Anthropology is a massive field of study that observes a holistic view on humanity as a whole. As such, there are many subfields to anthropology including Linguistic Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Archaeology, and Physical or Biological Anthropology. Biological Anthropology is the study of how biology and culture interact with each other. For this post, I’ve decided to look at the subfield of Linguistic Anthropology.
According to California State University Long Beach’s Department of Anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology is the study of culture and language and how the two interact. Anthropologists within this field document how many languages exist and their distribution across the globe. Further, they look into the way these languages are used, were used, and what changes there are between the past and present. These variations can say a lot about what culture was like in the past and how language is being used to express culture in the present.
As a student of both Linguistics and Anthropology (but not Linguistic Anthropology itself), I find that many people confuse Linguistics and Linguistic Anthropology. Linguistic Anthropology, as its name would suggest, is very much an anthropological field of study in that the focus is on culture and language as two intertwined and highly complex facets of human history and society. Like many other forms of anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology is centered on humanity and human interaction. Linguistics, on the other hand, is the study of how languages are made and how they work. The subfield of Sociolinguistics is far closer to Sociology than it is to any kind of Anthropology.
One notable part of Linguistic Anthropology to me is the focus on preserving dying languages. In the ever-globalizing state of the world, languages spoken among smaller populations are dying. What I mean is that as more of the world becomes connected there is a push to learn more “common” languages, such as English, over lesser known and less often used languages. For example, an older generation may teach their children a more widely spoken language so they can attend school, or they may learn that language in school, and then their children will be taught this language as well, and once the older generation dies out, there are no longer speakers of that language left alive. When this happens to small, often undocumented languages, they become dead languages.
Many Linguistic Anthropologists make it their life’s work to find small populations with these dying languages and help to document them so they may be learned and taught to younger generations to keep them from dying out. I think this kind of work is very respectable. While I personally focus my studies on language in the past, I find it reassuring there are Linguistic Anthropologists out there looking forward and seeing a linguistically diverse future worth fighting for.
California State University Long Beach, DoA Site: http://www.cla.csulb.edu/departments/anthropology/linguistic-anthropology/
8 thoughts on “Week 1 – Linguistic Anthropology”
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Hello,
I like how your post details the differentiation between linguistics and linguistic anthropology. I am curious what a linguist or sociolinguist would think about preserving languages. While the words “dying” and “preservation” are very loaded – they elicit sympathy for the language, they may not accurately depict all sides of the situation. For example, some people may argue that the trend in fewer languages being spoken globally means that we are coming to closer to having one “universal language” – a term I’ve found often has a positive connotation, associated with solidarity, peace and understanding. I believe it is important to preserve dying languages but it is also important to recognize this phenomenon may have positive impacts.
Hi!
I like the way you differentiated between linguistic anthropology and anthropology itself, as someone whose focus isn’t in linguistics or anthropology (like me) might make the mistake of confusing the two and thinking they’re the same. I thought it was interesting to read about the push of linguistic anthropologists in learning and documenting lesser known languages in an attempt to keep it from fading away completely, as I think that preserving the knowledge of these languages and their existence is important from a historical perspective!
The connection you made between Linguistic Anthropology and dying languages in the world caught my attention. Every time my friends tell me that they’re going to travel overseas, I always ask them if they know any of the main languages that they speak in those countries. Most of the time they tell me they do not know the main language. Then they say that most people know how to speak English or understand it a bit. When you said that “there is a push to learn more “common” languages.”, It made me really realize that these other non-common languages will eventually die out. I would hope those languages would not die out so that different parts of the worlds can have a language that’s unique to them and make the world more diverse with languages.
The connection you made about linguistic anthropology, is very interesting. For my blog i did the same topic about the importance of linguistic in the broad approach of anthropology. The main thing is about the history of human past future and present, which is the original definition of anthropology. And communicating through language/ languages, symbols etc, is a vital piece in the evolution of human beings, which linguistics has a lot to do with. It was very eye opening to read about up and study on this field of anthropology, and about the dying languages. Also how its so many cultures with languages thats non common that will eventually die out. Its very unique and is something that i think about of people dont talk about.
I looked into linguistic anthropology for my blog post as well, and I see you came to some similar conclusions. Perhaps one of the most important details that you pointed out, is the distinction between linguistics as a study itself, and linguistic anthropology as a subfield of anthropology as a whole. It must have been interesting to look into this field as someone who studies linguistics. Despite the differences between the two fields of study, I’m sure you must have garnered some entertainment looking at the overlaps between the two. As some of the other replies have stated, the fact that you highlighted the dying languages was quite good. With the rapidly interconnecting world constantly evolving, history has secured an even greater position of importance. Not only do the “dying languages” become lost and forgotten, but bits and pieces of the cultures themselves become lost to time. We musn’t forget our origins. nice post.
I enjoyed how you used your own experiences as a Linguistics and Anthropology student to help readers recognize the difference between Linguistics and Linguistic Anthropology (terms which are incorrectly understood sometimes). Also, I did not know that one of the notable roles of Linguistic Anthropology was to preserve “dying” languages. It was interesting to learn that because it made me realize how much of an active role this subfield has (from what I previously assumed), such as working with those small communities to research and save those languages from disappearing without a trace. I am curious to learn what other connections Linguistic Anthropology has found with past humans – such as how it was used and what it meant to them and their culture as well.
Hi,
I found your post extremely unique as there were not too many people writing about linguistic anthropology. My sister was a linguistics major at University of Chicago, and she used to love talking about languages and speaks four. One of which was Latin, which you cannot technically speak but it is thought of as a “dead” language similar to what you touched on in your blog. I found it interesting when linguistic anthropologists would go to small populations to search for these dying languages to help preserve and understand how these languages derive from. When they would also look into how these languages are passed down through generational teachings whether it be through school or parents, I found this interesting as I know three languages myself and how I was taught them was different for each.
I very much appreciate the details that you mentioned about “dying” languages. When I was in high school I took several Latin courses, and frankly it changes my perspectives on language as a whole. A majority of the main european languages stemmed from the Latin language, however Latin itself has not been used in generations. I wonder exactly how we as humans branch off from languages, and also develop our own in replacement. Languages such as Latin I find are entirely necessary to keep around in order to fully understand the other languages in use today, and how they were formed and exactly what they mean.