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The two branches of anthropological linguistics are nomenclatural/classificational and ethnographic/sociolinguistics.

History
Although the two fields were studied together at various points in the nineteenth century, the intersection of anthropology and linguistics significantly grew in prominence during the early twentieth century. As American scholarship became increasingly interested in the diversity of Native American Societies in the New World, anthropologists and linguists worked in conjunction to analyze Native American languages and how language related to the origins, distribution, and characteristics of these indigenous populations. This interdisciplinary approach distinguished American anthropology from its European counterpart; while European anthropology largely focused on ethnography, American anthropology began to integrate linguistics and other disciplines. Anthropological linguistics initially focused largely on unwritten language, but is now used for both languages with and without written traditions.

Early anthropological linguists primarily focused on three major areas: linguistic description, classification, and methodology.


 * Linguistic Description: Scholars such as Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, Leonard Bloomfield, and Mary Haas drafted descriptions of linguistic structure and linguistic characteristics of different languages. They conducted research as fieldwork, using recordings of texts from native speakers and performing analysis to categorize the texts by linguistic form and genre.


 * Classification: Classification involved outlining the genetic relationships among languages. Linguistic classifications allowed anthropological linguists to organize large amounts of information about specific populations. By classifying language, scholars could systemize and order data from their ethnographic work.


 * Methodology: By analytically breaking down language, anthropological linguistics could use the constituent parts to derive social and cultural information. It also made pattern identification possible, with Boas and Sapir using these procedures to show that linguistic patterning was unrealized among speakers of a given language.

Phonology
Phonology is the study of speech patterns in a language. Phonology puts a large focus on the systematic structure of the sounds being observed. It outlines why phonetic features identify words.

Morphology
Morphology in linguistics commonly looks at the structure of words within a language to develop a better understanding for the word form being used. It is the branch of linguistics that deals with words, their internal structure, and their formation. Morphology looks broadly at the connection of word forms within a specific language in relation to the culture or environment it is rooted within.

Distinction from Other Subfields
Although the terms anthropological linguistics and linguistic anthropology are often viewed as being synonymous, specialists often make a distinction between them. While anthropological linguistics is considered a subfield of linguistics, linguistic anthropology is generally considered to be a subfield of anthropology. Anthropological linguistics also uses more distinctly linguistic methodology, and studies languages as "linguistic phenomena." Ultimately, anthropological linguistics focuses on the cultural and social meaning of language, with more of an emphasis on linguistic structure. Conversely, linguistic anthropology uses more anthropological methods (such as participant observation and fieldwork) to analyze language threw a cultural framework and determine the rules of its social use.

While anthropological linguistics uses language to determine cultural understandings, sociolinguistics views language itself as a social institution. Anthropological linguistics is largely interpretative, striving to determine the significance behind the use of language through its forms, registers, and styles. Sociolinguistics instead examines how language relates to various social groups and identities like race, gender, class, and age.

Indexicality
Indexicality refers to language forms that is tied to meaning through association of specific and general, as opposed to direct naming. For example, an anthropological linguist may utilize indexicality to analyze what an individual's use of language reveals about his or her social class. Indexicality is inherent in form-function relationships.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis has become increasingly prominent in the subfield of anthropological linguistics. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis refers to the idea that language influences how an individual perceives the world. This relationship between language and culture draws relates to both anthropology and linguistics, and is a theory of linguistic relativity.