-Lise M. Dobrin and Don Kulick How could language endangerment, which many scholars see as an alarming problem, be largely invisible to the people whose… Read More »They don’t see a problem, we don’t see the desire for connection: Indifference to language loss in Papua New Guinea and its challenge for research
The 3rd Biennial Society of Linguistic Anthropology Conference will be held from May 29-31, 2025, at the University of Chicago/Hyde Park. Watch out for a… Read More »Save the Date: 3rd Biennial SLA Conference (2025)
Instructor/Creator: Dylan Clark Institution/Campus/Department: Anthropology, University of Toronto Course: ANT206Y5 – Culture and Communication: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology Subject(s): Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology Topic(s): Class and ethnicity, Gender, language endangerment, language in social action, language revitalization, multi-racial… Read More »ANT206Y5 – Culture and Communication: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology
IMAGE CREDIT: JAMES PROVOST (CC BY-ND) Kids in the middle: Recognizing the important role of children as cultural translators By Kendall Powell, Knowable Magazine Linguistic anthropologist… Read More »Kids in the Middle, Q&A with Inmaculada García-Sánchez
Anthropology News Column By Mariam Durrani, Netta Avineri, Kathleen C. Riley, Hilary Parsons Dick, and Susan D. Blum This post is a summary of the… Read More »AN News: Language and Social Justice Committee Storify (Language and Social Justice Committee)
From Anthropology News Trump’s Formulaic Twitter Insults Trumped Up Words Adam Hodges Every presidential transition also involves a change in the regime of language. This… Read More »AN News: Trump’s Formulaic Twitter Insults
Anthropology News Column On campus violence, language, and the climate of fear. Monday was my birthday. I was taking a walk along the river near my… Read More »AN News: “Run, Hide, Fight” by Anna M. Babel (The Ohio State University)
Anthropology News Article By Miranda Cady Hallett (U of Dayton) and Lynnette Arnold (U Mass-Amherst) During the 20th century, military dictatorships in Latin America became… Read More »AN News: “Detention, Disappearance, and the Power of Language” by Miranda Cady Hallett and Lynnette Arnold
Anthropology News Article Netta Avineri (Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey), Susan D. Blum (U of Notre Dame), Eric Johnson (Washington State U Tri-Cities),… Read More »AN News: “The Gap That Won’t Be Filled: An anthropolitical critique of the ‘Language Gap’” by Avineri et. al.
Anthropology News Column In recent years, several sociolinguists have published accounts of successful integration of Outreach and Engagement into their research and/or teaching, including outreach… Read More »AN News: “Outreach and Engagement in a Science Museum” by Leslie C. Moore (The Ohio State University) et al.
See below for a list of recent ethnographies on language socialization, which will appeal to educators and students of anthropology, particularly at the undergraduate level, as well as… Read More »Ethnographies of Language Socialization: Resources for Teaching Undergraduate Anthropology
Anthropology News Article One of the perks offered to faculty at Nazarbayev University is a free campus apartment. When I was hired last year, I… Read More »AN News: “Neither Home Nor Field” by Erika Alpert (Nazarbayev University)
Anthropology News Article For a long time in anthropology, the documentation of languages on the brink of disappearing was negatively tainted as salvage: quaint in… Read More »AN News: “At the Crossroads of Linguistics and Anthropology: Disciplinary perspectives on language documentation” by Lise Dobrin (University of Virginia) and Niko Besnier (University of Amsterdam)
On behalf of William Leap (American University), Co-editor, Journal of Language and Sexuality: The Journal of Language and Sexuality (www.benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/jls) is now in its fifth year of publication. JL&S explores… Read More »The Journal of Language & Sexuality
Anthropology News Article On November 24, 2014, St Louis prosecutor McCulloch announced that the grand jury trial did not indict Officer Darren Wilson for the… Read More »AN News: “Digital Counterpublics: Black Twitter in the Aftermath of Ferguson” by Mariam Durrani (University of Pennsylvania)
Susan Blum and Kathleen Riley offer a critical evaluation of programs designed to close the “language gap” between disadvantaged and middle-class children at Anthropology News.
Why am I uncomfortable with talk of evolution in the news? Maybe I’m hearing echoes of Herbert Spencer. A brief exploration of Terry Gross and… Read More »Evolution and ‘lies to children’
The widely read Skippyjon Jones series of children’s picture books (Schachner 2003) presents Mock Spanish to the preschool set. Lots of material available on the… Read More »Mock Spanish in Skippyjon Jones
SKILLS (School Kids Investigating Lg in Life and Society) is a project spearheaded by Mary Bucholtz and Jin Sook Lee. They have developed a curriculum to… Read More »SKILLS: School Kids Investigating Language in Life and Society website
Radio programs have recently celebrated a “new understanding” of the importance of preschool for success later in life. Related knowledge has been part of academic… Read More »Why preschool hasn’t saved the world
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… Read More »Gaelic-medium education outcomes in Scotland – Stuart Dunmore
Recently some scholars in language acquisition and education have posted links on Facebook to the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (henceforth CCFC), which is… Read More »Marketing language abilities
New York Times reviews the latest research on baby babbling: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/health/12klass.html?src=me&ref=health and an article on children’s use of irony. Tape recording of naturally occurring speech,… Read More »Baby babbling and irony
Discussion of the revitalization of and resistance to Romansh, the fourth official Swiss language related to Latin used during Roman times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/world/europe/29swiss.html?_r=2&hp
Kathryn Woolard, SLA President In response to my original posting on this website, I received the following email message a few days ago from the… Read More »Guy Deutscher responds
Some interesting comments on the education system in general in a New York Times Editorial on Haitian Education These comments were posted in response to… Read More »More on Haitian Kreyòl and the education system
Posted for: Michel DeGraff, MIT Linguistics & Philosophy Dear friends and colleagues, We ask that you please take time to read, sign and distribute Professor… Read More »Petition on Haitian Kreyòl
Why I find “geek”, when used as a slur, more offensive than words which may commonly be viewed as quite foul and offensive.
This year’s AAA meetings have the highest number of registrants on record. As one of the student assistants on the Executive Program Committee, the level… Read More »The Making of the AAA Meetings
About the vuvuzela term: first, the suffix -ela is an “applicative” extension in isiZulu. The suffix “ela” means “an action… performed for, on behalf of,… Read More »South African languages
Taping marriages One of the most frequent uses of linguistic anthropology is to help us understand how people in marriages communicate with each other. Article… Read More »Linguistic Anthropology Roundup #8
The Arizona Department of Education is asking school districts to remove teachers who speak “heavily accented or ungrammatical” English from classrooms where students are learning… Read More »University of Arizona Department of Linguistics’ letter to state lawmakers
In this edition of our bi-weekly Roundup: the satirical journal Speculative Grammarian tackles fieldwork; the Muscogee (Creek) Nation is discussing a resolution condemning Arizona’s new… Read More »Linguistic anthropology roundup #6
Linguistic Anthropology Roundup #3 The Boston Globe’s “The Word”, Conversations with Ron Scollon, Monkeys with Internet Access, Voting Osage, and more
Celso Alvarez Caccamo had such an interesting response to my first roundup that I have pasted it in full so anyone seeing the blog will… Read More »Celso Alvarez Caccamo on Catalan Language Policies
Welcome to the inaugural Society for Linguistic Anthropology Roundup Blogpost that will briefly summarize some of the current interesting linguistic anthropology related materials available on… Read More »Linguistic Anthropology Roundup #1
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… Read More »Constructed languages on film
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… Read More »Monkey Grammar?