Mary Ritchie Key

Male/female language : with a comprehensive bibliography

This second edition updates and expands the first book-length examination of male and female linguistic differences. Its bibliography remains the most complete list on male/female linguistic behavior in print with the addition of over 1,000 new entries. Covers specific forms of communication, such as verbal and non-verbal, social dialect differences, style differences, and labels. With name and title indexes and an appendix containing guidelines.

Comparative Methodology for Distant Relationships in North and South American Languages.

Abstract Comparative linguistics has been an indispensable tool for classifying languages for the last couple of centuries. The method has been successfully used for grouping of languages with obvious relationships; it is also used, though less successfully, for identifying more distant relationships. An example is the placing of Hittite with the Indo-European languages. Languages with close relationships show a good deal of regularity in their reflexes from former states. More distant relationships exhibit fewer and fewer regularities, and thus comparative methodology is less secure. I propose that there are other linguistic features that can be observed in the application of comparative methodology to distant relationships. For example, the phonetic variants of the languages may show patterns of language change which are at the phonemic level in other languages. Another feature to observe is the pattern of fluctuations which occur between phonemes, as well as between phonetic variants. Still another structural feature which can maintain parallels between related families is the distribution pattern — phonemes within morphemes and within words, and the potential consonant and vowel clusters. One might also study “loanwords” (not always easily identifiable), to see if they exhibit patterns that reflect borrowings between related languages. At the semantic level, one can study the various meanings within cognate sets — if the same set of meanings occur in another group of languages, it may reflect common history. Finally, one can study the patterns of reflexes of the obviously related languages. If a proto form has been reconstructed, in addition, one must study the actualizations in the various languages. Proto forms 2 can obscure useful identification markers, especially if they have been wrongly reconstructed. I maintain caution in proposing proto forms for distantly related languages.

Development of Paralinguistic and Kinesic Expression of Roles

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the development of paralinguistic and kinesic expression of roles. An infants first communicative and cognitive experiences are expressed nonverbally. Rhythm is a basic element of life and behavior, and with the advent of technology scholars are at present able to record and film the rhythmic interactions of human beings. Studies that speak to this interactional synchrony are accruing, providing abundant proof that interactive behaviors and responses have their effect on learning and maturing. The relationship of physiology to communication is immediately evident when one observes extra-linguistic aspects of communication. The nominal dichotomy of the functioning of the brain is the origin of the apparent dichotomy of verbal and nonverbal behavior. The cognitive, social, and emotional development of an infant begins much earlier than speech development. It can be seen that paralinguistic and kinesic expression begin at birth and are essential to the development of language.

Dialects and historical/comparative linguistics: The interconnection of space and time

Abstract Change in language is a natural phenomenon that parallels change in all the environment. Dialects and other sociolinguistics aspects of language are the evidences of historical change. Traditionally, historical linguistics developed before sociolinguistics was recognized as a subject, and before dialect maps were plotted with isoglosses showing where particular varieties of language are spoken. My focus will show how the perspective of historical linguistics will be enlarged by looking at all the articulations of language spoken by a wide range of the population. In other sense, there are elemental features of languages in phonology and in semantics that remain stable throughout the millennia. These pristine features are enduring, and can be seen in ancient languages, such as Hittite, and present-day languages related to Hittite. These features cross dialect lines, and when looked at as a whole, are seen to reflect semantic structures of great stability in spite of language change. Elemental and innovative features are balanced from dialect to dialect and language to language in an unending variety of languages in the world.