Linguistic Anthropology

The study of language has been part of anthropology since the discipline started in the 1ate 1870s. This site is a place for linguistic anthropologists to post their work and discuss important events and trends in the field.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Getting started in anthropology

A few weeks ago I noticed that a lot of people who read Linguistic Anthropology are referred here by search engines. Often the search terms are something like "anthropology - getting started". I suspect that the search engines are directing these readers to How Flame Wars Get Started, and guess that this is probably not what they are looking for (though I hope they enjoy it).

I have been thinking about asking contributors to write something on the topic of getting started in linguistic anthropology, but haven't yet done so. In the meantime I note that Rex at Savage Minds has advice on getting into graduate school. This may be closer to what those internet searchers are looking for. Both the post and the comments offer good general advice for applying to graduate school - not quite the same thing as becoming an anthropologist, but an important step.

Let this serve both as a pointer to the advice at Savage Minds and as an invitation for linguistic anthropologists to share their own advice. Comments are open.