鈥淪poken language on its own doesn鈥檛 work either. It鈥檚 very rare that people use only spoken language鈥�, she says.
Leelo Keevallik recently published an opinion piece in the journal 鈥淩esearch on Language and Social Interaction鈥�, where she argues that the traditional way of looking at grammar has to change, and that grammar and language are woven together with body movements in interaction.
鈥淲e learn language so we can communicate with those around us. I argue that the real language is found in relation to situations and to other people. Language would have no meaning if no one was listening鈥�, she says.
So the spoken language would not be intelligible if it wasn鈥檛 backed up by our body language and if it didn鈥檛 consider context. Furthermore, there must be interplay between people, and we interpret each others鈥� actions based on their exact timing.
What is a language?
Linguistics is strongly polarised between two camps. One camp believes that language is primarily a complex structure in the brain. The other sees language mainly as a communicative tool, and that it evolves together with society.Leelo Keevallik is firmly positioned in the second camp.
鈥淭here are lots of theories that language is structured in the brain. People often argue that the important thing is the individual language that exists in our brains, almost like computer programming or algorithms. The alternative theory focusses on the structure that exists between speakers, as a result of the fact that we always relate to each other. For example, we use certain grammatical forms to answer a question, and others to ask someone to do something. For me, language is real when it is grounded in a relationship. If we were alone, we wouldn鈥檛 need language.鈥�
As a linguistics researcher, writing opinion pieces isn鈥檛 something you often do, which is exactly why Leelo Keevallik enjoyed doing it.
鈥淚 rarely get the chance to be provocative.鈥�
But Leelo Keevallik has not always studied language from her current perspective. When she started her training in her native Tartu, Estonia, the individual was at the centre of language. Some of the first things she investigated were dialects and old words.
鈥淏ack then I studied one person at a time, and tried to coax the language out of them. Now I never do that. Now I look at how people communicate with each other in various situations. When they dance, or do yoga, or act in a play or clean up a sheep stall.鈥�
Moaning, groaning and grunting
In her research, Leelo Keevallik works close to people, and often uses a video camera. The settings she studies are often ones that have not previously been studied. She recently looked at the language of people who work together in a sheep shed, because 鈥渢here is loads of research about what happens in business meetings鈥�.鈥淎t the kitchen table, silence is not normally good, but if you鈥檙e shovelling droppings in a sheep shed, being silent is accepted, as is grunting and swearing. That鈥檚 interesting.鈥�
Leelo Keevallik is also interested in the sounds that are not actual words. In a sheep shed, grunting can be used as communication with a friend about how a particular job is going.
鈥淚f two of you are going to lift something, grunting can be used to signal where in the lifting process you are, so you can work better together. For instance we can use these subtle sounds to convey that we鈥檙e losing our grip, even if we don鈥檛 necessarily realise we鈥檙e making them. But when you record people, as I do, you discover that they utter vast amounts of communicative sounds that aren鈥檛 normal language.鈥�
Most important is to be understood
In a future research project, Leelo Keevallik will study how much of a language is required for communication across language boundaries in physical work. The project has received funding from 脰stersj枚stiftelsen (the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies).
鈥淗ow much Swedish do Polish or Estonian guest workers need, when much of their communication is based on gestures, eye contact and other body language?鈥�
She points to the construction site outside, where the new Student Building is taking form.
鈥淟anguage is tied to specific situations. If you鈥檙e building something, you have to communicate using the documentation for the project. I鈥檓 professor of linguistics and I think grammar is important, but making yourself understood is more important than finding the correct verb form.鈥�
So the best way to learn a language might not be reeling off verb forms. Instruction could be more focussed on specific situations that the learners need in their day-to-day lives.
Leelo Keevallik鈥檚 own situation is that she works in a number of languages, without fully mastering them. She says she speaks 鈥渙nly鈥� Swedish, English and Estonian. But in Zurich her German is sufficient to teach students and her French is enough to comment on doctoral theses. She has lived in Finland, and Finnish is close to her Estonian, her mother tongue. And when she went to school in Estonia there was instruction in Russian.
鈥淲e should speak more languages than we do today. You don鈥檛 have to be perfect. We should think about that when we try to make ourselves understood, and when someone else tries to make themselves understood to us.鈥�
Translation Martin Mirko
Article:
Leelo Keevallik, Journal of Research of Language and Social Interaction. Volume 51, 2018 - Issue 1. Published online 9 March 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2018.1413887
