Lecture Notes 05/12/14 - What is anthropology? o The study of humankind in all times and places Holistic perspective- interconnections between communities through time Importance of comparisons across time and space - Language and Culture o How do anthropologists study speech and language? o How does the study of linguistics influence anthropology and other social sciences? o How does studying a language along with culture help you learn a language? o How is language valued in different cultures? - The Nature of Language o What is language? o Language and thought o Descriptive linguistics o Non-verbal communication - Language as a Social Phenomena o Language life cycle o Ethnography of communication o 21st century and technology o Performance and ideology - Multilinguism o Class, dialect, ethnicity, race o Sex, gender, race o Code switching o Multilinguism - How do subfields of anthropology overlap with language? o Biological (physical) anthropology Neurolinguistics Language evolution Categorization of diseases Language origins o Archaeology Symbolic forms Glottochronology Symbolic categories Ethnoarchaeology o Cultural Anthropology Interviews Performance and ideology International commerce International relations- Franz Boas, founder of modern anthropology o Cultural relativism- beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his/her own culture o Emphasis on fieldwork and scientific methodology o Why language should be studied (1911): It is best not to work with interpreters Language is an ethnographic fact Language is a window into functioning of shared consciousness of a culture Language us a regular, patterned, and scientifically predictable part of behavior - Language and Culture by any other name: o Linguistic anthropology o Anthropological linguistics o Sociolinguistics o Ethnolinguistics - Assumptions of language and culture o How does language affect society and how does society affect language? Culture is embedded in language Language functions to hold society and culture together - Language as a vehicle for culture o Represents an adherence to particular cultural values and beliefs o Sometimes we assume that language and culture is a one to one relationship- they perfectly reflect each other - Duranti’s 1st Paradigm: Emphasis on Linguistics ( “building blocks of language”) o Linguistics: language “as an object of study”, something abstracted from everyday life o Anthropological linguistics: documentation, description, and classification of indigenous languages o Descriptive linguistics: construction of grammars and lexicon for unstudied language (phonology, morphology, syntax) - Duranti’s 2nd Paradigm: Linguistics with Anthropology o Ethnolinguistics: engaging in daily life of others to understand their point of view o Sociolinguistics: study of language use across speakers and activities to discover patterns of linguistic variation - Duranti’s 3rd Paradigm: Combination of Previous Paradigms o Linguistic anthropology: concern for relationship between language, thought, society, and culture o Language and culture: use of linguistic practices to document and analyze reproduction of persons, institutions, and communities across time and
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