Chapter one of Language, Society, and Power is titled “Language?”. The first impression of this heading is that it is posing the question of language and what it is. The text describes how language is not something that is easily defined but how the book looks at the positives on how language works in different settings for different groups of people in common scenarios. It also foreshadows the importance of language in its relationship with power, control, and representation something that deems language as something that can be judged by society and its formalities. Another basic principle that is stated in the introduction is something I learned in basic Introduction to Language Study course. Language is a system. The role of linguists, however, is greatly detailed in this book and I enjoyed the perspective. The writers believe that it is the job of linguists to describe the systems based off of discoveries not by creating their own rules. I think this is important because language is constantly changing and it is an evolution and it highlights how those who study linguistics are set to detail what systems or the codes of language have already been created and how they are being used in different settings.
Linguists must have a critical awareness of the language and what they are describing. When the text says the choice of words used to describe a person, event or thing reveals the attitude of the person writing or speaking I found a direct relation to writing stories and poetry. It is almost parallel to the idea of good character building and the way that an author has a character treat another character or how another character speaks about a character reveals more than just describing the character itself. This idea also gives a reader the idea of a relationship that they are being introduced to all by the power and choice of words selected.
The more we look at the language the more we can find meaning to it and different reasons for study. The textbook details areas of study such as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, artificial intelligence, and more. I work for a company currently that integrates artificial intelligence into their products. I never thought that there was a bridge between linguistics and the devices that I fix and maintain everyday but the way that computers are being coded to have a conversation and to understand the meaning by certain words or commands was another highlight or take away from the book that had me looking closer into my everyday life.
Language is defined as a system that is rule-governed with building codes that enable speakers to use their language. Concepts like competence, performance, and communicative competence are something I would have related to fluency before taking a linguistics course. For example I took six years of French in an American high school and I believe I have a competence or understand of the grammar and I can break apart a French text by knowing the parts of language but I will never have that communicative or pragmatic competence because I don’t have exposure to the social relationships and cultural conventions that are used in France compared to English spoken or written in America. 2
Prescriptivists in contrasts to the description was a new way of looking at the idea of language having different functions and the means in which it is arbitrary are for me. I also saw throughout this first chapter the introduction of power and ideology. The idea that structure can be mapped and understood by paying attention to the way choices are made in language. We are positioned or hailed by this factor which is defined as interpellation. In conclusion to this chapter, the way we use language to send a message about what is important and communicates something about who you are upon delivering that message.
Chapter two of Language, Society, and Power is titled “Language Thought and Representation”. This chapter focused on the choices that we make about language represent the world and that whether it is conscious or not it showcases our ideology. Language becomes habitual and that the expression of language has certain assumptions drawn on how it is used and what is deemed fair. This is an example of power based on ideology. This chapter is very recursive in the major points of ideology, political correctness, and linguistic relativism and beaming into one cohesive thought.
Words in language were broken down by Ferdinand de Saussure as a sign and to get a sign you must have a signifier and signify. This concept was something not new to me but a refresher from my Introduction to Language Study course. Signifier being the sound that we hear like p-e-n and the signified is the concept this makes us think of our an actual “pen”. Saussure’s theory, however, states that. A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a name but between a concept and a sound pattern. This means that the link between word and meaning is arbitrary. Deepening this concept, even more, was the example onomatopoeia and how buzz is the sound a bee makes to Americans but boon boon is how the bees sound is described by the Japanese. This just shows how the connection between sound and the word is arbitrary, even with the idea of phonemes.
Language is constantly changing. The idea of human speech is broken into two parts, langue (competence) and parole (performance). Langue is the system that makes parole possible. No individual can complete this idea alone as there is a social aspect to language that new behaviors have to be recognized and convention and this forms the idea of a collectivity. The idea that it takes a group to make language what it is also back by the concept that language rumples both an established system and evolution. Every moment it is an existing institution it is also a product of the past as it forever is changing.
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis was a new finding from the text for me. The first part concluded that different languages construe the world differently and these differences are encoded in the language. The second idea is that language is the limit of the world as it becomes habitual and has a bearing on the way that we think. The text example of the way Russians see colors in comparison to English due to the classification they must make in their language was a strange but practical case study that applied directly to what was being described as their behavior to classification.
Political Correctness was one of the last subject touched on in this chapter and I think it is important as we go on to see language and the role with media and politics next. But there is constantly a language reform on social actors and people with a particular way of representing themselves and being expressed by others. With this, language, is being used in a way not to discriminate or demean. I think an important part of this dialogue was that when people find your language to be offensive and they are corrected they believe their character is under attack and that shows how deeply word choice is to the speaker.