Language, Culture, and Society: Key Topics in Linguistic Anthropology by Christine Jourdan, ISBN-13: 978-0521849418

Description

Language, Culture, and Society: Key Topics in Linguistic Anthropology by Christine Jourdan, ISBN-13: 978-0521849418

[PDF eBook eTextbook]

• Publisher: ‎ Cambridge University Press; Illustrated edition (June 12, 2006)
• Language: ‎ English
• 324 pages
• ISBN-10: ‎ 0521849411
• ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0521849418

A discussion of some important questions in linguistic anthropology, the study of language in relation to culture and social interaction.

Language, our primary tool of thought and perception, is at the heart of who we are as individuals. Languages are constantly changing, sometimes into entirely new varieties of speech, leading to subtle differences in how we present ourselves to others. This revealing account brings together eleven leading specialists from the fields of linguistics, anthropology, philosophy and psychology, to explore the fascinating relationship between language, culture, and social interaction. A range of major questions are discussed: How does language influence our perception of the world? How do new languages emerge? How do children learn to use language appropriately? What factors determine language choice in bi- and multilingual communities? How far does language contribute to the formation of our personalities? And finally, in what ways does language make us human? Language, Culture and Society will be essential reading for all those interested in language and its crucial role in our social lives.

Table of Contents:

HALF-TITLE

SERIES-TITLE

TITLE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

CONTENTS

TABLES

CONTRIBUTORS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION: WALKING THROUGH WALLS

The ethnolinguistic perspective

Linguistic relativity

Language contact

Language socialization

Translation and hermeneutics

Variation and change

1 AN ISSUE ABOUT LANGUAGE

2 LINGUISTIC RELATIVITIES

Universals, particulars, and relativity

Before Boas: a universe of laws or a multiverse of essences

Romanticism

Boas and Boasian linguistics

Boasian principles

Boas, science, and linguistics

Sapir, Lee, Whorf

Sapir, Whorf, and Einstein

Beside Boas: structuralism and Neoromanticism

After Boas: the near-death and rebirth of linguistic relativity

Returns of relativity

Conclusion

3 BENJAMIN LEE WHORF AND THE BOASIAN FOUNDATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY ETHNOLINGUISTICS

Whorf as a linguist among his peers

Whorf and cognitive science

4 COGNITIVE ANTHROPOLOGY

Cognitive anthropology across four decades

Classic ethnoscience and its direct heirs

Ethnoscience and “the new ethnography”

Cultural models

Linguistic relativity

The rehabilitation of Sapir and Whorf

Spatial language and spatial thinking across cultures

Conclusions: The coming of age of cognitive anthropology

5 METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES IN CROSS-LANGUAGE COLOR NAMING

Response to Lucy’s point 1

Response to Lucy’s point 2

Response to Lucy’s point 3

Conclusion

6 PIDGINS AND CREOLES GENESIS: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL OFFERING

Pidgins and creoles: the state of play

Culture in pidgin and creole genesis

Power, knowledge, and resistance

Cognition, substrates, and universals

Conclusion

7 BILINGUALISM

Why worry about bilingualism?

Bilingualism as a test for linguistic theory

Bilingualism, culture and society

Bilingualism in social interaction

Critical approaches to the study of bilingualism and society: community, identity, language

8 THE IMPACT OF LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION ON GRAMMATICAL DEVELOPMENT

An offer

The cultural milieu of language acquirers

Cultural organizations of talk to children (addressees)

Cultural organizations of talk by children (speakers)

The cultural milieu of children’s grammatical forms

Grammatical form as frequent but inappropriate for child use

Grammatical form as infrequent but appropriate for child use

The cultural milieu of children’s code of choice

Steps to a cultural ecology of grammatical development

9 INTIMATE GRAMMARS: ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOANALYTIC ACCOUNTS OF LANGUAGE, GENDER, AND DESIRE

Loco motion

“Might be girl”: the linguistic emergence of gender and sexuality

The subject of language

10 MAXIMIZING ETHNOPOETICS: FINE-TUNING ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXPERIENCE

Synthesis

Ethnopoetic poetry

Ethnopoetic translation

Analyses

Linguistic Ethnopoetics, or Linguapoetics

Ethnographic or cultural ethnopoetics

Syntheses and Analyses

Ethnopoetic cum anthropological theory

Metapoetics and poetic revolution

Final problem: political ethnopoetics

Why ethnopoetics?

11 INTERPRETING LANGUAGE VARIATION AND CHANGE

Etymology and comparative grammar

The Neo-grammarians and the doctrine of the “exceptionless sound law”

The etymology of “trouver”

Etymologies, fossils, and narratives

Research on variation and change since Saussure

REFERENCES

INDEX

Christine Jourdan is Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University.

Kevin Tuite is Professuer titulaire (full Professor) of Anthropology at the Université de Montréal.

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