Linguistic Anthropology

[Bryllars at concentric.net]

Recent correspondence I have received suggests to me that it might be
useful to remind
ourselves of some of the historical sources of the term Linguistic
Anthropology
and the kinds of study associated with it -

The term was coined by Dell Hymes in the late 1950's to distinguish his
broader concern
for language in its cultural contexts from the term Anthropological
Linguistics which at
that time was used to refer to the detailed "linguistic" study of
non-western, often
non-written, languages (see the journal of that name). It was also an
attempt to
rescue the content of the many courses called "Language and Culture" from
a narrrow focus on so-called "Whorfian" issues.

As Hymes put it in his anthology Language in Culture and Society,
  "linguistic anthropology can be defined as the study of language within
the context of
anthropology."

   While it in no way excluded the biological or genetic dimensions of
cultural behavior
it was clearly interested in a broad human concern not in any form of
simple reductionism
 - nor was it interested in the reintroduction of racial characterizations
under the - false -
guise of a study of the biological dimensions of human nature and behavior.

Bryllars