Linguistic Anthropology

'Top' not-for-profit linguistic anthropology journals

2011-09-07T01:01:00.004-05:00

There has been a recent flurry of discussion of for-profit versus non-profit publishing in anthropology, occasioned by a 29 August piece in The Guardian by George Monbiot. Blog postings at antropologi.info and Savage Minds (e.g. here, here, and here), among other places, are providing people in the field a chance to discuss issues related to publishing including open-access versus paid access,

SLA Blog

2009-12-08T10:14:00.004-05:00

New blog posts relating to linguistic anthropology are available at SLA Blog, the official blog of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology. Also check out the official homepage of Society for Linguistic Anthropology.

American Anthropological Association 2009 Annual Meeting

2009-11-17T14:51:00.008-05:00

The American Anthropological Association will hold its annual meeting December 2nd through the 6th at the Philadelphia Mariott Downtown hotel in Philadelphia, PA. The theme for the 2009 meeting is "The End/s of Anthropology". Below is my annual partial list of panels and meetings of interest to linguistic anthropologists, including those sponsored by the Society for Linguistic Anthropology.

The Invention of Saying-things-that-don't-strictly-accord-with-empirical-fact

2009-11-06T12:56:00.003-05:00

(Sorry for the long delay between posts. I'm writing up my dissertation research, which I will defend in a couple of weeks.)I recently enjoyed seeing the film The Invention of Lying. The film's premise is that in an world where all human speech must accord strictly with empirical fact (or as the film's tag line puts it, "a world where everyone can only tell the truth"), Ricky Gervais inexplicably

Another political non-lie

2009-08-14T14:26:00.005-05:00

I've been hearing an awful lot about health care reform in the US this summer - even from British outlets. It's all a bit disconcerting, especially the riotous town hall meetings and the arguments that seem unmoored from the facts.FactCheck.org has a nice piece debunking seven falsehoods related to this debate, two from proponents of reform and five from opponents.I'm interested, though, in a

Who speaks Shoshone, and when?

2009-07-21T12:49:00.009-05:00

A comment on last Sunday's Weekend Edition radio program inspired me to think about two questions. A participant in the Shoshone/Goshute Youth Language Apprenticeship Program (SYLAP) commented:Someone will step in. You can even bring in a white man to [run a business]. But there isn't going to be a white man who can speak your language.I wrote about the first of my two questions on Sunday. (What

What is a "white man"?

2009-07-19T11:47:00.004-05:00

This morning Weekend Edition Sunday featured an interesting story on the Shoshone Youth Language Apprenticeship Program being held at the University of Utah campus this summer. Toward the end of piece one learner, a young Shoshone woman, described why she decided to forget about business school and instead study linguistics.Someone will step in. You can even bring in a white man to [run a

Classifying click consonants

2009-07-17T18:32:00.005-05:00

I'm sorry that no new content has been added here in a month. It's not that I've stopped thinking about linguistic anthropology, it's just that I'm getting really close to completing a draft of my dissertation.In lieu of me saying anything interesting, please accept this link to a piece in Science Daily on attempts to use ultrasound to classify click consonants (presumably by making the place of

Universities offering graduate programs in Linguistic Anthropology

2009-06-12T13:08:00.004-05:00

Over the past few weeks I have received email from a number of recent or soon-to-be college graduates asking for my recommendations for graduate programs in linguistic anthropology. I assume that my post regarding Getting started in (linguistic) anthropology has left readers in need of more concrete information.Unfortunately, I don't really feel qualified to give advice on such schools, having

LSA Ethics Statement and Blog

2009-06-07T09:50:00.005-05:00

[This is a guest post by Claire Bowern, LSA Ethics committee member and blog co-webmaster] The Linguistic Society of America recently finalized and released a statement of professional ethics. The statement was approved at the May Executive Committee meeting after extensive discussion and consultation with members through a blog site (lsaethics.wordpress.com). A pdf of the statement can be

Follow up: Not to split infinitives

2009-05-29T11:47:00.006-05:00

As I promised last week, I have a slightly more elaborate analysis of two functions of negated infinitives. Recall that I experienced a very brief confusion during a speech by former Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney said something like the following:1. Part of our responsibility was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done.(This is just a portion of Mr. Cheney's sentence, edited

Reactions to Cheney's speech at the American Enterprise Institute (Part II)

2009-05-22T17:04:00.003-05:00

In his speech at the American Enterprise Institute yesterday, former Vice President Cheney made the following suggestion.The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work, proud of the results, because they prevented the violent death of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people.I don't want to devalue the difficult work of intelligence officers or to

Reactions to Cheney's speech at the American Enterprise Institute (Part I)

2009-05-22T10:03:00.011-05:00

I had two reactions while listening to former Vice President Richard Cheney's speech about national security yesterday, 21 May 2009. In this posting I will describe a purely linguistic and fairly trivial reaction. I'll also have another, I hope more substantive post on the framing of information in that speech and recent terrorism-related discourse.Not to split infinitivesFirst, the trivial

American Anthropological Association - new blog

2009-04-27T12:56:00.004-05:00

The American Anthropological Association has a new blog, which is a very good thing. I think it must be difficult, however, to select topics and coverage broadly enough to satisfy a target audience as diverse as the AAA. Even if that target audience were limited to AAA members it would be huge, and I suspect the AAA bloggers are also targeting a broader audience, at least secondarily - that's

Eggcorns and Fuzzy Spots

2009-04-09T10:51:00.004-05:00

The term eggcorn was coined in 2003 by linguist-bloggers Geoffrey Pullum and Mark Liberman, and has spawned something of a cottage industry of eggcorn-hunters on the Web. An eggcorn is defined as "an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker's dialect [which] introduces a meaning that is different from the original, but

Respect for B.L. Whorf?

2009-04-06T09:44:00.003-05:00

Benjamin Lee Whorf doesn't get much respect from linguists, at least in certain quarters. His notions of linguistic relativism - or just as often, notions attributed to him after the fact - are frequently refuted in popular texts on language and linguistics. Geoffrey Pullum's The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax or Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct, for example, seem to take glee in demolishing

Getting started in anthropology

2009-03-01T09:04:00.004-05:00

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

I don't know, you know? Discourse markers and knowledge claims

2009-02-18T15:44:00.005-05:00

Anyone doing work on discourse markers in English might want to look at Greta Van Susteren's recent interview with Bristol Palin. I find the use of the discourse markers 'you know', 'I don't know', and 'I guess' interesting, especially compared with the actual knowledge claims in the exchange. Here is a sample; the transcript is from FOXNews.com, emphasis added.VAN SUSTEREN: You know, it always

When Speech Acts Collide

2009-02-17T16:36:00.007-05:00

I recently had two experiences in which people -- college-aged individuals on or near a college campus -- used routine speech formulas in surprising ways.The first was relatively easy to explain. As I left my office, I smiled at a young woman who was sitting just outside the door and said, "Hello."CDN: Hello.Woman: Good, how are you doing?This exchange resembles what Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson

Interesting teaching method: How to get students to find and read 94 articles

2009-02-02T12:13:00.005-05:00

Michael Wesch from Digital Ethnography used a very interesting class assignment. "How to get students to find and read 94 articles before the next class" describes the project in which students found, and summarized for one another, articles to discuss in class.Each student was required to find 5 articles, read them, and summarize them; uploading their summaries (or the author’s own abstract)

(Re)Reading Benedict Anderson

2009-01-21T15:25:00.002-05:00

I recommend Christopher Kelty's piece at Savage Minds, "Thoughts on Imagined Communities on Inauguration day." Each of Kelty's three points may be of interest to linguistic anthropologists and fellow travelers. First, Kelty thinks about online news and the RSS feed in light of Benedict Anderson's suggestion that print capitalism, and newspapers in particular, allow people to imagine the nation

Media modality and word choice. Or: Is an 'emergency landing' a 'crash'?

2009-01-16T13:20:00.007-05:00

Megan Garber, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, notes an interesting difference in the words used to describe the... event involving US Airways flight 1549 on 15 January.Garber quotes the Washington Post as saying the flight "went down in the Hudson River," and the New York Times saying it "landed on the river." In contrast, CNN, MSNBC and Fox television anchors and commentators

Best of Anthro 2008

2009-01-10T13:43:00.003-05:00

Daniel Lende at Neuroanthropology is hosting the Best of Anthropology Blogging 2008 anthology/awards. Linguistic Anthropology is among the blogs anthologized -- though of course, you've read those already, haven't you? Use this opportunity, then, to check out the fuller view of anthropology's sub-fields.(Full disclosure: Each of the three Linguistic Anthropology nominations came from me.)

Does Thomas Friedman read Thomas Friedman?

2008-12-26T04:04:00.006-05:00

In his 24 December column, Time to Reboot America, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman compares US education, transportation and communication infrastructure - unfavorably - with that of Hong Kong. He suggests that US government attempts to alleviate the current recession should concentrate on improving this infrastructure. What caught my attention was this aside near the end of the piece:

It's the Most WOTY-full Time of the Year

2008-12-20T22:38:00.006-05:00

It's not just Japanese publishers and education associations; the New York Times' Week in Review has just published its Word of the Year-esque "Buzzwords of 2008".How's about I just add more links to this post as WOTY-announcements come out? (Oh, and I see I've already missed some. Please feel free to point out more I've missed via comments.)--10 November 2008, Oxford University Press: Word of

｢変｣Named Kanji of the Year

2008-12-12T04:17:00.004-05:00

Not quite two weeks ago Jiyu Kokuminsha named Japan's Fashionable Word of the Year. Today, Nippon Kanji Noryoku Kentei Kyokai (The Japan Kanji Ability Certification Association) named Kotoshi no Kanji, or This Year's Kanji. Each year the group names a kanji, or Chinese character, to encapsulate the year's events.This year's kanji is 変.Pronounced hen, or with accompanying hiragana either kaeru or

Japanese WOTY

2008-12-01T06:20:00.006-05:00

Japanese publishing company Jiyu Kokuminsha has just announced this year's Shingo Ryukougo, or Fashionable New Words. Similar to Word Of The Year announcements made by various US and UK publishers, Shingo Ryukougo is essentially a publicity event that draws attention to Jiyu Kokuminsha.This year there are actually two winners, and both are loan words from English... sort of. That is, both are

A Campaign of Condescension? You Betcha!

2008-11-06T20:41:00.004-05:00

--by Peter HaneyAlthough the world will remember 2008 Presidential election as a milestone in U.S. race relations, campaign talk was also shot through with open gender conflict and sublimated class conflict, both on the levels of style and content. And in the race between style and content, style won the election handily in volley after volley of half-truths, anecdotes, and competing synecdoches

Rice as rice and rice as discourse

2008-11-03T06:28:00.004-05:00

I am in the midst of several months' fieldwork in Japan, as a result of which I am posting even less frequently than usual.But today being Culture Day, I took the day to walk around the grounds of Meiji Jingu. While wandering in the inner gardens, thoughts regarding the place of rice in Japanese society came unbidden to my mind (probably right around lunchtime). Many Japanese people regard

Human geography and political campaigning

2008-10-09T10:27:00.005-05:00

BLDGBLOG has a very interesting piece on the treatment of urban versus rural landscapes in US political discourse. Despite the fact that about 83% of Americans live in metropolitan areas, rural areas are frequently evoked as "authentically" American and opposed to "elite" urban areas. BLDGBLOG suggests that a political focus on "authentic" (rural) America is therefore "questionable at best."My

More Miscommunication in the War Zone

2008-10-02T11:22:00.002-05:00

Kerim at Savage Minds has a new post expanding on his ideas about cross-cultural miscommunication between US soldiers and Iraqi civilians. He suggests that, contrary to supporters of the military's Human Terrain System, advice from 'expert' researchers is neither necessary nor always helpful in avoiding miscommunication. (My comments on Kerim's earlier post are here.)

2008-09-11T10:53:00.003-05:00

Even if the intelligence of a single person can be buffeted by framing and other bounds on rationality, this does not mean that we cannot hope for something better from the fruits of many people thinking together--that is, from the collective intelligence in institutions such as history, journalism, and science, which have been explicitly designed to overcome those limitations through open debate

Rove, via Stewart, via Baković

2008-09-08T10:15:00.003-05:00

Eric Baković has a post on Language Log that expands a piece from The Daily Show exploring former Republican strategist Karl Rove's defense of Sarah Palin, and his very similar critique of Tim Kaine. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, is a first-term governor and former mayor; Kaine, who was thought to be a potential Democratic vice-presidential candidate, is also a first-term

American Anthropological Association 107th Annual Meeting

2008-08-27T11:15:00.004-05:00

The 107th annual meeting of the American Anthropology Association will be held November 19th through the 23rd at the San Francisco Hilton and Towers. The theme for the 2008 meeting is Inclusion, Collaboration and Engagement.The new AAA web page does not allow one to search for panels by sponsor or reviewing group any longer. This is a partial list of panels and meetings of interest to linguistic

Defining "Human Rights" in Japan

2008-07-28T14:35:00.005-05:00

The Japan Times (15 July 2008) features a piece by Doshisha Law School professor Colin P.A. Jones discussing a 4 June ruling by the Japanese Supreme Court (最高裁判所) on that country's Nationality Laws. In that case, the court expanded the rights of the children of Japanese fathers and non-Japanese mothers to claim Japanese citizenship. (I am unable to find a description of the case on the court's

Cross-cultural miscommunication in a war zone

2008-06-26T11:42:00.003-05:00

Savage Minds blogger Kerim has an interesting take on a Guardian Films video by John D McHugh, Teresa Smith and Alex Rees.In the short video, a local Afghan elder and a coalition military leader fail to communicate their ideas about proper responses to Taliban fighters, due in large part to poor translation by the military translator.Kerim refers to Deborah Cameron's The Myth of Mars and Venus

Pop star naming conventions and the press

2008-06-24T09:51:00.002-05:00

There is an interesting "Short Take" in the May/June 2008 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review on pop star names. Music critic Chris Faraone asks why rappers are routinely identified by their given names, while performers in other genres are identified by their stage names.Mr. Dylan, meet Mr. Dogg.

Political spin: not lying - but not honest

2008-06-20T17:09:00.007-05:00

It is commonly assumed that politicians lie. While there are occasional instances of politicians saying things they know are not true with apparent intent to deceive, more often political speakers attempt to "spin," or frame a discussion in ways that favor their preferred understanding. While such statements can be dishonest, they are not necessarily lies.A case in point are the Barrack Obama

Language Ownership: Does the French language belong to France?

2008-05-31T09:41:00.005-05:00

Praising the work of a French-speaking singer from Charlemagne, Quebec, France's current president Nicolas Sarkozy revealed an interesting attitude toward the French language. Through a complex rhetoric, Sarkozy seemed to imply that the French language is, somehow, associated almost exclusively with the state of which he has been president for just over a year.Céline Dion was recently awarded the

Michael Tomasello on being human

2008-05-30T14:09:00.002-05:00

There is a short piece in the New York Times Sunday Magazine by Michael Tomasello of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.In it, Tomasello suggest that individual human infants are not much smarter than adult chimpanzees or orangutans. What makes humans more successful, he suggests, is our ability to form social groups and our use of communication (including not just language

You say Myanmar, I say...

2008-05-14T11:09:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking about saying something about the pronunciation of Burma/Myanmar, since the name has been mentioned in several media reports following Cyclone Nargis. Maybe I should just point.According to Wikipedia, in Burmese the country's name is (pjìdàunzṵ mjəmà nàinŋàndɔ̀), but contributors disagree on the proper English name.Phonetician John Wells discussed the British and American

American Anthropology Association elections

2008-05-01T10:25:00.002-05:00

American Anthropology Association and AAA section ballots are now online. You will need your username and password to access the ballot. All ballots must be cast by 5:00pm Eastern time on May 31st.The Society for Linguistic Anthropology has elections for President-elect and for one Member-at-large. Monica Heller and Kathryn Woolard are on the ballot for President-elect; Paul B. Garrett and

"Terminology to define the terrorists"

2008-04-25T20:20:00.004-05:00

According to the Associated Press, the US Homeland Security department has produced a report entitled "Terminology to define the terrorists: recommendations from American Muslims."One of those recommendations is to avoid using the word jihad to describe the efforts of al-Qaeda and other declared enemies. Jihad, which translates as either 'holy war' or 'spiritual struggle,' is an important concept

Word Rage and Hartman's Law

2008-04-16T10:47:00.004-05:00

Update 8/22/2008: The Arizona Republic reports that two members of the Typo Eradication Advancement League have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to vandalize government property. They have been banned from entering any National Park for one year and charged $3,035 to repair a historic marker in Grand Canyon National Park that they 'corrected'.I seem to add a post to this blog about every other month.

Language Link Between Siberia and North America

2008-03-05T13:18:00.002-05:00

Missed this one from a few days ago. This could have important anthropological implications.Linguists demonstrate Siberian-North American link.

Cross-linguistic back-formation

2008-03-04T16:26:00.004-05:00

Today's Doonesbury comic strip includes a curious linguistic artifact. In panel two, a an engineering student describes herself and a partner: "We're engineering honchas, and the thing just sits there mocking us" (emphasis added).The meaning of honchas is fairly clear. It is a (perhaps jocularly) feminine version of the word honcho, meaning "boss" or "hot shot". The final <-a> is an extension of

Punctuated Language Evolution

2008-02-12T12:14:00.001-05:00

In the past few years, a number of biologists have published studies suggesting various facts about the evolution of languages. This is not terribly surprising, I suppose, since historical linguistics and evolutionary biology share a long lineage. Darwin's (1859) Origin of Species was probably influenced by studies such as Franz Bopp's (1816) Über das Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache (On

Me went downtown.

2008-02-07T12:07:00.000-05:00

That title sounds like a media stereotype of Jamaican English - even though none of the Jamaicans I've ever met talk like that. In any event, it's not intended as a fictionalized representation of any actual English utterance. It is an example of something that most English speakers can't (or at least generally don't) say.Why is it that English speakers regularly say things like "Me and Tommy

Annual meeting of the American Anthropology Association

2007-11-09T10:24:00.000-05:00

The 106th annual meeting of the American Anthropology Association will be held November 28th through December 2nd at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington DC. The theme for this year's meeting is Difference, (In)equality & Justice. The Society for Linguistic Anthropology is well represented at this year's annual meeting. Of course, according to Murphy's Law of Conference Organization,

Edgar Allan Poe's Sound Symbolism

2007-10-28T12:37:00.000-05:00

I have already heard Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" recited twice this Halloween season. This puts me in mind of Poe's decidedly un-romantic account of the poem's construction, The Philosophy of Composition, originally published in Graham's Magazine in April 1846. (The full text is reproduced here.)The particular section that comes to my mind is Poe's claim that Nevermore is the most sonorous

Mr Romney's speech error

2007-10-24T09:07:00.000-05:00

The Associated Press (among others) is reporting on a recent speech error by presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.Actually, just look at what Osam — Barack Obama — said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq.Of course, it was Osama bin Laden, not Barack Obama, who recently called on various insurgent groups in Iraq to work

Quantifying lexical change

2007-10-23T14:23:00.001-05:00

Two recent papers in the journal Nature deal with rates of language change. (Thanks are due to Dave for expressing interest in the topic.)Coverage of these studies in the news media has generally been pretty good. For example, the Independent says, Common words 'less likely to change' and Telegraph.co.uk reports, Scientists chart how words are changing.As the popular press points out, both recent

Editing Contributor List

2007-10-13T15:54:00.000-05:00

Not a linguistic question or comment, but: I see that I'm listed twice on the list of contributors, once as "Ron Kephart" and again as "Ronald Kephart." How do I get the "Ron Kephart" listing deleted, so that there's only one of me???

Languages and Religions

2007-08-30T22:23:00.000-05:00

Apparently, controversies over Arabic and Hebrew instruction in schools in the United States are sparking some discussion about the relationships between language instruction and religious identity. As can be expected, the New York Times is the venue for much of this discussion.Under Fire, Arabic-Themed Schools Principal Resigns - City Room - Metro - New York Times BlogHebrew Charter School Spurs

Invisible Minority Languages

2007-07-03T11:08:00.000-05:00

Bill Poser has an interesting entry at Language Log under the title "Is South America Spanish Speaking?"Poser is writing in response to a television review at the New York Times. The review claims, "The great majority of people in South America speak Spanish today." A correction added June 30th states,A television review on Tuesday about "The Great Inca Rebellion," on PBS, misidentified the

JUSTiCES 4 FREE SPEECH

2007-06-26T12:35:00.000-05:00

Can someone explain this to me?Yesterday (25 June 2007), US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, in the case of Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, wrote:Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor.And yet, on the same day Chief Justice Roberts delivered the court's opinion in Morse v. Frederick. That opinion held that Joseph

So Be It

2007-06-25T15:07:00.000-05:00

Via Michael Erard's blog:Two Little Letters, Addressed to Everyone, That Speak Volumes - washingtonpost.com One thing I like about this piece is that, despite some quotes with negative connotations, it doesn't seem to be the typical prescriptivist normative language snobbery of the "kids these days don't know how to speak proper" type. Because it describes the usefulness of such a common word,

Framing the "Path to Citizenship"

2007-06-13T10:36:00.001-05:00

It occurred to me yesterday, while listening to a debate between opponents of "amnesty" for illegal immigrants and those who support a "path to citizenship" that this argument is greatly affected by framing. Framing, according to cognitive linguist turned progressive political consultant George Lakoff, is the construction via language of "a conceptual structure used in thinking." According to

Accent reduction or learning an American accent?

2007-06-07T11:26:00.000-05:00

New York TimesJune 5, 2007Accents on the Wrong Syl-LA-bleBy MICHAEL T. LUONGOIt was not what Sergei Petukhov said. It was how he said it.“The way I said ‘accent reduction,’ he couldn’t understand me,” Mr. Petukhov said. That was enough for Mr. Petukhov, a Moscow native who works for the law firm of Kaye Scholer as a scientific adviser, to get his employer’s approval to pay for training to

Tones and Genes

2007-06-03T13:50:00.000-05:00

I hope we can have a thoughtful discussion about this. Right up our alley (diversity, nurture/nature, migrations, prehistory...).Linguistic tone is related to the population frequency of the adaptive haplogroups of two brain size genes, ASPM and Microcephalin(Dediu and Ladd, 10.1073/pnas.0610848104 -- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)Heard about it through a Canadian science

Language Acquisition, Visual Clues

2007-05-28T11:34:00.000-05:00

From a Canadian science podcast:new work builds on [the innate basis for language differentiation by infants], showing that small children can tell apart different spoken languages just by looking at the speaker's face (CBC Radio | Quirks & Quarks | May 26, 2007)As phonological repertoires served as an inspiration for some early work in cultural anthropology, we could reflect on repertoires of

Neurological Basis of Code-Switching?

2007-05-27T09:47:00.000-05:00

Bilinguals switching between codes have been interesting cases for research in sociolinguistics and the ethnography of communication. For instance, many bilinguals identify one language as the "we-code" and the other language as the "they-code," switching according to both conversational and social contexts. This phenomenon leads to fascinating studies of linguistic communities, language ideology

Lx FTW

2007-05-12T14:24:00.000-05:00

"Linguistics for the win!" (inspired by a blog comment)A Special In-Depth Analysis by David McRaney - L337 Katz0rz (Via LL) An analysis of lolcats through "leetspeak" and visual macros. Rich, insightful, funny. McRaney sure got 1337-cred to spare. Too many quote-worthy excerpts. Do read the whole thing. The blog entry itself might require prior knowledge of English-speaking Internet popular

Candidates for AAA Office

2007-05-01T17:40:00.000-05:00

Some well qualified linguistic anthropologists are running for office both within the Society of Linguistic Anthropology and in the general American Anthropological Association. Below are the statements of candidates for internal SLA office. Could somebody who has not yet voted in the general election please post the statements by Charles Briggs, Pam Bunte and Rachel Reynolds? Laura Ahearn and

SLA Student Paper Prize

2007-04-19T14:08:00.000-05:00

Call for SubmissionsThe Society for Linguistic Anthropology announces a competition for Outstanding Paper by a Student, one each at both undergraduate and graduate levels. The paper should be an original work, based on research conducted by the author. It will be evaluated on the basis of its clarity, significance to the field, and substantive contribution. Papers should be suitable for

Lingo and Niches

2007-04-17T10:54:00.000-05:00

It'd be interesting to compare "lawyer lingo" (described by Language Log) with the allegedly obscurantist tendencies of early 1990s deconstructionists, described by a computer professional as an ecological niche. The way I see them, both phenomena relate to the connection between epistemology, communication, and social role.

Everett's Pirahã and Journalism

2007-04-12T11:18:00.000-05:00

Shouldn't we have a public discussion about this? It seems quite controversial in linguistics and touches on many issues we typically take up.Apparently, a recent NPR show on Everett's work has been making the rounds among linguists. (That show is only available in Real audio.)Language Log's Mark Liberman seems to enjoy a New Yorker piece on the same topic.Haven't read the New Yorker piece yet

Softening Expletives

2007-04-01T22:38:00.000-05:00

Some linganth mailing-list subscribers recently discussed the current use of "that's so gay" in relationship to gender relationships and sexual orientation.The most recent episode of The Word Nerds mentions the softening of that and other expressions in the context of expletives (including the 'F' word). Not family-friendly but quite interesting in terms of language ideologies.Expletives (87) at

Listening to Prescriptivists

2007-03-29T11:13:00.000-05:00

Lauren Squires posted on her blog a useful summary of issues important to most language scientists (including linguistic anthropologists): polyglot conspiracy � The social life of prescriptivismAlso posted on Language Log.A few comments, with quotes from Squires's blog entry.Then there’s the language ideologies work, which goes beyond what people think about language to ask what social processes

The Limits of "McLanguage"

2007-03-20T16:20:00.000-05:00

The radio program Marketplace Morning Report today reported that the McDonald's restaurant corporation in Britain is pressuring dictionary makers to change the definition of the word McJob.The Oxford English Dictionary currently offers the following entry, dated March 2001:McJob, n. colloq. and depreciative (orig. U.S.). An unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the

What 'Representation' Represents

2007-03-15T10:34:00.000-05:00

The Economist magazine's Democracy in America blog cites The Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal ("An Overrepresentation of Factual Presentations"), which links to the on-line magazine Grist, which features an interview with Al Gore.(Whew! It's hyperlinks all the way down.)In the Grist piece, David Roberts asks Gore how he balances fear with hope in talk about global warming. Gore responds

Canada's Language Policies: From The Horse's Mouth?

2007-03-14T20:32:00.000-05:00

Random House | Books | Sorry, I Don't Speak French by Graham FraserGraham Fraser looks at the intentions, the hopes, the fears, the record, the myths, and the unexpected reality of a country that is still grappling with the language challenge that has shaped its history.Fraser is Canada's Commissioner of Official Languages. The book was apparently published at pretty much the same time as he took

Annoying Guardians of Language

2007-03-03T10:25:00.000-05:00

A recent blog entry on language prescription.Language Log: The history of linguistic annoyancethis 'I can innovate but you can't' attitude is typical of self-appointed guardians of the languageIn reference to an earlier blog entry on those "self-appointed guardians of the language," then called "snoots."The social dimensions of language ideology rearing up their "ugsome" head. Connecting with a

How Flame Wars Get Started

2007-02-03T10:39:00.000-05:00

Please, don't flame me! ;-) Though there is a specific context for this post, I prefer not talking about it. For once, context seems to matter less! ;-)Flame wars (FWs) are those personal confrontations which happen so frequently online. FWs are seen as the bane of the online world. I don't find them particularly appealing myself. Some FWs have been at the centre of the collapse of some online

Sapir prize goes to Bauman & Briggs

2007-01-10T16:16:00.000-05:00

The biennial Edward Sapir Prize in Linguistic Anthropology for the best monograph published in the last two years was announced at the last Society of Linguistic Anthropology business meeting at the annual American Anthropological Association conference in San Jose, California late last year.From the Society for Linguistic Anthropology column in the January 2007 Anthropology Newsletter by Mark

Does BBC News cause "technology isolation syndrome"?

2006-12-30T11:03:00.000-05:00

On 15 December 2006, Nate Anderson posted a piece on the online journal Ars Technica entitled "Are iPods shrinking the British vocabulary?" In it, Anderson reports on research by Lancaster University linguistics professor Tony McEnery. According to the Ars Technica report:McEnery found that one-third of most teenage speech was made up of only 20 common words like "yeah," "no," and "but." This is

Lesson suggestions for an introduction to sign languages and Deaf culture

2006-12-08T19:34:00.000-05:00

Image of Dr. Bill Vicars signing APPLE from http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101 A reposting of a lesson I posted elsewhere. Blog members are encouraged to post their own lesson plans or course outlines. This version has all the links spelled out, a version with live links is available at http://disstud.blogspot.com/A ONE DAY INTRODUCTION TO SIGN LANGUAGE AND DEAF CULTUREWhen I teach one class on

Welcome!

2006-11-30T12:22:00.000-05:00

Edward Sapir, by Florence Hendershot, from http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/esapir.htmlOf course, I’m interested in culture patterns, linguistic included. All I claim is that their consistencies and spatial temporal persistences can be, and ultimately should be explained in terms of humble psychological formations with particular emphasis on interpersonal relations. I have no