Linguistic Ecology

(言語生態学)

Dr. Joseph DeChicchis
Professor, School of Policy Studies, Kwansei Gakuin University

KGU SPS course description (シラバス)

This course is about the concept of language ecology and the metaphor of ecology in linguistics, and various titles are possible:
   言語生態学
   Linguistic Ecology
   Language Ecology
   Ecology of Language
   Eco-Linguistics

IMPORTANT DATES:

IMPORTANT NOTES:


2021 December 22: mother tongue and father tongue
The mother tongue hypothesis sensu stricto is the glottogenetic hypothesis that language usage follows matrilineal inheritance. Correlations of mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) with language support this hypothesis. In contrast, the father tongue hypothesis affirms that language usage follows patrilineal inheritance; and strong correlations between Y-chromosome DNA and languages support this hypothesis. In simple terms, one hypothesis says that we learn language from our mothers, and the other hypothesis says that we learn language from our fathers. So, which hypothesis is correct?
Both hypotheses are correct. However, before seeing why, we must first realize that the mother-or-father question only makes sense for children whose parents speak different languages, because, whenever the parents speak the same language, it will not matter whether the child learns the language from the mother or from the father. Nearly a decade ago, [PDF] Foster and Renfrew (cf. especially highlighted text) summarized several studies showing that language change following language contact seems to be sex-related. More recently, a statistical analysis by Zhang et al. (cf. especially Figure 3) has further clarified the nature of these mother-tongue and father-tongue effects:
“We showed that genetic and linguistic distances are significantly correlated with each other and that both are correlated with geographical distances among these populations. However, when controlling for geographical factors, only the correlation between the distances of paternal and lexical characteristics, and between those of maternal and phonemic characteristics, remained.”
In other words, there is a correlation of vocabulary with male lineage, and there is a correlation of phonology with female lineage.
Think about the differences of father and mother correlations. What caused these differences? Do you agree with the explanations suggested in these articles?


2021 December 15: ancient clicks
Very few languages have click consonants, and it is hypothesized that such languages preserve an ancient phonological pattern. If that is true, then we might also expect that the speakers of click languages should have genetic profiles which are similarly ancient. (If you do not know what clicks are, read this Wikipedia article. The Japanese Wikipedia version is less informative than the English one.) Except for the ceremonial language Damin in Australia, all of the languages with clicks have been found in southern Africa, as shown in this map of African click languages.
Mitochondrial Eve is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all living humans. In other words, she is defined as the most recent woman from whom all living humans are in unbroken matrilineal descent. This map shows the mitochondrial DNA macro-haplogroup L, its subclades, and presumed African migration, which preceded the global migration of modern humans.
Read [PDF] "In Click Languages, an Echo of the Tongues of the Ancients", and look at this [PDF] more recent report about human migration and interbreeding with extinct homonins.
What language is spoken by the people most strongly associated with the L0 haplogroup?
How might human migration and the current distribution of click languages be causally connected?
Did the speakers of Damin invent click consonants, or did they inherit them from earlier speakers?
How are click sounds used in languages that do not have click consonants?
Optional study: para-linguistic use of clicks


2021 December 8: association versus causality
Neither an association nor a correlation is the same as a causal relationship.
Click here to view this week's slideshow in your browser.
If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.
Look up any words that you do not understand.
Think about the nature of causality and of statistical association.
Think about the questions asked on the final slide.
Optional study: [PDF] Association, correlation and causation
Optional study: Methods for Person-Oriented Research [cf. DOI: 10.17505/jpor.2016.01]


2021 December 1: Voegelin to Haugen to Halliday
Linguists have broadened our understanding of "the environment" of language.
Click here to view this week's slideshow in your browser.
If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.
Look up any words that you do not understand.
How has the relationship between language and environment evolved from the time of Voegelin to the current perspective advocated by Stibbe?
Optional study: Click here to read “From the Analysis of Ecological discourse to the Ecological Analysis of discourse” by Richard Alexander and Arran Stibbe.


2021 November 24: Indonesia
The creation of a new official national language required codification and standardization.
Click here to view this week's slideshow in your browser.
If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.
Look up any words that you do not understand, and think about how to answer these questions:
About how many languages are spoken in Indonesia?
About how many languages are spoken in Indonesia's two provinces of Western New Guinea (i.e., in Western Papua and Papua)?
What important agricultural product did neolithic Malayo-Polynesian speakers bring to Indonesian islands?
Which language was chosen in 1945 to be Bahasa Indonesia, i.e., the national language of Indonesia?
What are some differences between Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia?


2021 November 17: China
A multilingual empire needs a lingua franca.
Click here to view this week's slideshow in your browser.
If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.
Look up any words that you do not understand, and think about how to answer these questions:
What areas of China have been colonized by Mandarin speakers since World War II?
Which Chinese government promoted Pǔtōnghuà 普通话 as the modern standard language of China?
What is the dominant local language of Shanghai 上海市?
What is the dominant local language of Fuzhou 福州市?
Optional study: Minglang Zhou (Multilingualism in China: The Politics of Writing Reforms for Minority Languages 1949–2002) reports that minority communities have been evolving from "diglossia without bilingualism" to "bilingualism without diglossia", speculating that this could be a result of Beijing's expanding power. (Cf. the typology of the relationships between bilingualism and diglossia and the taxonomy of diglossia described by Joshua Fishman.)


2021 November 10: Nigeria and Biafra
Language differences can be used to intensify ethnic conflict.
Click here to view this week's slideshow in your browser.
If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.
Look up any words that you do not understand, and think about how to answer these questions:
What are the major languages of Nigeria? How many other languages are spoken in Nigeria?
How are the major languages associated with religion? with wealth? with other social factors?
Which language is most associated with Biafra?
What is the role of English in Nigeria?


2021 November 3: NO NEW CLASS MATERIAL
Please use this week to review earlier material, especially the 13 October slides.


2021 October 27: South Slavic
Yugoslavia is an illustration of how minimally different “dialects” can become “languages”.
Click here to view this week's slideshow in your browser.
If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.
Look up any words that you do not understand.
Additional: To view/download an MP4 slideshow video about Serbo-Croatian, click here.


2021 October 20: Scandinavian
A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
Click here to view this week's slideshow in your browser.
If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.
Look up any words that you do not understand.
Optional: To read Skapago's short description of Bokmål and Nynorsk, click here.


2021 October 13: variation through time and space
Synchronic dialects show language variation from one place to another, while diachronic dialects show changes over time.
Click here to view this week's slideshow in your browser.
If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.
Look up any words that you do not understand.
Optional: If you wish to see an artistic Indo-European language tree, click here.


2021 October 6: Haugen's ecological questions
Language has been an important component of academic study since Europe's Middle Ages.
Click here to view this week's slideshow in your browser.
If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.
Pay particular attention to the questions on Slide 15.
Look up any words that you do not understand.
Optional: If you wish to read more about the history and scope of Eco-linguistics, you can click here.


2021 September 29: Take the exam on LUNA!
Please take the Preliminary Exam, which becomes available today on LUNA. You can take the exam twice, and your higher score will count. The deadline for taking this test is 9 am on 6 October. This exam should be very easy if you have already taken Multilingualism & Multiculturalism (多言語多文化論).

If you do not pass the Preliminary Exam, then you should drop this course.

From now until Christmas, please check this webpage each week for new lecture material. The Summary Exam for this course will then be given via LUNA in January.


2021 September 22: Preliminary Exam and Overview of the Course
Please prepare for the preliminary exam. The exam will be given via LUNA on Wednesday, 29 September 2021. You must pass this exam to get credit for this course. If you have not yet taken Multilingualism and Multiculturalism, you should become familiar with the material of that course by looking at this website.

Ecology is about processes, interactions, and adaptations. The ecology metaphor in linguistics has been developed over the past half century:

C. F. Voegelin and F. M. Voegelin (1964, cited by Haugen, 1972: 328): "in linguistic ecology, one begins not with a particular language but with a particular area" The term 'linguistic ecology' was also used in an article on the "language situation" in Arizona (Voegelin, Voegelin and Schutz, 1967).

Einar Haugen pioneered a form of linguistics which used the metaphor of an ecosystem to describe the relationships among the diverse forms of language found in the world, and the groups of people who speak them. (cf. The ecology of language. In A. Dil, ed., The Ecology of Language: Essays by Einar Haugen. Stanford University Press, 1972)

John Wendel’s definition (2005: 51): “The ecological approach to language considers the complex web of relationships that exist between the environment, languages, and their speakers”, where “Environment” here means the physical, biological, and social environments.

Edward Sapir, Benjamin Lee Whorf, George Lakoff, and most recently Otto Santa Ana have discussed how language, thought, and behavior are interrelated in subtle ways.

Michael Halliday helped people understand that our use of language can ultimately affect the global environment. Arran Stibbe has recently published a course focusing on this idea. The idea of connecting language, thought, and reality is not new. The later Scholastics (cf. Poinsot) were the culmination of a long history of thinking about how our cosmovision is structured. In a sense, Stibbe's approach to linguistic ecology is similar, though certainly less well analyzed, than John Deely's comprehensive idea of semiotic.

Throughout the semester, this course will look at these and other ideas of linguistic ecology.


(This page was last updated on 20 December 2021.)