Linguistic Anthropology Research Articles

Linguistic Strategies for Identity and World Building

Over the past decade, the medium of tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons has risen exponentially in popularity thanks to shows like Stranger Things and The Legend of Vox Machina as well as actual-play shows like The Adventure Zone, Critical Role and Dimension 20. Unlike video games and board games, the primary vehicle through which these games are played is language, making TTRPGs an enormous and as of yet rarely explored area of research for linguists and linguistic anthropologists. Participants must play, tell stories and build secondary worlds and selves all through interaction and conversation. Using tools from ethnographic field work, I investigate the features of the register as well as the conscious and unconscious linguistic strategies that are necessary to the function of TTRPGs. I observe and record three TTRPG sessions from pre-established recreational groups both in person and online and broadly transcribe relevant sections for linguistic anthropological analysis. Examination of these real-time improvised conversations reveals their performative nature as well as the conditions required for all players to agree that something takes place in the story that they are building. This paper outlines how players navigate the inevitable messiness and ambiguity that comes with multiple people trying to play a game and tell a story together and how they negotiate agency and control over that reality. Essentially, it considers how adults enact pretend play through language. It also describes the unique participation framework of TTRPG players as writers, characters and audience simultaneously. All of these elements serve to provide insight into this increasingly popular way of using language for entertainment and reveal some of why people find TTRPGs entertaining in the first place.

“Dialogue” between Russian and (Post/Anti)Boasian Anthropologies

The article touches on the problem of self-perception of domestic scholars in a long on-going dialogue with American anthropology. The focus is on the figure of the latter’s founding father, who, as is known, maintained intensive contacts with many prominent Russian scholars (L. Shternberg, W. Bogoras, J. Averkieva, etc.). Thanks to him, they received their positions and degrees, weight in the scientific world. But there is much that is paradoxical in the Boasian influence on Russian anthropology. Bogoras, who was most strongly associated with him personally and adopted Boas’s fieldworks methods, nevertheless made little reference to him in his works. On the other hand, Averkieva, who quoted “Papa Franz” many times, practically remained unaffected by his intellectual influence. In the modern Russian history of anthropology, there is a growing desire to participate in the “sharing” of Boas’s legacy, together with their recognized American colleagues (G. Stocking, R. Darnell, etc.). However, the genealogy of professional connections between Russian and American anthropologists is not easy to construct. Mutual relationship sometimes appears in the most unexpected points (anthropological linguistics, physical anthropology), while parallels are often explained by “similar ways of thinking”.

Toward a linguistic anthropological approach to listening: An ear with power and the policing of “active listening” volunteers in Japan

AbstractThis article develops the concept of an ear with power. An ear with power works through listeners who can, by listening, alter people's speech and other actions. It does so in ways that suit the institutions on whose behalf the listener acts. Unlike approaches focused on the effects of listening in interactions, an ear with power is a triadic relation in process, requires listening to listeners, and shows how absent listeners affect social relations. The article traces the implications of a complaint filed against Buddhist “active listening” volunteers in Japan after the 2011 disasters. Despite not using “Buddhist language” while volunteering, they were reported for “religious‐sounding speech,” which led to the temporary hiatus of their volunteer activities. Analyzing the distributed listening that led to that censure, this article demonstrates how linguistic anthropology might reframe critical analyses of power and governance, which have tended to rely on vision and speech. More specifically, it considers the ramifications of acts of listening that precede the speech that they are imagined to follow, the process whereby listeners come to hear themselves through the ear of another, and the ways that policing listening can alienate listening from listeners.

Alberta Hunter, Musical Qualia of Blackness, and Black Women Working Together

Abstract In this article, I argue for a culturally specific and historically informed understanding of Black voice and musical identity through an examination of the musical practices of vocalist Alberta Hunter (1895–1984), whose long career can be broken into two distinct periods: first from the middle of the 1910s to 1956, and a second between 1977 and her death in 1984. Within, I reframe musical practices emergent from and developed within Black American communities as musical “qualia”—socio-culturally informed and chronotopically situated embodiments of something’s properties—of Blackness, to enable a more direct investigation of how and why certain sounds signal or index Blackness to both listeners and performers. To demonstrate the musico-semiotic function of Black vocality and musical performance, I employ a synthetic methodology combining theorizations of qualia from the field of linguistic anthropology with detailed transcription and analysis of four recordings of “Downhearted Blues,” a piece she co-composed with pianist Cora “Lovie” Austin and recorded several times throughout her long career. Close examination of three recordings made by Hunter (1922, 1939, and 1977) and one made by vocalist Bessie Smith (1923) allows for a more granular understanding of how Hunter’s musical practice transformed over time in dialogue with broader genealogies of Black musical history. I focus particularly on Hunter’s relationships with other Black women in the performance of this tune, arguing that “Downhearted Blues” ultimately becomes a site for the development of a Black feminist epistemology exemplary of what musicologist Tammy Kernodle has identified as “Black Women Working Together” (2014).

Ethnographic methods: Training norms and practices and the future of American anthropology

AbstractAmerican anthropology is engaged in significant self‐reckonings that call for big changes to how anthropology is practiced. These include (1) recognizing and taking seriously the demands to decolonize the ways research is done, (2) addressing precarious employment in academic anthropology, and (3) creating a discipline better positioned to respond to urgent societal needs. A central role for ethnographic methods training is a thread that runs through each of these three reckonings. This article, written by a team of cultural, biocultural, and linguistic anthropologists, outlines key connections between ethnographic methods training and the challenges facing anthropology. We draw on insights from a large‐scale survey of American Anthropological Association members to examine current ethnographic methods capabilities and training practices. Study findings are presented and explored to answer three guiding questions: To what extent do our current anthropological practices in ethnographic methods training serve to advance or undermine current calls for disciplinary change? To what extent do instructors themselves identify disconnects between their own practices and the need for innovation? And, finally, what can be done, and at what scale, to leverage ethnographic methods training to meet calls for disciplinary change?

A crisis of confidence? Intervening in vaccine hesitancy in North Dakota.

In November 2020, North Dakota reported a higher number of cases and deaths per capita from COVID-19 than any other state in the United States. Several months later, it reported one of the country's highest rates of vaccine hesitancy, leading to the development and implementation of the state-funded and physician-led "Vaccine Champion" ("VaxChamp") program. Glossing the primary problem as one of "provider confidence," the VaxChamp program emphasized a standardized, scalable intervention that targeted healthcare providers directly, and patients only indirectly. Although the program hit its quantitative benchmarks, a qualitative inquiry into the program's history and context reveals multiple crises of confidence, many beyond the bioscientific domain of the program's focus. Drawing from work in medical and linguistic anthropology, we describe and analyze the "multiple levers of vaccine confidence" at play in the intervention and its surrounding context, as well as how these crises of confidence emerged.

Communication for Specific Purposes as translingual

Recent theoretical developments suggest that meaning making involves the relationality of human and nonhuman agents and diverse semiotic resources working together. “Translingual” is an inclusive term to refer to how different languages and modalities work together in communication. I draw from enregisterment perspectives in linguistic anthropology to demonstrate how a corpus of semiotic features becomes sedimented to identify specialized communicative activities. I illustrate from the Research Group Meeting of international STEM scholars in a midwestern American university. Despite their variable grammatical proficiency in English, the international scholars communicate effectively because they draw from a translingual assemblage that is diversified, and collaborate for joint outcomes adopting reciprocal communicative strategies. Outcomes are not defined by the grammatical mastery of individual speakers, but how participants collaborate through embodied translingual semiotic resources in their setting and community, facilitated by suitable ethical dispositions. The pedagogical alternative proposed will focus on cultivating the dispositions to negotiate translingual repertoires, material ecologies, and social networks for more inclusive outcomes in communication for specific purposes.

Alaskan Russian: Cultural and Historical Trace of the Russian Expansion in North America

The article analyzes approaches to creating a chronology of Russia’s exploration of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, highlights historical periods relevant for the main purpose of our research. The goal is to describe the Russian language as a dynamic and integral part of a unique culture formed in the Creole communities, uniting the paternal culture of Russian colonists and the maternal cultures of the indigenous population. This culture lies in the center of social interactions and makes its core. The issue is topical for the present study, since it contributes to our understanding of the phenomena of the interaction of cultures. The Russian period of Alaska is recognized by researchers, both domestic and international, as an important and special epoch in the life of the American state, an epoch which to a great extent determined its history. Alaskan Russian was an intermediary language for the people from the continent and the native speakers of indigenous languages. It was used in communication until the middle of the 20th century. At the moment, the Alaskan Russian language exists as a cultural artifact: to a certain extent, it is known by a few descendants of Creoles of very advanced age. The purpose of this study is to create a historical context of the formation of the Alaskan Russian language and to describe conditions for its uprise and preservation on the territory of Russian America. We show that the existence of permanent functional settlements in which Russian language was spoken – in the family, in the community, and for trade and professional contacts – determined consolidation of the Russian language, in a number of places in Alaska up to the middle of the XX century. The data presented in the article confirm that the Orthodox tradition and the Russian language that have survived to this day are the main features of Russia’s long-term cultural influence in Alaska. The study used both universal scientific methods and special methods of historical research determined by the specifics of the problem, namely: the problem-chronological method, the method of comparative analysis, the systematic method. Exploring the influence of language on social life, the author adheres to the methods of linguistic anthropology and historical anthropology

Threatening as a sociocultural–conceptual communicative act

AbstractThe present article revisits threatening discourses from the perspectives of anthropological linguistics, Cultural Linguistics, speech act theory and pragmatics. On the basis of linguistic data from 11th‐century Britain (Old English), 14th‐century Norway (Old Norse), 19th‐century Ireland (Early Modern Irish English and Modern Irish), 20th‐century Hong Kong (Hong Kong English) as well as 21st century South Africa (Black South African English), the discussion establishes verbal threats as socio‐pragmatic modes of action, that is, commissives that come as both illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. The main aim of the article is to elaborate on the central role that sociocultural norms and conventions play in the enregisterment of threat in a speech community at a given point in time. The article contributes to the development of forensic–linguistic threat assessment through a stronger focus on the sociocultural embeddedness of threatening discourses.

Playback interviews as a method for research on language ideologies: Citationality, reflexivity, and rapport in interdiscursive encounters

Abstract This contribution deals with the use of playback interviews in interactional sociolinguistics, a method wherein participants review audio or video recordings of their conversations and provide retrospective commentary. I first outline a brief history of the development of the playback method and how it was incorporated into the interactional sociolinguistic research agenda. As theoretical frameworks for playback interviews and their application to research on language ideologies remain underexplored, this article introduces three concepts from linguistic anthropology—citationality, reflexivity, and interdiscursivity—to theorize playback interviews from a semiotic perspective. Departing from these theories, playback interviews are contextualized within broader social dynamics, including participation frames, power, and rapport that are inherent in the interviewing process. Drawing on source recordings from interactions between L1 and European L2 users of Japanese in Tokyo, and playback sessions with the L2 users, I illustrate how playback interviews contribute to language-ideological inquiries, for example, perceptions of style and code-switching. The analysis showcases the method’s potential to unveil participants’ metapragmatic awareness and explore the intersection of linguistic structure, practice, and ideology. Playback interviews are positioned as a valuable tool for investigating language ideologies, offering new methodological perspectives through retrospection and reflection on communication.

Sadoh: Profit Sharing System of Bajo in Fishing, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Sadoh is a system of sharing profits from fishing. It is one of the local knowledge that Bajo’s fishermen still apply. Each boat, along with the system, has its way of sadoh. This system involves all stakeholders who are bound to the fishing system. Sadoh is based on the fishing gear used, the fishing system, the type of fish, the crew (sabi), and the captain (punggawa). However, the calculations appear to be the same for sabi and fishing gear, although the system and type of fish can influence them. The method used in this study is linguistic anthropology. Data was collected using direct observation and in-depth interviews in three Bajo villages in West Nusa Tenggara Province. They are Pulau Maringkik village of Keruak of East Lombok Regency, Pulau Bungin village of Alas of Sumbawa Regency, and Bajo Pulau Village of Sape of Bima Regency. The data were analyzed qualitatively using a linguistic anthropological approach. The study results show that the sadoh count for the badang component tends to be the same for all fishing systems and durations. At the same time, material investment in the form of aiai, capital, and honor has a changing distribution component and tends to be more for different fishing systems and durations. Components owned by the badang also have a fixed share value, while investment tends to increase according to the system and duration of the catch. Thus, sadoh, as a profit-sharing system, places greater emphasis on returns on aiai, capital, and honor

NILAI-NILAI BUDAYA TRADISI LISAN DALAM PERTUNJUKAN JIKI HADARA PADA PERNIKAHAN MASYARAKAT BIMA: KAJIAN ANTROPOLOGI LINGUISTIK

This research is a qualitative description research that produces descriptions in from written or spoken words of the people and the observer behavior. This study aims to describe the form of performance, indexicality, and participation. Oral traditional cultur values and inheritance systems in the Jiki Hadara performance, indexicality, and inheritance systems in the Jiki Hadara performance at the wedding of the Bima people with a linguistic anthropological perspective. The theory used in this study is the theory of linguistic anthropology from Duranti. The data collection was carried out using the observation method, the proficient method, and the transcription method. Data analysis using qualitative methods consisting of data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusions. The result of this study indicate that the Jiki Hadara performance at the wedding of the Bima community in the Tumpu Village, Bolo sub-district,has forms of performance, indexicality, and participation. Besides that, there are also traditional values in this research as well as an inheritance system that can provide an understanding in maintaining a traditional culture. This research is expected to be material for discussion for all groups, especially for cultural and scientific activists, especially in the field of linguistic anthropology.

Diversifying “English” at the Decolonial Turn

AbstractIn this brief forum article, I draw from the disciplinary orientation of linguistic anthropology to discuss how a collection of linguistic and semiotic resources gets enregistered as the “language” for specific communicative activities. Enregisterment is an ongoing social and ideological process whereby a semiotic corpus gets identified as conventional for an activity or identity (see Agha, 2005). At a larger scale of consideration, it can also help explain what is identified as “English” in any given time and place. It is more appropriate to focus on communicative activity as the unit of analysis for the diverse semiotic resources constituting it, rather than assuming a labeled language as the starting point for our teaching or research. In place of relying on formal proficiency in English grammar, which might have variable relevance in communicative practices, we must prepare students for the diverse semiotic repertoires needed for their purposes and develop in them the dispositions to always attune to the mix of entangled resources in any activity.

Representation of the Green Color in Russian and French Linguo-Cultures

This article represents an in-depth linguistic analysis of the use of green color in the Russian and French languages. The richness of phraseological expressions and lexical turns associated with this color is examined in diverse contexts. The primary focus is on denoting plants, nature, and metaphorical meanings, such as associations with youth and emotions. The study covers various domains of green color use, including its connection with playing cards, money, and alcohol. The author aims to uncover how the color interacts with cultural concepts and perceptions in different linguocultural environments of Russian and French languages, providing a profound understanding of the multilayered semantics of the color green. The research is based on a comprehensive analysis of linguistic materials, including a comparative analysis of phraseological units in Russian and French. Methods of semantic analysis, cultural context, and historical-linguistic comparison are applied. The work relies on authentic texts and integrates cultural and linguistic history to reveal nuanced aspects of green color usage. The study offers a deep analysis of phraseological units involving the green color, identifying their cultural, linguistic, and semantic aspects in the context of Russian and French languages. The work unveils common features and unique characteristics of green color usage, providing readers with a profound understanding of its significance in various linguistic and cultural paradigms. The scientific novelty lies in the full-scale analysis of linguistic material and the exploration of the influence of cultural factors on color perception in language. The research enriches linguistic science, offering valuable insights into the realm of cultural interaction through the language prism. It inspires further investigations into the semantics of color and linguistic anthropology, introducing new perspectives and understanding into discussions on the impact of color perception on cultural norms and customs.

The Ideological Construction of the English Language in the French Agrégation

This article explores the ways in which different language ideologies manifest themselves in the English agrégation (competitive exam) in France, showing how they contribute to the construction of the (socio)linguistic object named “English” in this context. Bringing together tools from sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and discourse analysis, I analyse a corpus of Agrégation jury reports and show how native-speakerism, national, standard language and raciolinguistic ideologies, as well as ideologies of coherence and purism, all play a role in shaping a set of ideal(ised) models of English – and thus of English speakers – in this context. The article concludes by suggesting that, given the influence of the Agrégation in France, the phenomena observed here may contribute to elaborating what goes by the name of “English” in French education, and in France, more generally.

Foucault, Badiou, and the Courage of Philosophy

While regarding twentieth century French philosophy as a protracted conceptual war, Badiou has largely avoided an encounter with Foucault on the philosophical battlefield. According to Badiou, Foucault constructs a history of systems of thought starting from something other than philosophy (linguistic anthropology, postmodern sophism, democratic materialism) and, in so doing, exits the philosophical battleground. The present essay explores the prospect of rapprochement between these two thinkers, drawing attention to their shared concern with the theme of true life. For Foucault and Badiou, the life in truth and for truth compels the subject to invent a new way of being at the site of exception to what there is. Although Badiou remains ambivalent about the Foucauldian notion of the philosophical subject, he ultimately endorses Foucault’s conception of the philosophical life, which calls for courage insofar as it summons the human animal to think differently and become other than what one is.

Laughing the Pain Away: Understanding Sambat Practice among Javanese Youth

In recent years, a verbal act of jokingly sharing grievances among Javanese youth labelled as sambat has become increasingly visible and audible both in social media and local radio. Sambat is a practice among Javanese youth where Javanese language is mixed with non-linguistic comedic touches to express a collective identity of being young, struggling with life’s problems, and feeling broken-hearted. This paper seeks to understand the emergence of sambat practice among Javanese youth on the internet and its traditional continuity within Javanese society. It explores the relation between language, emotion, and cultural practice through the lens of linguistic anthropology. The central argument is that the popularity of sambat on the internet has shifted the value of Javanese language from its traditional association with hierarchy to a comedic language that symbolises sadness, pain, and the persona of heartbroken youth.

“VIRADA MORAL” E ENTEXTUALIZAÇÃO DO HOMOSSEXUAL COMO PEDÓFILO EM FALAS DE BOLSONARO NO CONGRESSO (2000 A 2018)

ABSTRACT In this article, we aim to carry out a qualitative-quantitative investigation of 922 shorthand notes of Federal Deputy Jair Bolsonaro´s speeches in the Chamber of Deputies from 2000 to 2018. As objectives, we analyze (i) the presence of religious and military lexical items in the hatred rhetoric of Bolsonaro throughout this chronological segmentation and (ii) the “moral turn” in his political discourse, when, from 2011 on, he starts to associate homosexuality with pedophilia. To do so, we anchored ourselves in a lexical analysis methodology, bringing Corpus Linguistics closer to Linguistic Anthropology. To that end, we distributed the data into two sub-corpora, from 2000 to 2010 and from 2011 to 2018, having as a parameter, firstly, to describe the diachronic contrast in the occurrences of 20 keywords, divided into 10 for the religious discourse and 10 for the military, and, secondly, to explain the reentextualization of the sign “pedophilia” in the (re)organization of the relationship between hate speech, homophobia and moral panic in the speeches of the politician. The pronouncements were processed in the AntConc program and in Excel. From 2011 on, the Bolsonarist discourse begins to balance the use of lexicons from the ultraconservative military discourse and the Christian fundamentalist discourse.

The semantic expression of “a labor”, “an expanse” and “a will” key concepts of the Russian linguistic world view in the poetry of A.V. Koltsov

This article demonstrates methodological techniques and fundamentals of anthropological linguistics by means of examples from Russian belletristics. Special attention is paid to the “key” concepts of the Russian linguistic world view, which to the fullest degree accumulate the ethnocultural meanings. Namely, the basic concepts of the Russian linguistic world view “a labor”, “an expanse” and “a will” and their representation in the artistic space of Alexey Vasilyevich Koltsov’s work are analyzed. The authors identify the specifics of the manifestation of the national linguistic world view stable concepts semantics in relation to the individual artistic picture of the world, determine how the concept of “labor” is foregrounded and romanticized in the poetry of A. Koltsov and establish the lexical and semantic field of the concepts “an expanse” and “a will”.

ON THE ISSUE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LINGUOCULTURAL COMPETENCE

This article presents a theoretical model of the formation of linguocultural competence by applying a linguocultural approach in foreign language classes, which was developed as part of the master's thesis “Linguocultological aspects of foreign language teaching based on media materials”. The article presents the history of the emergence of linguoculturology as a science, as well as the relationship of this science with “linguistic anthropology”, “anthropological linguistics”,“sociolinguistics” and “ethnolinguistics”. Aspects of the application of the linguocultural approach in the context of the formation of linguocultural competence are considered. Also, the advantages of using electronic authentic media resources for the purpose of forming this competence are indicated due to their fullness with certain markers - linguoculturemes, which are represented in the form of linguistic phenomena. It is noted that within the framework of the educational process, electronic media texts can be used to form reading skills in foreign language lessons. As an example of the application of a linguoculturological approach using linguoculturemes taken from electronic media texts, the practical training section offers an excerpt of an English lesson for students of non-linguistic specialties of the 1st year of the university based on the materials of the article “Meet the people who took an evening class ... and changed their life” from the online newspaper The Guardian. Key words: linguoculturology, linguocultural approach, linguocultural competence, authentic materials, electronic media resources, The Guardian.