語言人類學(Linguistic Anthropology)是人類學的分支,將語言學研究方法運用於人類學問題上,將符號或特殊語言形式與過程聯結到社會文化過程的詮釋。
最早的理論典範原本被稱為語言學(linguistics),雖然當這門學科及相關的研究領域發展成熟之後,稱為 「人類學式的語言學」(anthropological linguistics)。這個領域專門研究這個次學科所獨有的一些主題:對於被視為註定要滅絕的語言所做的語言學記錄(有一些北美原住民語言成為這個次學科學者所關注的焦點),例如:
在1960年代,戴爾·海姆斯主要負責發起第二種理論典範,將「語言人類學」(linguistic anthropology)這個名稱固定下來,雖然他也創造了「言談民族誌」(ethnography of speaking,或「溝通民族誌」 ethnography of communication)這個術語,來描述他為這個學術領域所設想的架構。這包含了運用錄音設備等新的科技發展。
海姆斯也引介了一種新的分析單位。有鑑於在第一種理論典範聚焦於表面上獨特的「語言」(引號表示當代的語言人類學家將「一個語言」的概念視為一種理想建構,從而掩蓋了這個語言內部的複雜性,以及「跨越」所謂的語言界線的複雜性);第二種理論典範的分析單位是「言談事件」(speech event)。(言談事件是一個事件,由發生在這個事件之中的言談所界定的,例如,一場晚宴並不是一個言談事件,而是一個言談情境,在這種情境下,言談可能會發生,也可能不會發生。)有許多學者專注於在這些言談事件中,參與者對他們的語言表現型態所提出的解釋。
[1][2]
海姆斯也開創了語言人類學的一種研究方法,民族詩學。
海姆斯希望將語言人類學更密切聯結到人類學這個母學科。語言人類學這個名稱強調它的首要身份是人類學,並且是「人類學式的語言學」。如今這在大多數的大學是一門獨立學科(而不是在法蘭茲·鮑亞士和沙皮爾的時代)。然而,語言人類學這個理論典範,標誌著它跟人類學的其他分支學科進一步的疏遠。
在1980年代後期興起的第三種理論典範,並不是繼續追求來自一個讓人類學感到陌生的學科(語言學)的各項議題,語言人類學家有系統地專注於自己母學科人類學所提出的各項議題,但運用了語言學的資料和方法。在這第三種理論典範的熱門研究議題,包括社會身份認同的調查研究、普遍共同具有的意識形態,以及在個人和團體之間的互動中,論述的建構與運用方式。
當代語言人類學研究延續了上述的三個理論典範。有幾個領域關連到第三種典範,也就是對於人類學議題的研究,這是當代語言人類學家特別專注的領域。
語言人類學的作品有許多從語言學角度探討社會文化認同的議題。語言人類學家庫利克(Don Kulick)在巴布亞紐幾內亞一個名為迦普恩(Gapun)的村落,依據對許多場景的分析,研究語言與認同的關係。[3]庫利克探討了迦普恩的兒童如何使用兩種語言──傳統語言「塔伊阿普」(Taiap)只在自己村落使用,從而標示了一種根本賦予的(primordially)迦普恩人身分認同。另一種語言則是巴布亞皮欽語(在紐幾內亞盛行的官方語言)。 (語言人類學家使用「標示」(indexical)這個字的意思是指標性。[4])
Hymes, Dell. 1981 [1975] Breakthrough into Performance. In In Vain I Tried to Tell You: Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics. D. Hymes, ed. Pp. 79-141. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Kulick, Don. 1992. Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, Self and Syncretism in a Papua New Guinea Village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Silverstein, Michael. 1976. Shifters, Linguistic Categories, and Cultural Description. In Meaning in Anthropology. K. Basso and H.A. Selby, eds. Pp. pp. 11-56. Albuquerque: School of American Research, University of New Mexico Press.
- Bauman, Richard. 1977. Verbal Art as Performance. American Anthropologist 77:290-311.
- Duranti, Alessandro. 1992. Language and Bodies in Social Space: Samoan Greetings. American Anthropologist 94:657-691.
- Duranti, Alessandro. 2003. Language as Culture in U.S. Anthropology: Three Paradigms. Current Anthropology 44(3):323-348.
- Errington, J. Joseph. 1988. Structure and Style in Javanese: A Semiotic View of Linguistic Etiquette. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
- Hill, Jane, and Bruce Mannheim. 1992. "Language and Worldview." Annual Reviews in Anthropology 21:381-406.
- Hoijer, Harry. 1954. "The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis," in Language in culture: Conference on the interrelations of language and other aspects of culture. Edited by H. Hoijer, pp. 92–105. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Horwitz, Tony. 2006. Immigration—and the Curse of the Black Legend (Op-Ed). New York Times. Week in Review, July 9, 2006, p. 13.
- Hymes, Dell. 1981 [1975] Breakthrough into Performance. In In Vain I Tried to Tell You: Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics. D. Hymes, ed. Pp. 79-141. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Kroskrity, Paul V. 1998. Arizona Tewa Kiva Speech as a Manifestation of Linguistic Ideology. In Language ideologies: Practice and theory. B.B. Schieffelin, K.A. Woolard, and P. Kroskrity, eds. Pp. 103-122. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Kulick, Don. 1992. Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, Self and Syncretism in a Papua New Guinea Village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Kulick, Don, and Charles H. Klein. 2003. Scandalous Acts: The Politics of Shame among Brazilian Travesti Prostitutes. In Recognition Struggles and Social Movements: Contested Identities, Agency and Power. B. Hobson, ed. Pp. 215-238. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Ochs, Elinor. 1988. Culture and language development: Language acquisition and language socialization in a Samoan village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi Schieffelin. 1984. Language Acquisition and Socialization: Three Developmental Stories and Their Implications. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. R. Shweder and R.A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 276-320. New York: Cambridge University.
- Ochs, Elinor, and Carolyn Taylor. 2001. The 「Father Knows Best」 Dynamic in Dinnertime Narratives. In Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. A. Duranti, ed. Pp. 431-449. Oxford. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
- Rumsey, Alan. 1990. Word, meaning, and linguistic ideology. American Anthropologist 92(2):346-361.
- Schieffelin, Bambi B. 1990. The Give and Take of Everyday Life: Language Socialization of Kaluli Children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Schieffelin, Bambi B. 1995. Creating evidence: Making sense of written words in Bosavi. Pragmatics 5(2):225-244.
- Schieffelin, Bambi B. 2000. Introducing Kaluli Literacy: A Chronology of Influences. In Regimes of Language. P. Kroskrity, ed. Pp. 293-327. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.
- Schieffelin, Bambi B. 2002. Marking time: The dichotomizing discourse of multiple temporalities. Current Anthropology 43(Supplement):S5-17.
- Schieffelin, Bambi B. 2006. PLENARY ADDRESS: Found in translating: Reflexive language across time and texts in Bosavi, PNG. Twelve Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, 2006.
- Silverstein, Michael. 1976. Shifters, Linguistic Categories, and Cultural Description. In Meaning in Anthropology. K. Basso and H.A. Selby, eds. Pp. pp. 11-56. Albuquerque: School of American Research, University of New Mexico Press.
- Silverstein, Michael. 1979. Language Structure and Linguistic Ideology. In The Elements: A Parasession on Linguistic Units and Levels. R. Cline, W. Hanks, and C. Hofbauer, eds. Pp. pp. 193-247. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
- Silverstein, Michael. 1985. Language and the Culture of Gender: At the Intersection of Structure, Usage, and Ideology. In Semiotic Mediation: Sociocultural and Psychological Perspectives. E. Mertz and R. Parmentier, eds. Pp. 219-259. Orlando: Academic Press.
- Silverstein, Michael. 2004. "Cultural" Concepts and the Language-Culture Nexus. Current Anthropology 45(5):621-652.
- Wilce, James M. 2006. Magical Laments and Anthropological Reflections: The Production and Circulation of Anthropological Text as Ritual Activity. Current Anthropology. 47(6):891-914.
- Woolard, Kathryn A. 2004. Codeswitching. In Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. A. Duranti, ed. Pp. 73-94. Malden: Blackwell.
- Ahearn, Laura M. 2011. Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
- Baugh, J. & J. Sherzer. eds. 1984. Language in use. Prentice Hall.
- Blount, Ben G. ed. 1995. Language, Culture, and Society: A Book of Readings. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.
- Bonvillain, Nancy. 1993. Language, culture, and communication: The meaning of messages. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Brenneis, Donald; and Ronald K. S. Macaulay. 1996. The matrix of language: Contemporary linguistic anthropology. Boulder: Westview.
- Duranti, Alessandro. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Duranti, Alessandro. ed. 2001. Key terms in language and culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
- Duranti, Alessandro. ed. 2001. Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
- Duranti, Alessandro. ed. 2004. Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
- Duranti, Alessandro and Charles Goodwin. eds. 1992. Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon. Studies in the social and cultural foundations of language (No. 11). Cambridge: Cambridge University.
- Fitch, K. and G. Philipsen. 1995. Ethnography of speaking. In Handbook of pragmatics. J. Verschueren, J.-O. Östman, J. Blommaert, eds. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.
- Foley, W. A. 1997. Anthropological linguistics: an introduction. Blackwell.
- Frank, Francine and Frank Anshen. 1984. Language and the sexes. Albany: State U of NY Press.
- Giglioli, Pier Paolo. 1972. Language and social context: Selected readings. Middlesex: Penguin Books.
- Goffman, Erving 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Gumperz, John and Dell Hymes. eds. 1964. The ethnography of communication. American Anthropologist, 66 (6, Part 2), 1-186.
- Gumperz, John J. ed. 1982. Language and social identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Gumperz, John J. and Dell Hymes. eds. 1972. Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
- Hanks, William F. 1996. Language and communicative practices. Critical essays in anthropology(No. 1). Boulder, CO: Westview.
- Harrison, K. David. 2007. When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. New York and London: Oxford University Press.
- Hill, Jane H. 2001. Language, Race, and White Public Space. In Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. A. Duranti, ed. Pp. 450-464. Malden: Blackwell.
- Morgan, M. ed. 1994. Language and the social construction of identity. Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies, UCLA.
- Newmeyer, F. J. ed. 1989. Language: The socio-cultural context. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Philipsen, G. 1992. Speaking culturally. Albany: State University of New York Press.
- Salzmann, Zdenek. 1998. Language, culture, & society (2nd ed.). Westview Press.
- Sanches, M. and B. G. Blount. eds. 1975. Sociocultural dimensions of language use. New York: Academic Press.
- Schiffman, H. 1996. Linguistic culture and language policy. Routledge.
- Silverstein, Michael. 1994. Shifters, Linguistic Categories, and Cultural Description. In Language, Culture, and Society: A Book of Readings. B.G. Blount, ed. Pp. 187-221. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.
- Tedlock, Dennis and Bruce Mannheim. 1995. The dialogic emergence of culture. Champaign: University of Illinois.
- Whorf, Benjamin Lee. 1956. Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings. J. B. Carroll, ed. Cambridge: Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.