Language, Society, and Culture: Introducing Anthropological Linguistics , and: Language, Society, and Culture: Exercise and Activity Manual , and: The Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology , and: The Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Workbook, Reader (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Language, Society, and Culture: Introducing Anthropological Linguistics, and: Language, Society, and Culture: Exercise and Activity Manual, and: The Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, and: The Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Workbook, Reader Peter Bakker Language, Society, and Culture: Introducing Anthropological Linguistics. Marcel Danesi. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2008. Pp. xi + 312. $39.95 (paper). Language, Society, and Culture: Exercise and Activity Manual. Marcel Danesi. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2008. Pp. iii + 91. $24.95 (paper). The Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer. 2d edition. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2009. Pp. xxvi + 372. $94.95 (paper). The Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Workbook, Reader. Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer. 2d edition. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2009. Pp. xxii + 183. $60.95 (paper). Decades after Joseph Greenberg's (1968) pioneering textbook on anthropological linguistics, teachers of courses on anthropological linguistics have a reasonable set of textbooks to choose from. Greenberg's book has been out of print for many years now. Most of the other, more recent textbooks have been reprinted several times, and are available in new revised editions. The books under review are also revised editions. Danesi's 2008 book was first published in 2004 as A Basic Course in Anthropological Linguisticsby the same publisher, and the first edition of Ottenheimer's book dates from 2006. Both textbooks are accompanied by workbooks, and Ottenheimer's book by a website as well. One's choice of a textbook will be based on several criteria: its overall quality, the level of the textbook and the degree level of the prospective students, the choice of subjects, accessibility and readability, the spectrum of languages and cultures surveyed, and the discipline—linguistics or anthropology—of the author and of the students. In this review, I discuss both textbooks in terms of these criteria. Danesi's book is highly readable and accessible; it is written from an anthropological perspective rather than a linguistic one, and is intended for an audience with little or no background knowledge in either linguistics or anthropology. It treats a wide, sometimes surprising, range of subjects, but a fairly limited range of cultures and languages, mostly Western societies. I first discuss the contents in more detail before evaluating the book. The book consists of three parts: "Language," "Language and Society," and "Language, Mind and Culture"; each part consists of four chapters. In addition, there is a fourteen-page glossary of technical terms, plus a list of references and an index. [End Page 398] Chapter 1 is a very brief introduction to definitions of language, the acquisition of languages, and some of the history of research on links between language and culture. Chapter 2 discusses the scientific study of language, including grammatical, semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic approaches. Chapter 3 deals with the evolution of language—both the main principles of historical linguistics and precursors of language among animals. Chapter 4, the final chapter of part 1, discusses and illustrates the different levels of analysis in language description: phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Part 2, on language and society, begins with a chapter on language and social phenomena, including such topics as language and gender, stylistic differences, naming people, and artificial languages. Chapter 6, on language use, introduces speech act theory, conversational devices, and communicative competence and functions of language. In addition, the author discusses language in myths from several regions of the world. Chapter 7 treats writing systems (mostly early ones) and literacy, including the use of abbreviations and electronic communication. Chapter 8 deals with variation, and covers social and geographical dialects, pidgins and creoles, slang, loanwords, emotivity, and professional jargon. Part 3 deals partly with cognitive issues. It starts off with a chapter on Whorfianism, mostly from a lexical point of view, in which the number of words for snow and for types of seal are discussed in the context of classificatory semantics. Whorf's work on Hopi and Navaho is discussed, but little is said about recent research on mutual influence between language and culture. Further, Danesi discusses color terms and specialized vocabularies, as well as artificial languages and words with bizarre-sounding meanings in languages of the...