Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T16:04:13.310Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

16 - Language and human sociality

from Part III - Interaction and intersubjectivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2014

By
Alan Rumsey
Edited by
N. J. Enfield ,
Paul Kockelman  and
Jack Sidnell
N. J. Enfield
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute
Paul Kockelman
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Jack Sidnell
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access

Summary

The social situation that is built into human language includes only the communicating parties themselves, the reciprocal relations between them, and their mutual relations to an open-ended range of other possible objects to which they may attend. A related difference between language and other animal communication systems is that language allows for interaction which is much more fully dialogical. As pointed out by Benveniste, a related difference between human language and bee communication lies in the potential of language for relayed transmission of messages. This chapter describes a number of features of language and human social relations in abstract terms. It identifies a set of features which are common to all languages and which build into them a primordial social situation. The chapter exemplifies the way in which those features are used in discursive interaction, and the difference they make for triadic interaction when speech is involved.

Keywords

natural speechlanguage revitalizationlanguage situationlinguistic fieldworklanguage documentationanthropologyendangered languages
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology , pp. 400 - 422
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×