LANGUAGE & SOCIETY

Seminar questions

1.What are cultural differences and how can they be dealt with in interaction between
representatives of different culture?
Cultural differences are differences between members /individuals coming from different
cultures,who don't share the same cultural pattern but they influence each other in some degree
in their interactions.
In interactions between representatives of different cultures,cultural differences can be dealt
with by being culturally sensitive ,by trying to understand the other persons culture and act
according to it.

2.What disciplines,have provided theories of language and behaviour?

The disciplines that have provided theories of language and behaviour are all areas of signifying
social behaviour,but also other disciplines within social sciences such as
antropology,philosophy,psychology:theoretical linguistics.

3.What is Chomsky's contribution to linguistics and language study in general?

Chomsky's contribution to linguistics and language study in general is his
theory,transformational generative grammar,which has dominated the linguistic scene almost
since the appearence of his "Syntactic Structures" in 1957.

4.What is the scope of linguistics suggested by Hodge and Kress?

The scope of linguistics ,suggested by Hodge and Kress must encompass the study of syntax
and the basic rule systems of the language along with the social uses of language,that is the
relations between language and society and between language and mind in a single intergrated
enterprise.

5.What is Whorf's opinion about linguistics?

Whorf sees linguistics not as an autonomous discipline,but as anindispensable aid in a project
of immense importance the investigation of cultures the uncovering of profound and
inaccessible levels of thought.

6.What is language according to Whorf?

According to Whorf,language is an instrument of control as well as of communication;the
practical consciousness of a society.

7.Briefly present the comparison between English and Hopi.

The Hopi distinction between redness and newness is as much as of a distort as their conflation
in English while in fact English allows both distinct and conflation.

8.What was Saussure's contribution to linguistic ?

Saussure's contribution to linguistic was that he envisaged linguistics as part of a larger
discipline ,which he christened semiology ,"the life of signs in society".

9.What is paralinguistic and what does it add to the study of spoken language ?
Paralinguistics deals with the study of the resources of spoken communication,like gestures
,expression,posture,etc.It also greatly enriches and complicates the system of modality.
10.What are the advantages of written language?
The advantages of written language are that the internal contradictions can be controlled to a
greater degree because the writer has time and freedom to manage contradictions on his own
terms ,the writer can notice and censored out overt signs of contradiction and incoherence and
he can also eliminate from his official text slips of the tongue and all such signs of momentary
loss of control ,or accidental revelations of private meaning.