Reviews on Ling Anthro in the US?

Dave Paulson dave.paulson at TEMPLE.EDU
Fri Feb 22 17:49:41 UTC 2013


Dear Nathaniel,

I would recommend Duranti's "Language as Culture in U.S. Anthropology."

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/368118

*Abstract*
*
*
The study of language as culture in U.S. anthropology is a set of distinct
and often not fully compatible practices that can be made sense of through
the identification of three historically related paradigms. Whereas the
first paradigm, initiated by Boas, was mostly devoted to documentation,
grammatical description, and classification (especially of North American
indigenous languages) and focused on linguistic relativity, the second
paradigm, developed in the 1960s, took advantage of new recording
technology and new theoretical insights to examine language use in context,
introducing new units of analysis such as the speech event. Although it was
meant to be part of anthropology at large, it marked an intellectual
separation from the rest of anthropology. The third paradigm, with its
focus on identity formation, narrativity, and ideology, constitutes a new
attempt to connect with the rest of anthropology by extending linguistic
methods to the study of issues previously identified in other (sub)fields.
Although each new paradigm has reduced the influence and appeal of the
preceding one, all three paradigms persist today, and confrontation of
their differences is in the best interest of the discipline.

All the best,
Dave Paulson

-- 
Dave Paulson
PhD Student & University Fellow
Temple University, Department of Anthropology
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
United States



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