language, culture, and society: key topics in linguistic anthropology

323 Pages·2007·2.39 MB·English

language, culture, and society
Language,ourprimarytoolofthoughtandperception,isattheheartofwhowe
areasindividuals.Languagesareconstantlychanging,sometimesintoentirely
newvarietiesofspeech,leadingtosubtledifferencesinhowwepresentourselves
toothers.Thisrevealingaccountbringstogethertwelveleadingspecialistsfrom
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
perceptionoftheworld?Howdonewlanguagesemerge?Howdochildrenlearn
touselanguageappropriately?Whatfactorsdeterminelanguagechoiceinbi-and
multilingualcommunities?Howfardoeslanguagecontributetotheformationof
our personalities? And finally, in what ways does language make us human?
Language,Culture,andSocietywillbeessentialreadingforallthoseinterested
inlanguageanditscrucialroleinoursociallives.
christine jourdan is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of
Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal. Trained in
linguisticsandanthropology,herworkfocusesontheoriesofcultureandsocial
change,onpidginsandcreoles,andonlinguisticrepresentationofculturalknowl-
edge.ShehaspublishedbooksandarticlesonSolomonIslandsPijin,urbanization
inthePacific,andsocio-culturalcreolization.
kevin tuiteisProfesseurtitulaire(fullProfessor)ofAnthropologyattheUni-
versite´deMontre´al.HespecializesinthelanguagesandculturesoftheCaucasus,
especiallythoseoftheRepublicofGeorgia,wherehehasconductedfieldwork
since1985.Hehaspublishedanumberofbooksandjournalarticlesonlanguage
and culture, in journals such as Anthropological Linguistics, Anthropos, and
Lingua.
studies in the social and cultural foundations
of language
Theaimofthisseriesistodeveloptheoreticalperspectivesontheessentialsocialand
culturalcharacteroflanguagebymethodologicalandempiricalemphasisontheoccur-
renceoflanguageinitscommunicativeandinteractionalsettings,onthesocioculturally
grounded“meanings”and“functions”oflinguisticforms,andonthesocialscientific
studyoflanguageuseacrosscultures.Itwillthusexplicatetheessentiallyethnographic
natureoflinguisticdata,whetherspontaneouslyoccurringorexperimentallyinduced,
whethernormativeorvariational,whethersynchronicordiachronic.Worksappearing
intheserieswillmakesubstantiveandtheoreticalcontributionstothedebateoverthe
sociocultural-functionandstructural-formalnatureoflanguage,andwillrepresentthe
concerns of scholars in the sociology and anthropology of language, anthropological
linguistics,sociolinguistics,andsocioculturallyinformedpsycholinguistics.
Editors EditorialAdvisers
JudithT.Irvine MarjorieGoodwin
BambiSchieffelin JoelKuipers
DonKulick
JohnLucy
ElinorOchs
MichaelSilverstein
Alistofbooksintheseriescanbefoundaftertheindex.
LANGUAGE, CULTURE,
AND SOCIETY
KEY TOPICS IN LINGUISTIC
ANTHROPOLOGY
CHRISTINE JOURDAN
ConcordiaUniversity
KEVIN TUITE
Universite´ deMontre´al
cambridge university press
Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown,Singapore,SãoPaulo
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CONTENTS
List of tables page ix
List of contributors x
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction:Walkingthroughwalls 1
christine jourdan and kevin tuite
1 Anissueaboutlanguage 16
charles taylor
2 Linguisticrelativities 47
john leavitt
3 BenjaminLeeWhorfandtheBoasianfoundationsof
contemporaryethnolinguistics 82
regna darnell
4 Cognitiveanthropology 96
penny brown
5 Methodologicalissuesincross-languagecolornaming 115
paul kay
6 Pidginsandcreolesgenesis:ananthropologicaloffering 135
christine jourdan
7 Bilingualism 156
monica heller
8 Theimpactoflanguagesocializationongrammatical
development 168
elinor ochs and bambi schieffelin
9 Intimategrammars:anthropologicalandpsychoanalyticaccounts
oflanguage,gender,anddesire 190
elizabeth povinelli
vii
viii Contents
10 Maximizingethnopoetics:fine-tuninganthropological
experience 207
paul friedrich
11 Interpretinglanguagevariationandchange 229
kevin tuite
References 257
Index 301
TABLES
11.1 Declensionofwordfor“tooth”infourIndo-European
languages page235
11.2 Germanicsoundshift(Grimm’sfirstsoundlaw) 236
11.3 ApparentexceptionstoGrimm’sfirstlaw 238
ix