Linguistic anthropology is that branch of anthropology that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems, linking the analysis of semiotic and particularly linguistic forms and processes (on both small and large scales) to the interpretation of sociocultural processes (again on small and large scales). Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... Theoretical linguistics is that branch of linguistics that is most concerned with developing models of linguistic knowledge. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... Phonology (Greek phonē = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ... For other uses, see Morphology. ... For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... Lexical semantics is a field in computer science and linguistics which deals mainly with word meaning. ... Statistical Semantics is the study of how the statistical patterns of human word usage can be used to figure out what people mean, at least to a level sufficient for information access (Furnas, 2006). ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Prototype Theory is a model of graded categorization in Cognitive Science, where some members of a category are more central than others. ... In linguistics and semiotics, pragmatics is concerned with bridging the explanatory gap between sentence meaning and speakers meaning. ... Applied linguistics is the branch of linguistics concerned with using linguistic theory to address real-world problems. ... For the academic journal, see Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics Language acquisition is the process by which the language capability develops in a human. ... Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and understand language. ... This article or section cites its sources but does not provide page references. ... Generative linguistics is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of a generative grammar. ... In linguistics and cognitive science, cognitive linguistics (CL) refers to the currently dominant school of linguistics that views the important essence of language as innately based in evolutionarily-developed and speciated faculties, and seeks explanations that advance or fit well into the current understandings of the human mind. ... Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical and logical modeling of natural language from a computational perspective. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time. ... Comparative linguistics (originally comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their historical relatedness. ... Not to be confused with Entomology, the study of insects. ... Stylistics is the study of style used in literary, and verbal language and the effect the writer/speaker wishes to communicate to the reader/hearer. ... In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules for the use of a language, or the making of recommendations for effective language usage. ... Efforts to describe and explain the human language faculty have been undertaken throughout recorded history. ... A linguist in the academic sense is a person who studies linguistics. ... Unsolved problems in : Note: Use the unsolved tag: {{unsolved|F|X}}, where F is any field in the sciences: and X is a concise explanation with or without links. ... Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, human being; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the comparative study of the physical and social characteristics of humanity through the examination of historical and present geographical distribution, cultural history, acculturation, and cultural relationships. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... Semiotics (also spelled Semeiotics) is the study of signs and sign systems. ...

Historical development

As Duranti (2003) has noted (and the next paragraphs summarize his article), three paradigms have emerged over the history of the subdiscipline. Since the late 1960s, the word paradigm (IPA: ) has referred to a thought pattern in any scientific discipline or other epistemological context. ...

"Anthropological linguistics"

Main article: Anthropological linguistics

The first paradigm was originally referred to as "linguistics", although as it and its surrounding fields of study matured it came to be known as "anthropological linguistics". The field was devoted to themes unique to the subdiscipline—linguistic documentation of languages then seen as doomed to extinction (these were the languages of native North America on which the first members of the subdiscipline focused) such as: Anthropological linguistics is the study of language through human genetics and human development. ... Since the late 1960s, the word paradigm (IPA: ) has referred to a thought pattern in any scientific discipline or other epistemological context. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... Anthropological linguistics is the study of language through human genetics and human development. ... The Dodo, shown here in illustration, is an often-cited[1] example of modern extinction. ...

• Grammatical description,
• Typological classification (see typology), and
• The unresolved issue of linguistic relativity (associated with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf but actually developed by Franz Boas and, before him, by a long line of European thinkers from Vico to Herder to Humboldt).

For Wikipedias categorization projects, see Wikipedia:Categorization. ... The word typology literally means the study of types. ... In linguistics, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (SWH) states that there is a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it. ... Edward Sapir. ... Benjamin Lee Whorf (April 24, 1897 - July 26, 1941) was an American linguist. ... Franz Boas Franz Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942[1]) was one of the pioneers of modern anthropology and is often called the Father of American Anthropology. Born in Germany, Boas worked for most of his life in North America. ... Vico can refer to: Giambattista Vico Francesco de Vico Vico, a commune in the Corse-du-Sud département of France This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... A herder is a worker who lives a semi-nomadic life, caring for various domestic animals, especially in places where these animals wander unfenced pasture lands. ... // Humboldt can refer to: Alexander von Humboldt, a German natural scientist Wilhelm von Humboldt (his brother), a linguist, philosopher, and diplomat Or any of the many things named for them: Named for Alexander von Humboldt Places in California, U.S. Humboldt Bay in California Humboldt County, California Humboldt Hill Humboldt...

"Linguistic anthropology"

Dell Hymes was largely responsible for launching the second paradigm that fixed the name "linguistic anthropology" in the 1960s, though he also coined the term "ethnography of speaking" (or "ethnography of communication") to describe the agenda he envisioned for the field. It would involve taking advantage of new developments in technology, including new forms of mechanical recording. Dell Hymes (born 1927 in Portland, Oregon) is a sociolinguist, anthropologist, and folklorist whose work has dealt primarily with languagues of the Pacific Northwest. ... Since the late 1960s, the word paradigm (IPA: ) has referred to a thought pattern in any scientific discipline or other epistemological context. ... Ethnography (from the Greek ethnos = people and graphein = writing) refers to the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. ... Ethnography (from the Greek ethnos = people and graphein = writing) refers to the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. ... Communication is a process that allows people to exchange information by one of several methods. ...

A new unit of analysis was also introduced by Hymes. Whereas the first paradigm focused on ostensibly distinct "languages" (scare quotes indicate that contemporary linguistic anthropologists treat the concept of "a language" as an ideal construction covering up complexities within and "across" so-called linguistic boundaries), the unit of analysis in the second paradigm was new — the "speech event." (The speech event is an event defined by the speech occurring in it -- a lecture, for example -- so that a dinner is not a speech event, but a speech situation, a situation in which speech may or may not occur.) Much attention was devoted to speech events in which performers were held accountable for the form of their linguistic performance as such (Bauman 1977, Hymes 1981 [1975]). The unit of analysis is the major entity that is being analyzing in the study. ... iDEAL is an Internet payment method in The Netherlands, based on online banking. ...

Hymes also pioneered a linguistic anthropological approach to ethnopoetics. Ethnopoetics refers to poetic traditions which are typically seen as tribal or otherwise ethnic by the West (or indeed between any ethnoculturally different peoples). ...

Hymes had hoped to link linguistic anthropology more closely with the mother discipline. The name certainly stresses that the primary identity is with anthropology, whereas "anthropological linguistics" conveys a sense that the primary identity of its practitioners was with linguistics, which is a separate academic discipline on most university campuses today (not in the days of Boas and Sapir). However, Hymes' ambition in a sense backfired; the second paradigm in fact marked a further distancing of the subdiscipline from the rest of anthropology. Anthropological linguistics is the study of language through human genetics and human development. ... For other uses, see Boa (disambiguation). ... Edward Sapir (pronunciation: suh PEER), (1884-1939) was an American anthropologist-linguist, a leader in American structural linguistics, and one of the creators of what is now called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. ... Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, human being; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the comparative study of the physical and social characteristics of humanity through the examination of historical and present geographical distribution, cultural history, acculturation, and cultural relationships. ...

Anthropological issues studied via linguistic methods and data

In the current paradigm, which has emerged since the late 1980s, instead of continuing to pursue agendas that come from a discipline alien to anthropology, linguistic anthropologists have systematically addressed themselves to problems posed by the larger discipline of anthropology—but using linguistic data and methods. Since the late 1960s, the word paradigm (IPA: ) has referred to a thought pattern in any scientific discipline or other epistemological context. ... Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, human being; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the comparative study of the physical and social characteristics of humanity through the examination of historical and present geographical distribution, cultural history, acculturation, and cultural relationships. ... Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, human being; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the comparative study of the physical and social characteristics of humanity through the examination of historical and present geographical distribution, cultural history, acculturation, and cultural relationships. ...

Areas of interest

Identity

So, for example, they investigate questions of sociocultural identity *linguistically*. Linguistic anthropologist Don Kulick has done this in relation to identity, for example, in a series of settings, first in a village called Gapun in Papua New Guinea (Kulick 1992). Kulick explored how the use of two languages with and around children in Gapun village—the traditional language (Taiap) not spoken anywhere but in their own village and thus primordially "indexical" of Gapuner identity, and Tok Pisin (the widely circulating official language of New Guinea). (Linguistic anthropologists use "indexical" to mean indicative, though some indexical signs create their indexical meanings on the fly, so to speak Silverstein 1976.) To speak the Taiap language is associated with one identity—not only local but "Backward" and also an identity based on the display of *hed* (personal autonomy). To speak Tok Pisin is to index a modern, Christian (Catholic) identity, based not on *hed* but on *save*, that is an identity linked with the will and the skill to cooperate. In later work (Kulick and Klein 2003), Kulick demonstrates that certain loud speech performances called *um escândalo*, Brazilian travesti (roughly, 'transvestite') sex workers shame clients. The travesti community, the argument goes, ends up at least making a powerful attempt to transcend the shame the larger Brazilian public might try to foist off on them—again, through loud public discourse and other modes of performance. Cultural identity is the (feeling of) identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as she/he is influenced by her/his belonging to a group or culture. ... This article includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... Taiap (also called Gapun) is a language isolate spoken by around a hundred people in the remote village of Gupun in Papua New Guinea. ... Look up Index in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Socialization

Linguistic anthropologists Elinor Ochs and Bambi Schieffelin, in a remarkable series of studies (Ochs and Schieffelin 1984; Ochs 1988; Ochs and Taylor 2001; Schieffelin 1990) addressed the important anthropological topic of socialization (the process by which infants, children, and foreigners become members of a community, learning to participate in its culture), using linguistic as well as ethnographic methods. They discovered that the processes of enculturation and socialization do not occur apart from the process of language acquisition, but that children acquire language and culture together in what amounts to an integrated process. Ochs and Schieffelin demonstrated that baby talk is not universal, that the direction of adaptation (whether the child is made to adapt to the ongoing situation of speech around it or vice versa) was a variable that correlated, for example, with the direction it was held vis-à-vis a caregiver's body. In many societies caregivers hold a child facing outward so as to orient it to a network of kin whom it must learn to recognize early in life. This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... For the academic journal, see Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics Language acquisition is the process by which the language capability develops in a human. ... Baby talk, motherese, parentese, or child-directed speech (CDS) is a non-standard form of speech used by adults, particularly mothers, in talking to toddlers and infants. ... A universal proposition is one that affirms a property of all the members of a set. ...

Ochs and Schieffelin demonstrated that members of all societies socialize children both to and through the use of language. Ochs and Taylor uncovered how, through naturally occurring stories told during dinners in white middle class households in southern California, both mothers and fathers participated in replicating male dominance (the "father knows best" syndrome) by the distribution of participant roles such as protagonist (often a child but sometimes mother and almost never the father) and "problematizer" (often the father, who raised uncomfortable questions or challenged the competence of the protagonist). When mothers collaborated with children to get their stories told they unwittingly set themselves up to be subject to this process. The middle class (or middle classes) comprises a social group once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry. ... For the urban complex straddling the United States-Mexico border, see Bajalta California. ... Maledom, or male dominance, generally refers to heterosexual BDSM activities where the dominant partner is male, and the submissive partner is female. ...

Schieffelin's more recent research (1995, 2000, 2002, 2006) has uncovered the socializing role of pastors and other fairly new Bosavi converts in the Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea community she studies. Pastors have introduced new ways of conveying knowledge— i.e. new linguistic epistemic markers (1995)—and new ways of speaking about time (2002). And they have struggled with and largely resisted those parts of the Bible that speak of being able to know the inner states of others (e.g. the gospel of Mark, chapter 2, verses 6-8; Schieffelin 2006). Location of Southern Highlands Province in Papua New Guinea Southern Highlands is a province in Papua New Guinea. ... 1. ... The Gospel of Mark (literally, according to Mark; Greek, Κατά Μαρκον, Kata Markon),(anonymous[1] but ascribed to Mark the Evangelist) is a Gospel of the New Testament. ...

Ideologies

In a third example of the current (third) paradigm, since Roman Jakobson's student, Michael Silverstein (1979) opened the way, there has been an efflorescence of work done by linguistic anthropologists on the major anthropological theme of ideologies—in this case "linguistic ideologies," sometimes defined as "shared bodies of commonsense notions about the nature of language in the world" (Rumsey 1990:346). Silverstein (1985) has demonstrated that these ideologies are not mere false consciousness but actually influence the evolution of linguistic structures, including the dropping of "thee" and "thou" from everyday English usage. Woolard (2004), in her overview of "code switching," or the systematic practice of alternating linguistic varieties within a conversation or even a single utterance, finds the underlying question anthropologists ask of the practice—Why do they do that?—reflects a dominant linguistic ideology. It is the ideology that people should "really" be monoglot and efficiently targeted toward referential clarity rather than diverting themselves with the messiness of multiple varieties in play at a single time. Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ... An ideology is a collection of ideas. ... An ideology is a collection of ideas. ... For the American independence advocacy pamphlet by Thomas Paine, see Common Sense. ... An ideology is a collection of ideas. ... False consciousness is the Engelsist hypothesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society mislead the proletariat — and perhaps the other classes — over the nature of capitalism. ... Most modern English speakers think of thou as a relic of Shakespeares day This article is about the pronoun. ... Most modern English speakers think of thou as a relic of Shakespeares day. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... This article or section needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ...

Attitudes toward codes such as Spanish and English in the U.S. are certainly informed by linguistic ideologies. This extends to the widespread impression, created by statements such as that by U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee (in regards to a recently passed measure making English the "official" language of the U.S.), that English is "part of our blood." To Horwitz, this invocation of blood implies that English reflects the deepest vein of the nation's ancestry, i.e., the oldest language spoken in what is now the United States. Such a claim, if made openly, would be doubly absurd, ignoring a) all of the Native American languages severely impacted by the arrival of Europeans, but also b) Spanish, the language of a rather sizable number of European explorers and settlers across the length and breadth of what is now the United States (Horwitz 2006). Thus Alexander is attempting to "naturalize" language and national identity via the metaphor of "blood."

Much research on linguistic ideologies probes subtler influences on language, such as the pull exerted on Tewa—a Kiowa-Tanoan language spoken in certain New Mexico Pueblos as well as on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona (Kroskrity 1998)—by "kiva speech," discussed in the next section.

Social space

In a final example of this third paradigm, a group of linguistic anthropologists has done very creative work on the idea of social space. Duranti published a ground breaking article on Samoan greetings and their use and transformation of social space (1992). Prior to that, Indonesianist Joseph Errington (1988)—making use of earlier work by Indonesianists not necessarily concerned with language issues per se—brought linguistic anthropological methods (and semiotic theory) to bear on the notion of the "exemplary center," or the center of political and ritual power from which emanated exemplary behavior. Errington demonstrated how the Javanese *priyayi*, whose ancestors served at the Javanese royal courts, became emissaries, so to speak, long after those courts had ceased to exist, representing throughout Java the highest example of 'refined speech.' The work of Joel Kuipers further develops this theme vis-a-vis on the island of Sumba, Indonesia. And, even though it pertains to Tewa Indians in Arizona rather than Indonesians, Paul Kroskrity's argument that speech forms originating in the Tewa kiva (or underground ceremonial space) forms the dominant model for all Tewa speech can be seen as a rather direct parallel. A spoken greeting (often imprecisely called a verbal greeting) is a customary or ritualised word or phrase used to introduce oneself or to greet someone. ... Semiotics (also spelled Semeiotics) is the study of signs and sign systems. ... Javanese is a term used to describe a native of the Indonesian island of Java. ... Priyayi is the traditional aristocratic class of Java, the most populous island of Indonesia. ... Javanese is a term used to describe a native of the Indonesian island of Java. ... Java (Indonesian, Javanese, and Sundanese: Jawa) is an island of Indonesia and the site of its capital city, Jakarta. ... The Lesser Sunda Islands; Sumba is in the center Sumba is an island in Indonesia, and is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands. ... The Tewa are an ethnic group of American Indians who speak the Tewa language and have a Pueblo culture. ... Official language(s) English Capital Phoenix Largest city Phoenix Area  Ranked 6th  - Total 113,998 sq mi (295,254 km²)  - Width 310 miles (500 km)  - Length 400 miles (645 km)  - % water 0. ... Reconstructed kiva at Bandelier National Monument. ...

Silverstein (2004) tries to find the maximum theoretical significance and applicability in this idea of exemplary centers. He feels, in fact, that the exemplary center idea is one of linguistic anthropology's three most important findings. He generalizes the notion in the following manner, arguing that “there are wider-scale institutional ‘orders of interactionality,’ historically contingent yet structured. Within such large-scale, macrosocial orders, in-effect ritual centers of semiosis come to exert a structuring, value-conferring influence on any particular event of discursive interaction with respect to the meanings and significance of the verbal and other semiotic forms used in it” (2004: 623; compare Wilce in press). Current approaches to such classic anthropological topics as ritual by linguistic anthropologists emphasize not static linguistic structures but the unfolding in realtime of a "'hypertrophic' set of parallel orders of iconicity and indexicality that seem to cause the ritual to create its own sacred space through what appears, often, to be the magic of textual and nontextual metricalizations, synchronized" (Wilce 2006; see Silverstein 2004:626). Institutions are structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of two or more individuals. ... A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value, which is prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. ... Semiosis is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. ... Look up value in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. ... Semiotics (also spelled Semeiotics) is the study of signs and sign systems. ... A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value, which is prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. ... Hypertrophy is the increase of the size of an organ. ... In functional-cognitive linguistics, as well as in semiotics, iconicity is the conceived similarity or analogy between a form of a sign (linguistic or otherwise) and its meaning, as opposed to arbitrariness. ... In the philosophy of language, an indexical behavior or utterance is one whose meaning varies according to certain features of the context in which it is uttered. ... The Sorceress by John William Waterhouse Magic and sorcery are the influencing of events, objects, people and physical phenomena by mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. ...

References

External links

Downloadable publications of authors cited in the article

• Alessandro Duranti's publications
• Joel Kuipers' publications
• Elinor Ochs' publications
• Bambi Schieffelin's publications
• James Wilce's publications

Further readings

See also

• Anthropology
• Communication
• Ethnography
• Franz Boas
• Identity (social science)
• Ideology
• Indexicality
• Jakobson
• Linguistics
• Anthropological linguistics
• Sapir
• Semiotics
• Sociocultural linguistics
• Whorf

Bold text Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, human being; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the comparative study of the physical and social characteristics of humanity through the examination of historical and present geographical distribution, cultural history, acculturation, and cultural relationships. ... Communication is a process that allows people to exchange information by one of several methods. ... Ethnography (from the Greek ethnos = people and graphein = writing) refers to the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. ... Franz Boas Franz Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942[1]) was one of the pioneers of modern anthropology and is often called the Father of American Anthropology. Born in Germany, Boas worked for most of his life in North America. ... Identity is an umbrella term used throughout the social sciences for an individuals comprehension of him or herself as a discrete, separate entity. ... Political Ideologies Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ... In the philosophy of language, an indexical behavior or utterance is one whose meaning varies according to certain features of the context in which it is uttered. ... Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... Anthropological linguistics is the study of language through human genetics and human development. ... Edward Sapir (pronunciation: suh PEER), (1884-1939) was an American anthropologist-linguist, a leader in American structural linguistics, and one of the creators of what is now called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. ... Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. ... Sociocultural linguistics is a term used to encompass a broad range of theories and methods for the study of language in its sociocultural context. ... Benjamin Lee Whorf (April 24, 1897 - July 26, 1941) was an American linguist. ...