Linguistic Models in Anthropology

Abstract

The basis of analogy between disciplines leads to epistemological and other philosophical discussions. Likewise, the basis of analogy between anthropology and linguistics directs discussion into the similarity of their subject matter, goals, and problems of analysis. Anthropological literature abounds with assertions of an overwhelming congruency (substantive, functional, historical, ontogenetic) between language and culture, but because most statements are inexplicitly formulated, it is difficult to assess the common problems and properties of these two fields. When discussing a problem of this nature, one could attempt to deal with several topics: (a) the basis of analogy between two disciplines in general and between linguistics and anthropology in particular; (b) the similarity between the goals and the subject matter of both anthropology and linguistics; (c) the nature of the linguistic model and its core concepts; (d) the comparison of various concepts used in both fields in order to expose differences that have developed by the very process of analogy; (e) the extent to which various concepts of linguistics are applied to cultural data, and the discussion of why certain concepts are not applied; (f) the various degrees of success in the use of these models; and finally (g) the overall impact of the use of the linguistic model in anthropology. Because any attempt to incorporate discussions of all these topics would require a much larger work than this, I am forced to exclude discussion of the factors that have led to an analogy in the two fields. Instead, I aim to assess how effectively the linguistic model has been applied to anthropology. It ought to be pointed out first that because several formal models are available in linguistics one of the prominent dangers in analogy is the confusion of concepts originally restricted to different models. Anthropology has not been spared such mistaken uses of some linguistic concepts, e.g. contrast vs complementation, component vs distinctive feature. Furthermore, in the course of the discussion, it will also be pointed out that the application of the linguistic model to anthropology has only been partly successful (when compared to linguistics) because several aspects of the model were not utilized.