Documentary Studies and Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic anthropologists investigate how language use both presupposes and creates social relations in cultural context (Silverstein, 1985; Duranti, 1997; Agha, 2006). Theories and methods from linguistic anthropology have been productively applied in educational research for the past 40 years. This chapter describes key aspects of a linguistic anthropological approach, reviews research in wh...

Linguistic Anthropology of Education

Linguistic anthropological theories and methods have enriched our understanding of education. Almost all education is mediated by language, and linguistic anthropologists use both precise linguistic analyses and powerful anthropological theories to describe how educational language use establishes important social relations. Because educational institutions influence processes of concern to ant...

An Historical Perspective on Contemporary Linguistic Anthropology

Introduction A recent review of a several popular textbooks in cultural anthropology has confirmed my suspicion that there is a significant gap between what linguistic anthropology means to me and what it means to my colleagues in cultural anthropology (and probably in other sub-fields as well). One easy explanation of this gap would be to say that the authors of these textbooks are simply unin...

Beyond Macro and Micro in the Linguistic Anthropology of Education

This special issue explores whether the heuristics “macro” and “micro” capture the most important levels of explanation in the anthropology of education. Recent work suggests that we must move beyond a macro–micro approach. This introduction sketches reasons for going beyond macro and micro and reviews alternative approaches to explaining cultural and educational processes. The following articl...

‘Culture’ in anthropology and organizational studies