Talk:Linguistic anthropology/Archive 1

Untitled
At some point this article should be incorporated into the general article in linguistics. Slrubenstein

I think there ought to be a new page on linguistic ideology. It's an important topic and there are scads of books about it. Unfortunately, I'm not so confident in my knowledge of the topic that I want to start/shape the page. Anyone want to step up? Superabo 08:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

And another thing: this page links to anthropological linguistics, but that page seems to have little to do with the concept linking it. What to do about that?

Since when are asterisks used to denote foreign terms?134.29.33.119 21:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there a way to make this a bit less, um, academic?
I realize it might be difficult to keep it concise, but there is a lot of jargon in this article. Such as:

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"

that's basically nonsense for a person trying to learn about linguistic anthropology as opposed to someone who already knows about it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Josephbsullivan (talk • contribs) 06:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC). Josephbsullivan 06:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Signed. As a beginning linguist, some of the jargon in this article gets away from me. Certain parts later in the article seem sort of coherent but oddly disfluent in meaning, a little bit semantically marked. --Utopianfiat (talk) 01:54, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, There seems to be an error in the reference to the Bible passage cited: "gospel of Mark, chapter 2, verses 6-8". There doesn't seem to be any mention in the verses cxited that refer to the "knowledge of inner states of others" as claimed in this entry. Could anyone give the correct reference???

By the way, FWIW I don't think this section should be included in a larger section and DEFINITELY NOT into linguistics!!!

LookingGlass 10:00, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not think that this article should be less "academic" but rather explained more. The basic outline that is present is a good if not developed skeleton of the topic. The "jargon" are terms and ideas that are crucial to the field and in defining the words more topics and important ideas could be discussed. For example, expanding the comments on Code Switching would allow more than the few comments on linguistic ideology and branch into topics like identifying the audience and identifying one's self in terms of other groups of people. Code Switching is not just about ideology, it wraps up topics like cultural identity and how that is tied to language. If the number of communities trying to preserve local languages in environments where the official governmental language is different (like Gaelic in Scotland or Musqueam in BC Canada) says anything, it shows that language indexes group identity. Preserving such languages was actually part of the original goal of Anthropological Linguists who practiced "Salvage Anthropology", so called because they were trying to document cultures that were in danger of "disappearing" due to Western European influence through colonialism.
 * The areas of interest section is a little long and might (eventually) need to have shorter summaries and links to corresponding pages. In the meantime it might be easier to understand if things were bullet pointed and summarized with links to the corresponding studies rather than summaries of the studies which can look a bit daunting to the reader.
 * Overall, I do not find the article horrible to read, but I have also spend a few years learning about the field and reading some of the major pieces of literature. Going back to Alessandro Duranti and Dell Hymes as references and suggested readings would be a good start because they have both edited books that present ideas for students as well as writing their own research for people within the field. If a new term is used it should be defined, or linked to a related page, rather than assuming that it is known by the audience. For instance, "Performance" is linked to its own page, but a short definition along the lines of "the act of speaking in a situation" would be a helpful addition. "Iconicity" and "Indexicality" should also be expanded because they are major parts of the field and really show how Linguistics and Anthropology overlap. I would suggest referencing works like Bruce Mannhiem's Iconicity and Rupert Stasch's "Ritual and Oratory Revisited: The Semiotics of Effective Action".

LingAnthNerd (talk) 15:12, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Bettering this article
The second paragraph of the "Ideologies" section should be deleted. It is poorly written. It uses "impact" as a verb ('impacted'). It cites an op-ed piece in the NY Times as an authority on academic subjects. It is poorly argued: it sets up a straw person and demolishes it. The "blood" metaphor may equally well mean that the British traditions and institutions deeply informed the social organization of the new republic -- much more so than the Spanish ones. What this means is that the paragraph commits the cardinal sin of being ideological -- ironically in the section about abuses of language for ideological purposes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adnakhwp (talk • contribs) 03:10, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

This article confuses the concepts of "anthropological linguistics" and "linguistic anthropology" and treats both in inconsistent and incoherent manners. I will undertake a serious clean up soon.·Maunus· · ƛ · 17:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

"I don't understand the point of dispute. The article mentions 'anthropological linguistics' and 'linguistic anthropology.' Are you suggesting that is reverses the labels? In that case, I disagree - I think the current discussion is reasonably accurate. Also, could you suggest more concretely which elements you find inconsistent and incoherent?"

"Personally, I find the introductory paragraph headed 'Anthropological issues studied via linguistic methods and data' confusing and perhaps misleading. The rest of the article seems acceptable, though.Cnilep (talk) 17:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)"


 * Actually you are right. I was too quick on the trigger there. I was reading the article in connection with the article on anthropological linguistics: on further thought I think its the latter that is disputable. This article is just written in an obfuscating, or overly academic manner which I think confused me. I will try to word it down to my level. Just to check my pre-theoretical understaning of the terminology: If I were to define "linguistic anthropology" I would start by saying that from the beginning it was the part of anthropology that studies language, back when descriptive linguistics in the USA was seen as a subdiscipline of anthropology. Then I would say that as descriptive linguistics fused with structural linguistics and historical linguistics into the discipline now known simply as linguistics, linguistic anthropology came to mean specifically the study of culture through linguistic methods (this would be the second paradigm I suppose). In my understanding, currently linguistic anthropology can be said to differ from anthropological linguistics in that the first is a subdiscipline of anthropology that applies linguistic methods to study anthropological phenomena, whereas the second is a subdiscipline of linguistics that study linguistic phenomena in their cultural setting and the interrelatedness between linguistic phenomena and anthropological phenomena. How do you feel about such a definition?


 * Yes, that sounds about right.Cnilep (talk) 18:49, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I do disagree slightly with the historical progression of paradigms. Although I do understand that anthropological linguistics can be seen as having sprung from linguistic anthropology as Duranti states, I think it would be less confusing to see it as having sprung from linguistics proper, and not less true. I think it rests a lot on the understanding of Dell Hymes as being the principal father of anthtopological linguistics, which i think is debatable: I would go further back to Boas, Sapir and Whorf to find the roots of anthropological linguistics. Such important fields of anthropological linguistics as colour terminology research, linguistic taxonomy studies, spatio-temporal terminology research and categorization research can't really be traced back to Hymes - and indeed they developed parallel with his work. Ethnography of speaking/ethnolinguistics is certainly an important part of anthropological linguistics but not the only one. Therefore I propose to move away from Duranti's interpretation of the historcial evolution of the discipline of linguistic anthropology, at least as the basis for the structure of the article. I also propose to change the definition of anthropological linguistics both here and in the article Anthropological linguistics ·Maunus· · ƛ · 20:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I am also confused about the methodological shift from "anthropological linguistics" to "linguistic anthropology" described in the article under Hymes', and I want to know where the idea that linguistic anthropology distances itself from other domains of anthropology comes from, that is, more specific reference needed. 02/18/2018. L_Y_

ugh…
While a lot of this is very interesting, none of this is Wikipedia-esque. I came here for answers, and all I got were tangents, esoteric examples and further confused. Give examples their own page, link to them from this page, and PUT UP DEFINITIONS! I still have absolutely no idea what linguistic anthropology is (or what anthropological linguistics is, for that matter). Please stay consistent with the Wikipedia standard; this style of writing is completely out of character. thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Halverso (talk • contribs) 20:22, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it is very in character with academic anthropology - which has invented its own canting language to appear 'scientific' - plain language please! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.178.200.72 (talk) 20:38, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Do something about this article!
I am quite an ignorant on the matter portrayed in this article and that was precisely the reason why I looked it up in here, because I wanted to get at least a general, comprehensive idea of the topic. This is an article suited, if not to specialists in the field, at the very least to people with knowledge in social sciences and particularly in anthropology. By the looks of it I would say it is a very nice article, with lots of references and so one, but it is based on the principle you already know something. It starts with lots of jargon and academic works and results without explaining efficiently the basics. I find it lovely people should deepen the level of reliable knowledge (or so it seems) available in wikipedia, but nerds writing these things ought to keep in their brilliant minds there are people out there just looking for good basic, clear, straightforward information. My point is, this article neglects what I believe should be is main goal: to enlighten the common citizen on the topic!

Hugo Pereira —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.193.211.173 (talk) 10:16, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Mr. Pereira, your point is quite germane. Those are my sentiments exactly. I'm doing some work on these articles and so are others. There are some obstacles - one is the intrinsic size and sprawling nature of the articles. Index of linguistics articles gives some idea of it.
 * It takes a long time just to get this material organized. A second factor is the confrontational nature of special interests, such as the opponents of evolution. Then there is the personal egotism of the authors, who also confront if you dare change a word of what THEY wrote. And finally is the confrontation of the admins, each of which has his own interpretation of WP policy and is also a WP editor. And finally there are just all the faults and failings of mankind. Bottom line: it's tough for a mass effort to get everything together. Many times I have been convinced that WP was incapable in certain areas, such as philosophy, but over a period of time I think you will find it is possible. Thank you for your useful opinion. If you should care to bite the bullet and plunge into the awful fray I am sure your view would make a difference. There would be a learning curve, which no doubt you would find as uncomfortable as all the rest of us.Dave (talk) 08:54, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Removing external links
Is there a reason that Niko Besnier's publications were removed? There was no edit summary. I find it handy to have a link to these primary works in linguistic anthropology. Cnilep (talk) 14:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Mr. Cnilep, if the person who deleted it did not give a reason I believe you can put it back and demand a reason. If you get another deletion without reason you can call it vandalism and revert it. You might get a reason, in which case you would have to discuss further. Sometimes material gets inadvertently deleted by people not yet that skilled in WP. You never can tell. If you get a confrontation - well, you are on your own. The resolution of conflict and confrontation is a tricky queation. There is a 3-reversion limit. Maybe an admin will step in, maybe not. Maybe the admin will be the obstacle. You put the money down and roll the dice. I'd change it for you but I'm busy. Bonne chance.Dave (talk) 09:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The boxes, the boxes
We have linguistic anthropology and anthropological linguistics, and we also have two boxes, anthropology and linguistics, each of which references linguistics. I think this article should have the anthropology box and the other the linguistics box - they are so long you probably wouldn't put them both in - so I am tentatively switching.Dave (talk) 09:08, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Notes, References, Further reading
This page currently uses parenthetical citations, which is fully in keeping with Wikipedia's Manual of Style. The MOS allows either footnotes or parentheticals, so long as the style is consistent throughout the article (see Citing sources). I note, though, that Biological anthropology, Cultural anthropology, and Social anthropology each use footnotes, while this article uses parentheticals. (Archaeology uses short footnotes combined with a list of full references. This has its own problems but is beyond the scope of my present suggestion.) A recent attempt by a new editor to improve the lead section also used footnotes and added a "Notes" section. I changed these to parentheticals to keep the page consistent.

Would anyone object to changing this page's citation style to footnotes to make it consistent with those of other anthropology sub-fields? Or, on the contrary, would any editor suggest reasons that the page should use parenthetical citations?

Second, the list of Further reading strikes me as unduly long. All of the items seem to be of high quality (though there are seven I haven't read), but 34 items seems excessive. Layout suggests only that the section may contain "a reasonable number of editor-recommended publications that do not appear elsewhere in the article and were not used to verify article content." It's not clear what counts as "reasonable," but personally ten or so seems reasonable to me. Cnilep (talk) 14:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the changes you suggested would be great. Footnotes are less distracting, easier to follow, and allow links to external websites for quick referencing. One can link a footnote to the exact page on google books. Revising the list on Further reading to books that are intended for people new to the field would be very beneficial.  Pooya72 (talk) 15:00, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Hearing no objections, I have converted the references to footnotes. The "further reading" section still needs to be dealt with, but I hesitate to pare it without more input from other editors. Cnilep (talk) 17:30, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

The section on "Socialization" under "Areas of Interest is lacking in references, particularly the 2nd paragraph. Additionally, I think the wording could be made a bit more clear in the 2nd paragraph: "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."– Pau.guerra (talk) 03:19, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

October 2014
Where are the Underhill references? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.36.179.100 (talk) 00:59, 24 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Well spotted. The anonymous user who added several mentions of Underhill placed the citations inside a hidden comment. I tracked them down and changed the parenthetical references to footnotes, in keeping with the article's style. I don't know Professor Underhill's work and have not vetted the content. Someone may want to make sure that discussion is given due weight within this article. The only other scholars cited three or more times are Alessandro Duranti, Elinor Ochs, Bambi Schieffelin, and Michael Silverstein; I don't know whether James Underhill is similarly influential. Cnilep (talk) 06:06, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * According to Web of Science, for what it's worth (and given WoS's coverage of social sciences and humanities, it's not worth all that much) M. Silverstein has an h-index of 86 with average citations per paper at 24.5, A. Duranti has h=11 and citations average 17.5, while J.W. Underhill has h=2 and citations average 1.2. Cnilep (talk) 06:23, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that is a good sign we dont need to cite him that much. His H index is almost as low as mine. :)User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:04, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I've removed the paragraph discussing J.W. Underhill's work in detail. I also moved the citation of Trabant and one of Underhill to the section "Anthropological linguistics". I think that is not really the most appropriate place for it, as that label mainly describes twentieth century American scholarship and Trabant and Underhill are twenty-first century Europeans, but that is where von Humboldt is currently discussed. I also removed the label "Continental Linguistic Anthropology", as I don't know of anyone actually using that term outside of Wikipedia. Someone should probably write a (properly balanced) section on linguistic anthropology in Europe. People like Jan Blommaert in the Netherlands and Nikolas Coupland in Wales are certainly doing things that I would call linguistic anthropology, though as far as I know it's usually called "applied linguistics" etc. in European institutions. Cnilep (talk) 02:16, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * There are also people such as Niko Besnier (in an anthropology department) and MArtha Sif Karrebæk (In a linguistics department). Unfortunately I dont know of any good secondary sources discussing the history or current practice of linguistic anthropology in Europe.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:29, 26 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I am likewise stumped for a good secondary source for European work comparable to Duranti or Hymes's summaries of North American linguistic anthropology. Here are a few possible sources comparing or summarizing research trends, which I plan to look into, in case anyone else wants to look, too.
 * Stanton Wortham (2008) "Linguistic Anthropology of Education", pp. 849-859, Encyclopedia of Language and Education
 * Jan Blommaert, James Collins, Monica Heller (2001) "Discourse and Critique: Part 1", pp. 5-12, Critique of Anthropology doi: 10.1177/0308275X0102100101
 * Jan Blommaert and Chris Bulcaen (2000) "Critical Discourse Analysis", pp. 447-466, Annual Review of Anthropology http://www.jstor.org/stable/223428
 * Cnilep (talk) 05:02, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Cambridge Handbook
This is a good potential source for this article: .User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:17, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

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Dumbing Down the Article
I've noticed several other people talk about how the article has too many advanced terms for people who are just curious about the article. To that end, I plan to edit the 'Historical Development' section in order to explain more thoroughly about the three paradigms. I believe once people understand the three paradigms and how they came about, it will be much easier to understand the rest of the article. --Alleycat41498 (talk) 18:59, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Expansion discussion
Here we can discuss how to organize the suggested expansion of this article.00:04, 15 September 2019 (UTC)·maunus · snunɐɯ·

ANTH 473 class expansion
Please be aware that my ANTH 473 Living Languages class will be editing this article, particularly the new section I've just created on Endangered Languages: Language Revitalization and Documentation, tomorrow in our class in advance of them editing other articles for a class project. If anyone has any questions or concerns about these edits, please let me know. Thanks CESchreyer (talk) 01:12, 7 October 2019 (UTC)CESchreyer

"Measuring phonemes" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Measuring_phonemes&redirect=no Measuring phonemes] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 16:30, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender and Culture
— Assignment last updated by Manofthewater (talk) 00:23, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Linguistic anthropology vs Anthropological linguistics
I wanted to discuss whether these two articles to should be merged, or if not how to clean them up; it isn't clear to me that both articles should exist and regrettably both have serious quality issues as it stands right now. However, this is not a formal merger discussion as such; I might open one depending on how this discussion goes. This is well outside my wheelhouse, so please correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that, as used today, these terms are largely synonymous, with linguistic anthropology being the generally preferred term. Historically, from what I can gather, the term anthropological linguistics was used in the first several decades of the 20th century by primarily North American academics (the "Americanists") working primarily on Native American languages to refer largely to what would now simply be called linguistics.

Both articles contain claims as to what the difference is between these two topics. However, the overall quality of both articles leaves a lot to be desired, and the exposition of what the supposed differences are is no exception; for example, linguistic anthropology contains the remarkably astute observations that anthropological linguistics, is devoted to themes unique to the sub-discipline (which field isn't? this is a tautology) and The second paradigm [linguistic anthropology] can be marked by reversing the words.

More to the point, the differences either article purports to point out don't actually seem to be borne out in the ways these terms are actually used, and are thus essentially just WP:OR, or, at best, WP:SYNTH— at least as best as I can tell, but if people have sources/evidence indicating otherwise, please provide it. The few sources the articles do provide supposedly attesting to this difference are spotty, inconsistent, or just super low-quality. Take this WordPress blogpost that's given as a source in Anthropological linguistics. First of all, you might notice it hedges its own exposition a lot with such statements as I’ll come up with a simple answer that works (for me) for the time being (I think). Second, if we look at the two main scholarly definitions of the respective fields the author of the post uses... there's just not that much difference:

"Anthropological linguistics is that sub-field of linguistics which is concerned with the place of language in its wide social and cultural context, its role in forging and sustaining cultural practice and social structures….[it] views language through the prism of the core anthropological concept, culture, and, as such, seeks to uncover the meaning behind the use, misuse or non-use of languages, its different forms, register and styles…"

- (Foley 1997: 3)

vs.

"Linguistic anthropologists view language in its cultural framework and are concerned with with the rules of its social use."

- (Salzmann 1998:16)

As the author of the blog themself notes, though, unfortunately for us, [Salzmann'd definition] is really close to what Foley said above.

The same article does cite one academic source, a chapter in the 1995 edition of Handbook of Pragmatics titled "Anthropological Linguistics" by Ben Blount. As this source notes, however, [a]nthropological linguistics, as a characterizing label, is often synonymous with linguistic anthropology. It does try to argue in favor of some difference in usage, but it makes the observation that a big part of this difference is historical, and in actual practice today there's generally a great deal of interchangeability between the fields. The conclusion of this section is especially enlightening for the discussion at hand:

"The anthropology of language is a label that would reflect and represent the entire field of inquiry well, but unfortunately it is not widely used. In the meantime, anthropological linguistics and linguistic anthropology overlap and can thus be used interchangeably, as will be done here, but with the recognition that specialists can and often do draw a distinction between them."

Another source that might be helpful is the Preface of Linguistic Anthropology: A Brief Introduction (it is worth noting for our discussion that the first edition of this book was actually titled A Basic Course in Anthropological Linguistics), available here on Google Books.

Anyways—as I said, this is not a formal merger discussion as such. However, I wanted to get input on what people think about this— specifically, how they feel about the following questions:

Brusquedandelion (talk) 12:05, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) Do you feel the two terms are consistently used differently in the literature?
 * 2) Do they warrant separate articles?
 * 3) If the answer to the last question is "yes," how can the articles be revised to better reflect the differences between these two fields? Right now there's a lot of overlap, not least because of the fact that each article spends a considerable proportion of it's total length just trying to differentiate itself from the other field.