Official Announcements
Linguistic Anthropology is the comparative study of the ways in which language shapes social life. On this website, you can find information about the SLA, how to contact us, and about our journal. Be sure to also check out our blog, and other helpful resources.
SLA Undergraduate Student Essay Contest
On behalf of the SLA Executive Committee, I invite you to participate in this year’s Society for Linguistic Anthropology student essay prize competition for the best undergraduate paper in linguistic anthropology. (PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DEADLINE FOR THE GRADUATE PAPER CONTEST WAS EARLIER THIS SPRING. THOSE INTERESTED IN THE GRADUATE PAPER CONTEST SHOULD WAIT UNTIL [...]
AAA elections open through 31 May
Elections for AAA, Society for Linguistic Anthropology, and other sections are open from 15 April until 31 May, 2012. Log in at www.aaanet.org with your username and password and click “Vote Now”.
AAA and SLA election candidates
The candidates for AAA and SLA positions, as listed in Anthropology News
Calls for papers at LINGANTH
With abstracts for the 2012 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting coming due soon, various SLA members have sent out calls for papers. Here is a list of recent calls sent out via LINGANTH.
SLA Call for Application/Registration Waivers
The SLA is calling for applications for registration waivers for participants in next year’s Annual Meetings in San Francisco. The SLA will have one waiver to allocate and can compete for additional waivers if they become available. The AAA’s registration waiver program provides registration and membership fee waivers for qualified scholars. Qualifying scholars are: 1) [...]
Blog
“Ordinary” language use
In “Lesbian bar talk in Shinjuku, Tokyo” Hideko Abe shows how identity positions are constructed and claimed through language use. One passage, which shows how use of the word futsuu (ordinary) includes homosexual and heterosexual subjects in the same category, bears additional analysis.
Truth and narrative
Recent news events highlight relationships between fact and story telling. Ethan Zuckerman’s recent ruminations on activism and journalism provide a summary and synthesis of one set of ideas, and a piece Michael Wilson contributed to the New York Times’ City Room at about the same time provides another.
Wikipedia and the Academy
Barbara Johnstone (2011) “Making Pittsburghese” and Timothy Messer-Kruse (2012) “The ‘undue weight’ of truth on Wikipedia” present very different views of scholar’s experiences with Wikipedia. Johnstone’s evaluation is mostly positive, while Messer-Kruse’s is quite negative.
Gaelic-medium education outcomes in Scotland – Stuart Dunmore
Stuart Dunmore (U Edinburgh) introduces his research on the life trajectories of adults who were educated in Gaelic. He seeks to discover how such former students engage with the language today. This is the first in our series of graduate student guest posts.
On socialism, liberalism, and neo-liberalism
“Socialism” and “liberalism” are poorly defined in US politics; the former is over-applied to left-of-center positions, and the latter used in two almost reverse ways. “Neoliberalism” is a hot topic in contemporary anthropology, but the word is sometimes used without sufficient reflection. One way to spot the best work is to look for authors who take pains to define the terms.
