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Transcription
The speaker discusses various topics related to language. They begin by explaining that language is a means of communication using voice sounds, gestures, and writing symbols. Animals also have their own ways of communicating. The speaker then discusses sign language and how it differs between different countries. They also mention how language is influenced by society and how it can shape social identity. The speaker touches on concepts like language variation, dialects, slangs, and jargon. They also talk about the historical roots of language and how different languages evolve from common ancestors. The speaker concludes by mentioning that they will address morphology in the next podcast and encourages listeners to support their work. Hello guys, I hope you are doing well and welcome back to another chapter of what I have learned this week. I have, well I am here enjoying my cup of coffee when I realized that it's Friday already and I am not doing the podcast. I bet you, I had a rough week but hey, we are not here just for chattering. On this occasion, I would like to talk about my experiences and knowledge while I explain the magic of the language. First, I am going to review what exactly is language, having critical thinking and a bit of girly stuff in mind, oh my gosh, that was cringe. Human language. Well, is a human language a concept or it is a deep and complex bond that humans have to communicate? Everything begins with human language, which basically means humans are, human beings are born with the innate capacity to develop language. We can say that language is communication, indeed humans communicate their thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals such as voice sounds, gestures or writing symbols. Things are getting interesting here. The concept of knowing the language means knowing the sounds or sounds which are in that language and the ones which are not. Also, knowing the sound system of language includes not only knowing the inventory of sounds, but also which sounds may start a word, end a word and follow each other. That is called phononatics. Everything I said before about language and communication applies to animals too. But, can animals communicate with themselves? Yes, differently, but yes. There are animals that can communicate with themselves with sounds or even echolocation, I am sorry, it is a difficult word. Actually, there are studies that shows us that animals understand humans, well, in a certain way. An example of the animal context could be bees communicate themselves by dancing. It is like we ask ourselves, hey, how are you? There is food over there, come with me. While we dance, it is quite funny and interesting at the same time. Sign language. Wow, this is a personal experience. A topic that I can relate to this, probably, yes, it is sign language. I find this language fascinating because everyone knows that Chilean language is not similar to British English. We speak different languages, right? But, what happened to sign language? Well, most people think that just because sign language refers to doing gestures with faces and hands, means that every sign symbol is going to be the same. But, actually, not. Even the Venezuelan sign language is different from Chilean sign language. Even if we speak Spanish, I could say that they are similar because we share the Spanish language, of course. Language and society. The second thing I would like to address is how society influences language. Language is the base of human communication, right? It always occurs in a social context. It is a branch of linguistics which deals with the study of language use in society. And in a social cultural context, the use of language both shapes and is shaped by our social relationships and activities. These factors can become in our social identity. In addition, it is the study of the linguistic indicators of culture and power. Did you know that language that we use indicates to others how we want to be seen by others? Remember, the social meaning of a language is not assigned arbitrarily, but depends heavily on cultural ideologies about social groups and how they use language. This is called indexically. And it might cause prejudice because of our social ideologies. There are many concepts and keywords that I would like to tell you. Some examples in sociolinguistics, we have variation of the language. We have dialects, slangs. Slangs are informal and we can use it with our friends. And we have jargon, which is a formal way to communicate. We can use it for work, actually. We have people that speak multiple languages and people who speak two languages only. We also have the standard language that is an artificial linguistic variety. And it's a complex topic, actually. And I will explain you why because of my experiences. British accent is better than the others. That's what my family said to me once I was in college. My family members asked me if I was going to speak with a British accent. And I didn't know that at that time that was quite wrong because I have my own accent, which is Chilean accent speaking in English. Everyone has an accent, actually. That's because I relate this to the standard language. Because I think, in my personal opinion, it is closest. Language variation. Last but not least, the third content that I am going to address. Personally, one of my favorite ones. This is connected with the second content. But we are going to address this more deeply, actually. The variation of language has historical roots. We can relate this with a tree. Well, this tree shows us our ancestor language. That could be Proto-Indo-European. The constructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Have you ever asked yourself why we Spanish speakers speak differently from English speakers? That is because Spanish comes from the Latin root and English from the Germanic root. A curious fact with English, we can share words that sound and mean similar to Spanish. That could be cognates. We also have dialect, a variety of language spoken by a particular group of people characterized by distinctive vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation in a country. We have accent, a way of pronouncing words. We have phonology. We have lexis, that is the vocabulary of words used in a particular language or by a particular group of people. And an experience that I can relate with this topic is the speech communities and style shifting. When I speak with, I don't know, with a community, for example, Harry Potter fans, I do not use the same language that I use with my family. Or when I speak with my teachers, we have formal interaction inside the classroom, but we have a different language communication outside the classroom. I refer this to an informal way. Well, I think I covered everything. Remember that if you didn't listen to the last podcast, you can find it on Spotify and YouTube. Last week, we addressed feminism in language. If you want to give me ideas and personal experience, I'm all ears. DM me, please. Well, the next Friday, we are going to address morphology. And it's, well, this topic is extremely interesting. So, please support my work. Thank you for listening and see you soon.
