Anthropological linguistics
Anthropological linguistics studies language in cultural and social contexts, including how linguistic practices express and shape human societies.
Linguistic anthropology: The anthropological study of language as a resource for social action and cultural meaning. Its interpretive approach overlaps with anthropological linguistics but emphasizes language use in interaction.
Speech act: An utterance understood as an action, such as promising, requesting, or naming. Speech acts show how speaking can alter social relations rather than merely describe them.
Franz Boas: A German-American anthropologist who established influential methods for studying Indigenous languages and cultures. His documentation of language and culture helped shape American anthropological approaches.
Linguistic relativity: The proposal that language influences habitual thought or perception without necessarily determining them. It frames questions about how linguistic categories relate to cultural ways of understanding.
Formal linguistics: The analysis of language structure through systems such as phonology, syntax, and semantics. It often prioritizes structural patterns that anthropological approaches situate in social life.
Sociolinguistics: The study of relationships between language and social life, including variation, identity, and inequality. It shares the study of language and society, often foregrounding social variation.
Indexicality: The capacity of a sign to point to a social or situational context. Linguistic features can signal identities, stances, and relationships through contextual association.
Edward Sapir: An anthropologist and linguist whose work examined language, culture, and linguistic structure. His scholarship connected linguistic analysis with cultural and psychological questions.
Language and gender: The study of how language practices both reflect and produce gender relations and identities. It applies social-contextual analysis to gendered speech, identity, and power.
Historical linguistics: The study of how languages change and how they are historically related. Its primary focus is linguistic history, rather than language's cultural and social contexts.