email, chat, online community, and linguistic anthropology

[Jim Wilce]

Dear linganth listserve participants,

This is a summary of responses I received to my query about email,
chat, online community, and linguistic anthropology, augmented by a
tiny bit of research on my own. I must say that it still seems to me
there is no linguistic anthropology per se being done, but good
ground work is being laid for us to build out on a foundation of
discourse analysis and ethnography that IS being done.

Best,

Jim

Dear linganth listserve participants,

This is a summary of responses I received to my query about email,
chat, online community, and linguistic anthropology, augmented by a
tiny bit of research on my own. I must say that it still seems to me
there is no linguistic anthropology per se being done, but good
ground work is being laid for us to build out on a foundation of
discourse analysis and ethnography that IS being done.

Best,

Jim


Maggie Ronkin refers us to Georgetown's new program in Culture,
Communication, and Technology.  The program is Communication,
Culture, and Technology, and here is the URL:
http://cct.georgetown.edu/
 From there, click on "Thesis Database" on the menu to the left.
Maggie also mentions:
Hakken, David
1999 Cyborgs at Cyberspace?: An anthropologist looks to the future.
	New York: Routledge Press.

She recommends "Also try David Hakken's webpages, etc. Or even email him."

Maggie points us to Susan Herring's publications, (some of which are
listed on a page by Ellen Spertus, assistant professor of Computer
Science at Mills College:
http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/ellens/Gender/glc/refs.html
And see Herring's own page:
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/faculty/herring/publications_no.html
But note that her publication titles do not indicate an ethnographic
or linguistic anthropological approach. Lots is being written from a
discourse analysis perspective, and that's what Herring gives.-Jim)

Karl Reisman sent this poetic response:
What strikes me is the question
     Is there a culture of virtual discourse
         or  cultures
    In what ways does this culture emerge and get transmitted
    and what kind of social/cultural controls exist on it or them?
    In what ways are these "speech communities" different from
      natural human speech communities
      and from such communities as sign among various deaf groups
      and other perhaps more artificial or international speech communities.
          Pidgin cross language speakers,  diplomatic language
          etc etc etc

Karl Reisman
Bryllars at concentric.net

Francis Hult recommended
	Crystal, D.  (2001).  Language and the Internet.  Cambridge: CUP.


Anita Pucket recommends
both Crystal and The Internet:  An Ethnographic Approach by Daniel
Miller and Don Slater, Oxford 2000. Necessarily semiotic/linguistic
rather than directly linguistic anthropological, but useful.

Liz Coville nailed my original question, pointing me back to the
article I had found and lost:
"The Anthropology of Online Communities" by Samuel Wilson and
Leighton Peterson in _Annual Review  of Anthro_, 2002, 31:449-67?

Rudi Gaudio recommends two books:
Lori Kendall's _Hanging Out in
the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online_ (U Calif 2002) &
Lyn Cherny's _Conversation & Community_ (CSLI 1998?).

Jack Sidnell suggests:
Not linguistic anthropology but otherwise excellent is Ian Hutchby's
Conversation and Technology.

Rachel (rrr28 at drexel.edu) at Drexel referred me to this online
article in West Africa Review (1999) ISSN: 1525-4488, Nationalism in
a Virtual Space: Immigrant Nigerians on the Internet
http://www.westafricareview.com/war/vol1.1/bastian.html
	Rachel also mentioned Jennifer Cohen's recent UIC
dissertation, "Mexican American High School Girls: Language,
Identity, and Academic Achievement

--
Jim Wilce, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Northern Arizona University
PO Box 15200
Flagstaff AZ 86011-5200
Office phone: 928-523-2729
email: jim.wilce at nau.edu
Home page: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmw22

New! You can now order Jim's 2003 edited volume, Social and Cultural
Lives of Immune Systems, from Routledge. See
http://www.routledge-ny.com/books.cfm?isbn=0415310040.
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