A Linguistics Question

[rousseau]

I know we have a few people studied in linguistics at the forum so thought I might be able to find an answer here. I'm curious about the the proportion of different topics in everyday conversation, and want to do some searching on Google Scholar, but am having trouble locating this research if it exists.

In other words, if you were to break out everyday conversation into topics or classes, I'm wondering if the relative proportion of those classes has ever been analyzed. I know things like culture / gender / socio-economic status would have implications here, but it's a shot in the dark. I've asked some funky linguistics questions before that didn't turn out to be things that had been studied.

The first term that came to mind for me was 'conversational analysis', which is a thing, but doesn't seem to be what I'm looking for.

 

[skepticalbip]

Is this close to what you are looking for? I don't have access to a .edu address so wasn't able to scan through the article.

Things We Talk about, How Frequently, and to Whom: Frequency of Topics in Everyday Conversation as a Function of Gender, Age, and Marital Status on JSTOR

Jerome R. Sehulster, Things We Talk about, How Frequently, and to Whom: Frequency of Topics in Everyday Conversation as a Function of Gender, Age, and Marital Status, The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 119, No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 407-432

www.jstor.org

"
JOURNAL ARTICLE

Things We Talk about, How Frequently, and to Whom: Frequency of Topics in Everyday Conversation as a Function of Gender, Age, and Marital Status​

 

[rousseau]

That looks about right, it looks like the full PDF is available on Google Scholar.

 

[Politesse]

Ringing a faint bell. One of my professors was into that sort of thing, and mentioned a series of studies of everyday conversations back in the 80s, essentially coming to the conclusion that people spend more time gossiping than they think they do. The details escape me though. I'll see if I can track down the article.

 

[Swammerdami]

Sometimes the content of conversation is almost irrelevant. Talking with fellow humans is sometimes akin to chimps grooming chimps. Is this a message in the famous Louis Armstrong song?

I see friends shaking hands, saying 'How do you do.'
They're really saying 'I love you.'

 

[barbos]

In other words, if you were to break out down everyday conversation into topics or classes

No?
Speaking of linguistics.

 

[rousseau]

In other words, if you were to break out down everyday conversation into topics or classes

No?
Speaking of linguistics.

Writing is an artform

Seriously, though, I'm not entirely sure this question even falls under the purview of linguistics, the above seems to be a psychology paper .

 

[Politesse]

There is such a subfield as sociolinguistics. Psychology is relevant. There is no speech without social intent.

 

[Swammerdami]

Since formal education and written languages are recent developments, ordinary conversation may be the oldest usage of language. I wonder how the question of topics of modern conversation relates to the origin and earliest developments of human language. WHY was human language developed in the first place? It wasn't needed to pass on paleolithic skills like fire-making and tool-making: these are learned by imitation rather than spoken instruction.

Perhaps the language of chimpanzees — though mostly signed rather than spoken — would shed some light. IIUC the topic of much chimpanzee "conversation" is grooming or flirtation!

 

[rousseau]

Since formal education and written languages are recent developments, ordinary conversation may be the oldest usage of language. I wonder how the question of topics of modern conversation relates to the origin and earliest developments of human language. WHY was human language developed in the first place? It wasn't needed to pass on paleolithic skills like fire-making and tool-making: these are learned by imitation rather than spoken instruction.

Perhaps the language of chimpanzees — though mostly signed rather than spoken — would shed some light. IIUC the topic of much chimpanzee "conversation" is grooming or flirtation!

I figure 'return on energy' is a pretty good heuristic. Vocalization as metabolic expression can have huge returns if it saves the life of members of your family or tribe. And it regularly does.

Entertainment and the conferral of critical concepts.

 

[Politesse]

Since formal education and written languages are recent developments, ordinary conversation may be the oldest usage of language. I wonder how the question of topics of modern conversation relates to the origin and earliest developments of human language. WHY was human language developed in the first place? It wasn't needed to pass on paleolithic skills like fire-making and tool-making: these are learned by imitation rather than spoken instruction.

I'm not certain this is true. You can learn Oldowan tool-making pretty easily without language, but the late Neolithic toolset is much more complicated; I've never heard of anyone picking up flintknapping in its totality without the help of language. This was actually the basis of an entire theory of language evolution called the technological hypothesis. I'm not personally convinced of the hypothesis, which is a bit just-so in its focus on the tool industry we happen to have the most evidence for, but I do think that symbolic language likely greatly accelerated the development of new technologies as it developed alongside them.

 

[rousseau]

Since formal education and written languages are recent developments, ordinary conversation may be the oldest usage of language. I wonder how the question of topics of modern conversation relates to the origin and earliest developments of human language. WHY was human language developed in the first place? It wasn't needed to pass on paleolithic skills like fire-making and tool-making: these are learned by imitation rather than spoken instruction.

I'm not certain this is true. You can learn Oldowan tool-making pretty easily without language, but the late Neolithic toolset is much more complicated; I've never heard of anyone picking up flintknapping in its totality without the help of language. This was actually the basis of an entire theory of language evolution called the technological hypothesis. I'm not personally convinced of the hypothesis, which is a bit just-so in its focus on the tool industry we happen to have the most evidence for, but I do think that symbolic language likely greatly accelerated the development of new technologies as it developed alongside them.

It likely makes sense to think of language as a general purpose tool with almost unlimited applications. There isn't much else we do with such a low metablic cost and such high benefit.

Invariably those with greater communication skills have better general purpose survival skills, so language comes into being.

When you look at the world today social skill is highly, highly prized.

 

[Swammerdami]

... human language ... wasn't needed to pass on paleolithic skills like fire-making and tool-making: these are learned by imitation rather than spoken instruction.

I'm not certain this is true. You can learn Oldowan tool-making pretty easily without language, but the late Neolithic toolset is much more complicated; ...

So, you're in agreement with me.

I should have written EARLY Paleolithic. While Oldowan tool-making didn't require language, human crafts accelerated rapidly about the time of the Aurignacian (Cro-Magnon) culture. Modern men (incl. Cro-Magnon) have a specific anatomical difference from Neanderthals that is useful for speech production.

 

[rousseau]

To go even more 'Big History' on the question I wonder if we're looking at a shift in metabolic activity from all fours to the brain. Bipedalism freed up energy for the brain / more sophisticated social activity. Survival increasingly shifted away from brute strength and size to cognitive ability.

So I would agree that the theory Politesse mentioned is a little too 'just so'. Mostly our brains just became more and more important.

 

[lpetrich]

As far as anyone knows, spoken language is universal among members of our species that can generate and interpret it. The origin of it has long been a contentious issue, and some biologists and linguists have given whimsical names to origin theories:

• ma-ma -- attaching the easiest syllables to significant objects (?)
• ta-ta -- imitation of body movements like gestures (Sir Richard Paget 1930)
• bow-wow -- imitation of sounds (?, Max Müller 1861)
• pooh-pooh -- interjections, instinctive emotive cries (?, Max Müller 1861)
• ding-dong -- sounds and meanings corresponding, like sound symbolism (?, Max Müller 1861)
• yo-he-ho -- rhythmic chants, like when coordinating efforts in heavy work (?, Max Müller 1861)
• la-la, sing-song -- pleasant audio doodling (Otto Jespersen 1921)
• hey-you -- assertion of identity and calling to others (Géza Révész 1956)
• uh-oh -- warnings (?)
• hocus-pocus -- magical / religious acts (C. George Boeree)
• eureka -- consciously invented (?)
• watch-the-birdie -- lying (Edgar A. Sturtevant 1922)
• pop -- language popped into existence as an evolutionary byproduct (Stephen Jay Gould)

with sources

•  Origin of language
• The Origins of Language - C. George Boeree
• Linguistic Hypotheses on the Origins of Language | Free Language
• The Origin of Language : Sturtevant, E. H. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
• (some other sources for uh-oh and pop)

 

[Copernicus]

I know we have a few people studied in linguistics at the forum so thought I might be able to find an answer here. I'm curious about the the proportion of different topics in everyday conversation, and want to do some searching on Google Scholar, but am having trouble locating this research if it exists.

In other words, if you were to break out everyday conversation into topics or classes, I'm wondering if the relative proportion of those classes has ever been analyzed. I know things like culture / gender / socio-economic status would have implications here, but it's a shot in the dark. I've asked some funky linguistics questions before that didn't turn out to be things that had been studied.

The first term that came to mind for me was 'conversational analysis', which is a thing, but doesn't seem to be what I'm looking for.

Rousseau, this strikes me as a rather huge topic, so I'm having trouble homing in on the focus of what you are looking for. You could, of course, look up discourse analysis for linguistics, but there are also specialized literatures in the Philosophy of Language and Computational Linguistics that have grown apart from the literature in theoretical linguistics. Rhetorical theory might be another keyword topic to explore.

 

[Toni]

There is such a subfield as sociolinguistics. Psychology is relevant. There is no speech without social intent.

What does that mean in context of someone talking to themselves? (when alone)

 

[Politesse]

There is such a subfield as sociolinguistics. Psychology is relevant. There is no speech without social intent.

What does that mean in context of someone talking to themselves? (when alone)

Interesting that you contextualize this as "talking to yourself". Why not "speaking to no one", or "speaking within yourself"?

I talk to cats and computers on occasion as well. Is that also "talking to myself"? If not, how does it differ? Is it an entirely non-social exchange?

 

[Toni]

There is such a subfield as sociolinguistics. Psychology is relevant. There is no speech without social intent.

What does that mean in context of someone talking to themselves? (when alone)

Interesting that you contextualize this as "talking to yourself". Why not "speaking to no one", or "speaking within yourself"?

I talk to cats and computers on occasion as well. Is that also "talking to myself"? If not, how does it differ? Is it an entirely non-social exchange?

I’m thinking of: being alone—not even a pet. Not even talking to an appliance or vehicle. But talking to one’s self.

A very good friend since adolescence and I sometimes ‘talk’ to each other in our heads and imagine what the other person might say if we posed a certain question. Or, when making certain dishes my mother used to make, as her mother did before her, I sometimes have mental conversations with them ( don’t worry: I know they’re both dead). Sometimes people say that when they are considering…what direction in life to take or a certain problem, they hear the voices of a trusted adviser in their heads. Not necessarily literally. Example: trying to decide how to arrange a financial transaction, one might think about what one’s parent would say.

I’m not talking about any of that. More like: if a tree fell in the forest, and nothing was around to hear it, does it still make a sound?

But in this instance: if I’m stranded on a desert island, and I’m talking to myself (aloud), is that speech? In the context you meant speech.

 

[Politesse]

A very good friend since adolescence and I sometimes ‘talk’ to each other in our heads and imagine what the other person might say if we posed a certain question.

I do much the same, as I think many do. But, as far as your brain is concerned, that is a social exchange, and uses the same neural anatomy as any other social exchange. You're positing the other person rather than experiencing them, but the motivation and framing of the ensuing conversation is nevertheless social in nature. A fever is still an immunological response, even if a particular fever was triggered by a psychosomatic rather than viral challenge.