What is language?

[Larry Gorbet]

Barbara LeMaster wrote:

>Good question, Richard.  As someone working w/sign language, too, I've often
>thought about the same issue.  Consider how thorny the terms "verbal" and
>"non-verbal" are, especially when dealing with sign languages.  I was once
>asked to give a guest lecture on nonverbal communication.  When I asked why, I
>was told that since I work on sign language, I must be an expert on nonverbal
>communication!  That led me to think about verbal communication as being
>both vocal and nonvocal, and nonverbal communication as being both vocal and
>nonvocal.  ...a similar problem to the one you pose.

In my intro linguistics classes, when I talk about nonverbal
communication, I always include a brief bit on nonverbal
vocalization:  communicative whistles, clicks, throat-clearings, etc.
which are not functioning as part of a language (as conventionally
conceived by most linguists). If there's time, I point out that the
same vocal signal may be nonverbal in once place but verbal, a
consonant or vowel, in another.  Much as the same manual gesture may
be a "gesture" in one place and a "sign" (of a particular signed
language) in another.  The term "place" here is used pretty loosely
--- clearly the different "places" may be situations in a single
cultural system.

I'll send separately in a few days a direct response to Richard's
message, with which I am very much in sympathy, for a number of
reasons.

- Larry

--
Larry Gorbet                         lgorbet at unm.edu
Anthropology & Linguistics Depts.    (505) 883-7378
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM, U.S.A.