Week 4 · Readings & resources

Week 4 — Readings & Resources

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 4 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 65–78 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (19–22 min total)

① What makes language more than communication

Chapter 4, Section “Tell language from communication” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Language and communication” · Remember: communication is any passing of information, and language is one special kind of it, with learned words that can say new things.

Can Animals Talk? - the linguistics behind animal language — NativLang — a short animated explainer on whether other animals have language or communication only; as you watch, test each animal example against the chapter's five design features and notice which ones it lacks. (video, 3 min) (captions: creator)

② Dialects, registers, and switching between them

Chapter 4, Section “Shift your style: dialect, register, and code-switching” · Session 1, Segment 3, “Dialect, register, and code-switching” · Remember: every dialect follows rules, a register is a style for a setting, and code-switching moves between varieties in one conversation.

Sociolinguistics: Crash Course Linguistics #7 — CrashCourse — an animated episode on how social groups shape the way people speak and how people judge each other's speech; compare what it says about judging speech with the chapter's point that a nonstandard dialect is not broken language. (video, 11 min) (captions: creator)
Sociolinguistics and Dialects — The Ling Space — a linguistics explainer on what makes a variety count as a dialect and how dialects vary; as you watch, test its examples against the chapter's point that every dialect follows its own rules. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)
Code switching and language alternation — Society for Linguistic Anthropology — a short post in which a linguistic anthropologist answers a reader's question about how code switching differs from plain alternation between two languages; read the second answer, which notes that a speaker can code switch by shifting registers. This builds on Week 3's work with emic and etic terms: notice that the post treats the terms themselves as tools an analyst chooses. Use it while working through the Week-4 module overview. (reading, 5–8 min)
The Joy of Dialects — Anthropology News — a linguistic anthropologist writes about documenting a language with community partners in several coastal villages; read the opening for how one word changes from village to village in a regular, predictable pattern, which is what rule-governed variation looks like. (reading, 12–16 min)

③ Language, thought, and the space between people

Chapter 4, Section “Weigh the debate: linguistic relativity” · Session 2, Segment 4, “Linguistic relativity” · Remember: the strong form says language determines thought and is not supported, while the weak form says language influences attention and memory and has limited support.

Does the language you speak change how you think? — Tom Scott — a short explainer that separates the strong form of the idea, which it says linguists do not take seriously, from the weak form, which it calls more widely accepted but hard to test; as you watch, sort each example it gives into the strong form or the weak form, and notice the study it says other researchers could not repeat. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)
Proxemics: the study of personal space — Vox — an explainer on where the idea of a personal-space bubble comes from and how the study of personal space began; compare it with the chapter's coffee-shop line and stadium crowd, and ask what sets the right distance in each. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)

④ Languages that change, and languages at risk

Chapter 4, Section “Notice languages change: language change and endangerment” · Session 2, Segment 6, “Language change and endangerment” · Remember: every living language changes, while an endangered language is losing its speakers, and communities work to bring languages back.

Why is the number of languages "increasing"? — MinuteEarth — a short animated explainer on why published counts of the world's languages change over time; connect it to the chapter's point that counts differ by source, which is why the course says the figure in words. (video, 4 min) (captions: creator)
International Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022 – 2032 — United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs — the page that explains how a United Nations forum for Indigenous issues came to recommend a decade devoted to Indigenous languages; read for its stated aim of preserving, revitalizing, and promoting those languages, and notice that it says revitalization needs sustained effort by Indigenous Peoples, governments, and the United Nations together. (reading, 5–8 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

UN launches 10-year survival plan for endangered indigenous languages — UN News — a news account of the launch of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, with the count of the world's languages that the chapter says in words only; read it for why speakers describe a language as more than words. Stop here before any talk of how people make a living; next week takes that up. (reading, 5–8 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com