Theories of culture

Here some theories that we saw at class of culture :)
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
-"Culture is the study of perfection"

Edward Tyler (1832-1917)
-"Culture is everything that envolves the society (art, moral, beliefs)".

Raymond Williams (1921-1988)
-"Every human society has its own culture"

Clifford Geertz (1926-2006)
-"Culture is what holds in the "webs" humans. It's a science in search of meaning".

Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009)
-"Culture is made up of rules and conducts, but we are not ment to obey them."

Renato Rosaldo (1941)
-"Culture significates to humans experience by selecting from and organazing it. It make sense to our lifes".

      This quotes are not extracts from books or studies. I resumed their ideas and kind of selected what was more important in my points of view.
      Personally I liked Edward Tyler's theory because society is the combination of cultures of different things that make a group special and unic.

Languages vs. Thoughts

Is Language the same that thought? (suspense moment)

   According to Steven Pinker, psichologist and cognitive scientist, The idea that thought is the same thing as language is a conventional absurdity. "The idea that thought and language are the same is to claim that our thoughts depend on words". A great example of this is that we know from investigation of communication disorders such as aphasia, in which the ability to comprehend and use language is disrupted but general intellectual functioning may remain unimpaired,  that people without language can still think.

Pinker, S. (1994) The Language Instinct London: Penguin Books. [Updated version published in 2008] 

     Personally i disagree and agree with this theory, even though i wouldn't be able to argue against it I really believe that language is indeed conected to thought, as we communicate to express what we think, want or need. That's why if we dont know something, like a type of food, game... we wont think about it because we can't want or need something we dont know and that isn't in our heads. Though thinking that language is limited by thoughts, or the other way around is not very convincing and very refutable.

Mindmap :D

What is language?

second and third Youtube video

see questions at https://sites.google.com/site/year10languageandliterature/classroom-news/week2-march12-16

II

1.- The East Africa groups developed the first language on Earth and a better language than the rest of the groups.
2.- They grew in number but some of the earlier languages disappeared.
3.- The first utterances made by humans were calls and sounds.

III

1.- Humans tried to build the biggest tower ever and reach heaventh, in this ambitious act God said "no" and as a way of stoping them he will make that all of the humans  will speak different languages.
2.- There are many languages in that small region. In those times people started to spread.
3.- Language is not biologically transmited. Though it make you belong to a comunity.
4.- Language constantly changes because new generations have different ways to comunicate.

Youtube video

See questions at  https://sites.google.com/site/year10languageandliterature/classroom-news/reminderthatitsashortweekthisweek

1.-  The use of a sequence of sounds to express what we are thinking o fealing.

2.-No, they use noises with actually no meaning but that express what they feel. They don't have a language with structure and rules.

3.-What we think and want to express.

4.-He wanted to discover how learning language works.

5.-Sounds and babbling, similar to the real words and slowly getting close to the combination of sounds that will make words, then two words and getting every time more complex.

6.-How does people that is around afects the development of language on the baby.

7.-They use simple sentences and when the baby start learning to speak the speech become more complex.

8.-Dr Deb compares the blossoming of a speech form to plants, as language developes as a flower.

Language task

         Every day we are sorrounded by signs and sounds that we know as language. We are taught to comunicate with words and sings at a very young age. The words that we know are just simple sounds joined together to send a message, so we can understand one to each other, of course there is more than just one way to send it, and more than just one language.
         Language is the most powerfull tool the living beings have (as animals also have a "language", not as "good" as us but you can understand when a dog is mad or happy with sings, that is known as body language) as we can interact with other people, express what we think and feel, and even though we dont feel it, when we think we use words.