provincial governments may use particular official languages for the purposes of government, taking into account usage, practicality, expense, regional circumstances, and the balance of the needs and preferences of the population as a whole or in respective provinces; provided that no national or provincial government may use only one official language. Municipalities must take into consideration the language usage and preferences of their residents.
(4) National and provincial governments, by legislative and other measures, must regulate and monitor the use by those governments of official languages. Without detracting from the provisions of subsection (2), all official languages must enjoy parity of esteem and must be treated equitably.
(5) The Pan South African Language Board must
a. promote and create conditions for the development and use of
i. all official languages;
ii. the Khoi, Nama and San languages; and
iii. sign language
b. promote and ensure respect for languages, including German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Portuguese, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and others commonly used by communities in South Africa, and Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit and others used for religious purposes.” |
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Term
| The degree of bilingualism/multilingualism in the USA: rough figures. |
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Definition
| Almost 18 percent of residents over the age of five, according to Finegan. |
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Term
| The three "faces" of language |
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Definition
meaning, expression, and context
Think of it as a coin, but a coin with three faces. The fundamental function of every language system is to link meaning and expression (two sides of the coin). BUT language was a third face, which is context. Only in a particular context can an expression convey the speakers intended meaning and be interpreted by the listener. For example, “Is there any salt on the table” might also mean please pass me the salt; they might want an object, not just information. You have to interpret the expression in light of the context.
Expression: words, phrases, sentences, including intonation and stress.
Meaning – Senses, referents of these elements of expression
Context – social situation in which the expression that is uttered and whatever has been expressed earlier in that situation. |
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Term
| Language as both a mental and a social tool. |
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Definition
| Language is often viewed as a vehicle of thought, the transfer of thought from one person to another. In everyday life, language also serves equally important socially and emotional functions. Linguists are interested in models of how language is organized in the mind and how the social structures of human communities shape language, reflecting those structures in expression and communication. |
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Term
| How is language used to manage social relationships? How important is language as a social tool? |
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Definition
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Term
Sign theory
arbitrary vs. representational (partly arbitrary, partly iconic) signs |
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Definition
First of all, signs are indicators of something else. Non-arbitrary signs have a direct, usually causal relationship to the things that they indicate. For example, smoke is a non-arbitrary sign of fire. Clouds are a non-arbitrary sign of impending rain. Arbitrary signs, such as traffic lines, RR crossing indicators, wedding rings, and national flags, can be present even when the thing indicated is absent. Language is a system of arbitrary signs.
There are signs that are partly iconic. The example is poison is often suggested by a skull and crossbones, and a drawn symbol of the sun may represent the sun. But there is still an inherent connection, in that the sign be present without the signified and the signified without the sign. Signs that are basically arbitaray but partly iconic are representational signs. Linguistic examples include meow, trickle, onomatopoeia.
Iconic expression can also appear in regular speech. Ex: If someone calls on the phone for their Ma and their four year old answers that she is taking a LOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGG shower. Iconicity can also be present in structure: The condition preceeds the consequence, as with real world events, for example, “if you are good, you can go the park.” |
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Term
| What is the definition of language given on p. 9 |
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Definition
| Language is a set of elements and a system for combining them into patterned expressions that can be used to accomplish specific tasks in specific contexts. |
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Term
| Design features of language: |
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Definition
The book calls it “hallmarks of human language sequence”
i) arbitrariness
2) discreteness
3) duality
displacement
productivity |
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Term
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Definition
| Language is a system of arbitrary signs. |
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Term
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Definition
| Speakers can identify the sound segments in the word of their language. English speakers can identify that sound in “cat” as the three represented by the letter C, A, and T. Every letter has its own component sound and can be broken down as such. It is a structure of language that words are made up of elemental sounds. |
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Term
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Definition
| Human language can be analyzed on two levels; at one level it can be viewed as having meaningful units, thus tabletop has two meaningful parts, table and top. At the lower level, the elements contained in the meaningful part do not themselves carry meaning. The three sounds of top don’t individually have meaning. They form meaning only when combined as top. |
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Term
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Definition
| Human languages are capable of representing things and events not present, but are spatically or temporally distant. Ex: Yesterday or yesteryear, things in the future. This is an important characteristic of human language – this might have contributed most to human development. |
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Term
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Definition
| From relatively few elements and rules in the language system, humans can produce and understand a limitless number of sentences by combining and recombining relatively few elements and relatively few patterns. For example, newspapers might be unlikely to repeat any sentences. The human capacity for linguistic creativity makes repetition unlikely, and yet speakers can still understand them. For many observers, it is this productivity that is a great hallmark of human language. |
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Term
| Define grammatical vs. communicative competence |
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Definition
Grammatical competence: The mental capacity that enables humans to form grammatical sentences. The internalized rules of language. We arrange them correctly because we know the patterns. An unconscious, implicit knowledge of vocab, grammar, meaning.
Communicative Competence: The capacity that enables to use language appropriately. It enables us to weave utterances together into different types of communications, like jokes, questions, recipes, narratives, etc. Also implicit knowledge that underlies the appropriate use of grammatical competence.
Being a fluent speaker requires both. |
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Term
| How does the linguist's position on language origins and language change differ from that held by large numbers of the linguistically uninformed? |
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Definition
Most people believe that language originated in a paradise where its pristine form was logical and perfectly grammatical. It just popped into existence. Those languages, once pure, were tainted with impurities and illogicalities and ungrammaticality. For example, borrowing words make the language impure and double negatives are illogicalities.
In Babel, God is responsible for the many different languages as a means to confuse them
Linguists think that the multiplicity of language is the result of natural change over time. The inevitable product of reshaping speech to meet social changes and reflecting contact with other people (borrowed words). Ex: 1066 (Norman conquest) as our example.
There are more similarites in language than there are differences. Language must conform to similarities in the human brain. |
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Term
| Regional vs. social dialects (broad definitions; detail in Chapter 11). |
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Definition
Dialects: Some people believe that only other people speak a dialect, but everyone speaks in dialect. They differ among age groups, social groups, gender, ethnic groups, and socio-economic boundaries. Ex: My Fair Lady. The term dialect refers to the language variety characteristic of a particular region or social groups. Refers to a language variety is its totality, including pronunciation and grammar and pragmatics, et al.
Examples of regional dialects: Pidgin English in Hawaii or Creole in Louisanna; New England; Social examples might hipsters, leet speak, My Fair Lady.
It is an important part of one’s persona. |
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Term
| Standard varieties and notions of correctness |
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Definition
| We could identify as standard the language used by a group of people (as most people do). It is used as the standard of correctness, which is then coded in grammar books, etc. BUT it does linguistically better; it doesn’t differ linguistically from other forms, in terms of correctness. Typically, the dialexts that become standard are the ones used in commerce and gov’t centers. Not a matter of coreect and incorrect, it is just a matter of grammatical difference. We can’t judge the rules of one dialect by the rules of another dialect. We can’t mark them as incorrect. Because language is an arbitrary science, there is no one right way and no superior standard form. |
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Term
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Definition
| Speaking, Writing, and Signing |
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Term
| Speech as the primary mode of communication |
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Definition
Has advantages over other modes. It does not need to viewed, so it can be used in darkness and in light. During the development of human species, you don’t have to use your hands while speaking. The human voice is complex and is capable of wide ranging modulation. It can take advantage of work choice and word order.
(1) Why do linguists see things this way?
It is the most common use of linguistic communications. See the advantages above. |
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Term
| What constitutes the leap from pictograms to writing (writing being a language-based medium of communication)? |
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Definition
| If icons come to be associated not with the objects the represent but with the words that refer to the objects, we have a much more sophisticated system. Written representation becomes linguistic when it relies on language for its organization and communicative success. For example, white it is difficult to use pictograms to express a message about abstractions, the task becomes more manageable if the graphic signs represent existing words. The moment some imaginative soul first recognized that the written sign for a sun could represent not only the sun itself, but also the word for sun in a langyage was the moment that written language started to develop. This is about the shift from associating a sign with an actual object in the world to a word. |
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Term
| Some similarities and differences between signed languages and spoken languages. |
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Definition
| Signing: the sue of visible gestures/facial expressions to communicate. ASL, for examples, still has a its own grammatical rules and those signs can be used and combined to create an infinite number of sentences (just like spoken/written language). As with spoken language, the signs in sign language are basically arbitrary, though they are sometimes representational., with meanings that can be guessed. ASL also has regional and ethnic varieties. |
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Term
| The definition of linguistics. |
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Definition
| The systematic inquiry into human language – into its structures and uses and the relationship between them, as well as into the development and acquisition of language. The scope includes language structure (and its underlying grammatical competence) and language use (and its underlying communicative competence). |
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Term
| The branches of linguistics: the traditional central focus; added or applied fields. |
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Definition
Historically, the central focus of language study has been grammar – patterns of speech sounds, word structure, sentence formation, and meaning. More recently, attention has also focused on the relationship between expression and meaning on the one hand, and context and interpretation, on the other. THis field is called pragmatics. Some linguists describe particular languages, others examine universal pattersn across languages and aim to explain them in cognitive or social terms.
Some linguists focus on language variation across speech communities or within a single community, across time, or across situations of use, such as conversation and sports announcer talk. Linguists studying variations seeks two kinds of explanation: cognitive ones and social ones. A third groups apply these findings to real world problems and educational models. Special concerns include the acquisition of literacy and of second languages and foreign languages. More linguists in clinical matters seek to understand aspects of language in Alzheimer’s and aphasia. In Forensic matters, linguists analyze conversations for threats, criminality or public contracts for clarification and directions.
Some linguists also address matters of language policy: what language for use in schools, voting booths, government stuff, etc. |
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