CFP AAA: Circulating Discourses of Past and Present: Linguistic Anthropology and History
History traditionally was part of linguistic anthropology but in more recent years much of the focus of the field has been on close analysis of specific events rather than ideas of the past and historical patterns. This panel aims to bring many notions of history back into circulation within the field of linguistic anthropology and [...]
An orphan by any other name…?
I know very little about adoption practices in Haiti, and all I know about events in that country since the earthquake last January I have learned from the news media. Still, I wonder whether the thing that American missionaries call an orphanage is really the same as what most Haitians think of as an orphelinat. It appears that Haitian orphanages are quite different from my own image of an orphanage.
SLA Call for Invited Sessions
It’s that time of year again: The Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA) invites your submissions for the American Anthropological Association’s 2010 Annual Meeting, to be held in New Orleans, on November 17-21. As this year’s SLA Section Program Editor, I am writing to encourage you to submit invited sessions, volunteered sessions, and volunteered papers and posters so that we can have an exciting meeting in New Orleans this November. The theme of the 2010 Meeting is “Circulation.” I hope that you will consider orienting your panels to the conference theme, although you do not have to do so.
Code switching and language alternation
A colleague writes to ask:
I read your article ‘Code Switching’ in Sociocultural Linguistics. What I wonder is [why] you didn’t write something about the author Grosjean (1982, Life with Two Languages). He also used the term Code Switching as one of the first. And I can’t get the differences between ‘ language alternation’ and ‘ code switching’? Can you describe the differences?
These are excellent questions.
Language, Culture and History Conference
Language, Culture and History conference
Call for Papers, Abstracts due March 1
Official Website: http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/anthropology/info.asp?p=19234
Department of Anthropology
Co-sponsored by the journal Ethnohistory
University of Wyoming
July 1-2, 2010
Joint Call for Papers for Society for Linguistic Anthropology and Council on Anthropology and Education
Charting Multilingual Confluences within Education Eric Johnson (ejj AT tricity.wsu.edu) Building on the “Circulation” theme for the 2010 AAA meetings, the committee on Multicultural and Multilingual Education within the Council on Anthropology & Education would like to invite presentation proposals to be considered for participation on an “Invited” session panel. The general aim of this [...]
Economist on the World’s Hardest Language
The Economist picks Tuyuca, an Eastern Amazon language as the world’s hardest language for its 50-140 noun classes http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108609 (Thanks to Alexander King and Sierra for the link).
A quick overview of sign languages
Basic Background:
Sign languages are different from both spoken languages and from each other. There is no universal sign language. Because Deaf people can’t hear the spoken language of the country, a sign language like American Sign Language has a different grammar from spoken language. It is also different from other sign languages—even British Sign Language—because of the separate histories of American and British Deaf communities. Sign languages are also not spelled out words, although fingerspelling can be used if you want to translate a written words like the name of an unfamiliar town into sign language.
Constructed languages on film
According to Ben Zimmer, various aliens in Star Wars spoke Quechua, one of the most widely spoken indigenous languages in South America, and Haya, a Bantu language spoken in Tanzania.
The new film Avatar features Na’vi, a constructed language said to “out-Klingon Klingon.”
Monkey Grammar?
An article passed on by Ken Ehrensal from the New York Times on Campbell’s monkeys having grammar. The grammar is pretty simple but looks like it might be more complex than Vervet monkeys’ efforts. [Link to article.] The full length article it is based on can be found here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007808 and discusses the flexibility of [...]
