The InterpreterLanguage, Culture, and Universal GrammarLinguistic RelativismChomsky ViewChomsky v. EverettPiraha ProsodyANTY 101d 1st Edition Lecture 5The InterpreterLanguage, Culture, and Universal Grammar-Piraha of Amazon Brazil (pop 350-750)• Mura language, isolate; monolingual people-Culture and Language • Art/creation myths/collective memory• Color terms• Number terms • Recursion*• generalizing beyond the present-Direct experiences; no abstractions-The Grammar of happinessLinguistic Relativism -Language, Culture, and Cognition-How much does language shape how we think?-How does culture shape language or vice versa?-What would constitute empirical evidence?These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.Chomsky View-‘faculty’ for language is encoded in human brain at birth -equipped with immutable set of rules, shared by all languages-“language organ”-Language is biological, its what makes us human-“Universal Grammar is the true theory of the genetic component that underlies acquisition and use of language [in humans]”Chomsky v. Everett-Biology v. Learned Cognition (culture) -Is recursion a universal linguistic trait?• Chomsky: yes Everett: no-Is recursion a cognitive trai?• Everett: Yes• humans organize information by embedding entities in a hierarchical tree tructure• Absent from Piraha because of cultural constraints. Piraha Prosody -Everett’s wife: believes their language is like a song and she only knows the bridge and the chorus. There is still more the learn• The key to learning the language is the tribe’s singing.. variations in pitch, stress, and rhythm— what linguists call ‘prosody’• … they really can communicate without the
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