Anthropological linguistics facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Anthropological linguistics is a special area of study. It mixes ideas from linguistics (the study of language) and anthropology (the study of human societies and cultures). This field looks at how language fits into our social and cultural world. It also explores how language helps create and keep up cultural practices and ways societies are built.

Some experts use the term linguistic anthropology instead. They see it as the same field. Others think they are slightly different.

How it Started
What it's About
Different from Other Fields
How Language is Structured
Code-switching
Related Fields
See Also

How it Started

People started studying language and culture together a long time ago. But it became very important in the early 1900s. In America, scholars became very interested in the many different Native American societies. Anthropologists and linguists worked together. They studied Native American languages. They wanted to understand how language connected to the history and features of these groups.

This way of mixing different studies made American anthropology special. European anthropology often focused on just describing cultures. But American anthropology started to include linguistics and other fields. At first, anthropological linguistics mainly looked at languages that were not written down. Now, it studies both written and unwritten languages.

Early researchers in this field focused on three main things:

Describing Languages: Scholars like Franz Boas and Edward Sapir wrote down how different languages were structured. They studied how languages worked. They did this by recording people speaking. Then they analyzed these recordings.
Classifying Languages: This meant finding out how languages were related to each other. Like how English and German are related. Classifying languages helped organize a lot of information. It helped scholars understand data from their studies of different cultures.
Studying Methods: By breaking down language, experts could find social and cultural information. They could also find patterns. For example, Boas and Sapir showed that speakers often didn't realize the patterns in their own language.

What it's About

Anthropological linguistics is one of many fields that study language. It looks at how language is used in people's social lives. It also studies how language works within communities. To do this, experts need to understand how language systems work. This includes things like grammar. They also record how these systems are used in real life.

In the 1960s and 1970s, anthropological linguistics and sociolinguistics seemed like the same field. But now they are seen as more separate. They still share many topics, like how gender affects language. But they are distinct fields. Anthropological linguistics began in the United States. It started when anthropologists studied native cultures. They realized they needed to understand their languages too.

This field has helped us understand many things. For example, it has helped us understand visual perception. This includes how we see colour. It looks at how different languages make different distinctions about what we see around us.

This field also helps us understand how societies work. For example, the Penan people have six different words for "we" in their language. Anthropological linguistics studies these differences. It connects them to different types of societies. It also looks at how our bodies adapt to our surroundings. It shows that languages often have many terms for things that are important in that environment. This leads to special knowledge and ways of thinking.

Different from Other Fields

The terms "anthropological linguistics" and "linguistic anthropology" are often used to mean the same thing. However, experts sometimes see them as different.

Anthropological linguistics is usually seen as a part of linguistics. It uses methods from linguistics. It focuses on the structure of language. It studies language as a "linguistic phenomenon." It emphasizes the cultural and social meaning found within language structure.
Linguistic anthropology is usually seen as a part of anthropology. It uses methods from anthropology. This includes things like living with a group of people to study them. It analyzes language through a cultural lens. It tries to figure out the rules for how language is used in social situations.

Anthropological linguistics also differs from sociolinguistics.

Anthropological linguistics uses language to understand cultural meanings. It tries to find the deeper meaning behind how language is used. This includes different forms, styles, and ways of speaking.
Sociolinguistics sees language itself as a social tool. It looks at how language connects to different social groups. This includes things like race, gender, social class, and age.

How Language is Structured

Phonology

This part of linguistics studies the sounds in any language. It explains why certain sounds help us identify words. Phonology focuses on the system and patterns of sounds we hear.

Morphology

Morphology in linguistics looks at how words are built in a language. It helps us understand the different forms words can take. This field studies words, their inner parts, and how they are made. Morphology broadly connects word forms in a language to the culture or environment it comes from.

Methods of Study

When studying attitudes in social sciences, there are two main ways. One way sees attitudes as ideas in our minds. The other way defines attitudes by how people behave. Even though they are different, both ways measure attitudes by looking at how people respond. Most experts agree that attitudes are learned. They also last for a while and are connected to how we act.

When studying how people feel about language, researchers often use surveys. A special method called the matched guise technique is also used a lot. This method helps find out how people truly feel about a language, dialect, or accent. It can show the social importance of different languages. Another similar method, called mirror image, helps measure how people feel about switching between languages in different situations.

It can be hard to process information from interviews. People being interviewed might also give biased answers. But interviews can be very good for understanding attitudes. Especially when used with observational methods.

Many linguists believe that comparing language and social behavior has been difficult. This is because language studies and anthropology studies often don't use the same kind of data. An anthropologist might describe specific communities. But a linguist might analyze one single language or dialect. This often means focusing on one main way of speaking.

For example, English is often thought of as one single language. But people forget about the many dialects and accents it has. The English spoken in the United States is not the same as English spoken in Australia. Even American English spoken in New York is different from American English spoken in Alabama.

Code-switching

Code-switching is when a person switches between two or more languages. Or they might switch between different ways of speaking the same language. This happens during one conversation. It's a clear way to see how social processes and language forms are connected. This is because the social and language differences are often very clear.

In anthropological linguistics, code-switching is seen as a unified event. Its meaning comes from a universal pattern. This pattern connects how language is used, what it means, and the situation it's used in. Many linguists see code-switching as a verbal strategy. It shows how the language tools people have can change. This depends on the social groups they belong to.

Studying code-switching helps us understand speech communities. Future research needs to look at where these interactions happen. This includes specific communities or across different communities.

Related Fields

Anthropological linguistics is connected to these areas:

Descriptive linguistics: This describes different ways a language is used by a specific group. It includes studying sounds (phonology), word structure (morphology), sentence structure (syntax), meaning (semantics), and grammar.
Historical linguistics: This describes how languages change over time. It includes studying how languages split apart and form language families. It also looks at how words get their meanings (etymology).
Ethnolinguistics: This analyzes the link between culture, thought, and language.
Sociolinguistics: This analyzes how language functions in society. It also looks at the social, political, and economic links between people in speech communities.