Field Methods in the Study of Language and Culture

The idea that language and culture are deeply interconnected seems almost commonsensical. But what are the actual mechanics of the interplay between these two key notions in the study of human experience? Linguistic anthropology offers an important contribution to the understanding of language as cultural practice, at the same time enhancing our awareness that language is a culturally loaded semiotic medium. This course will offer an overview of the rich scholarly tradition that examines the language/culture interface. We will discuss how social meanings and cultural values are constructed and reproduced through prosaic and unsensational conversational practices. We will learn how people’s ideas and beliefs about language(s) can be mapped onto people and have profound implications in the life of a social group. We will scrutinize key issues in the study of endangered languages and learn how field linguists compile grammars of unknown languages spoken by only a few surviving speakers. We will see how the grammar of the specific languages that we speak shapes how we view the world and discover how language mediates perceptions of time, space, form, and matter. We will explore forms of lived experience such as music concerts, story telling, and dance and discover the culturally specific ways through which people engage with the images and sounds of a performance. In so doing, we will explore different practical approaches to ethnographic and linguistic fieldwork. Special emphasis will be given to practicing and understanding the methodological specificities of linguistic anthropological work, which combines traditional ethnographic methods (such as interviewing and participant-observation) with the use of audio-visual recording and transcription of spontaneous interaction. This methodological training will provide students with a deeper appreciation of the potential of these different techniques for grasping the nuances of communicative interaction and will enhance their awareness of the importance of linguistic details for the understanding of broader sociocultural processes.