Anthropology 512: Language and Culture
Wednesdays 4:00-6:50pm, 209A Davenport
Professor Janet Dixon Keller, 395 Davenport Hall, 333-3529, Office Hours Thursday 10-11:30 or
by appointment
Syllabus
Texts: Blount, Ben (ed.) 1995 Language, Culture and Society. A Book of Readings. Second
Edition. Prospect heights, IL: Waveland.
Chomsky, Noam 1984 Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin and Use. NY: Praeger.
Hanks, William 1996 Language and Communicative Practices. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Duranti, Alessandro 1999 Language Matters in Anthropology: A Lexicon for the Millenium.
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9:1 and 2.
Lyons, John L. 1981 Language and Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Jakobson, Roman 1978 Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Available at Dup-It Copy Shop.
Richard Bauman and Briggs, Charles 2003 Voices of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Saussure, Ferdinand de [1959] 1966 Course in General Linguistics. NY" McGraw-Hill Book Co.
Austin, J. L. 1962 How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Requirements: Reading and participation in critical discussion; Weekly questions; Critical Assessment
Report in last third of semester; Take Home exam following Week 6; Analytical essay following Week 10;
Take Home due 5 days following last day of class.
Week One: August 27:
Introduction
Related Readings: Hymes, Dell (ed.) 1974 Studies in the History of Linguistic: Traditions and Paradigms.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Week Two: September 3: (The system and description)
Saussure: 1966 Course in General Linguistics, Intro and Part One: General Principles 1-100
Boas: 1911 Intro to Handbook of American Indian Languages in Blount LCS 9-28.
Blount: 1974 LCS, Introduction 1-7
Sapir: 1914 Lang and Environment in Mandelbaum (ed) 1949 Selected Writings of Edward Sapir
89-103 online.
Hanks: 1996 Chapters One and Two in Language and Communicative Practices pages 1-38.
Lyons: 1981 Chapters One and Two in Language and Linguistics 1-65.
Related readings: Bloomfield, L. 1933 Language. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Stocking, George W. 1974 Franz Boas Reader: The Shaping of American
Anthropology 1883-1911. Chicago: U of Chicago Press.
Koerner, E. F. K. 1977 The Humboldtian Trend in Linguistics. In Amsterdam Studies in
the Theory and History of Linguistic Science IV, Paul J. Hopper (ed.) p. 145158.
Week three: September 10: (Behaviorism, Mentalism and Convention)
Whorf: 1941 The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language in Blount LCS 64-84.
Sapir: 1927/1933 The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society and Language in Blount
LCS 29-63.
Sapir: 1931/1934 Communication and Symbolism from Mandelbaum (ed) 1949 Selected Writings
of Edward Sapir 104-110 and 564-569. online.
Hoijer: 1954 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in Blount LCS 104-113.
Mead: 1936/ 1934 The Problem of Society: How We become Selves and Relation of Mind to
Response and Environment in Blount LCS 85-103.
Lucy: 1985 Whorf's View of the Linguistic Mediation of Thought in Blount LCS 415-438.
Pike: 1964 Towards a Theory of the Structure of Behavior in Hymes (ed) Language in Culture
and Society 54-63 online.
Saussure: 1966 Synchronic Linguistics in Course in General Linguistics 101-140.
Hanks: 1996 From Signs to Sentences and first part of North American Formalism and the
Problem of Meaning in Language and Communicative Practices 39-71.
Lyons: 1981 Chapter 10 in Language and Linguistics 301-333.
Related Readings: Whorf Language, Thought and Reality. Selected Writings, edited by J. B. Carroll.
Cambridge MA: MIT Press and New York: Wiley.
Goodenough Culture, Language and Society. Menlo Park, CA: The Benjamin/Cummings
Publishing Company, Inc.
Hymes (ed) 1964 Language in Culture and Society: A Reader in Linguistics and
Anthropology. NY: Harper and Row.
Witherspoon, Gary Language and Art in the Navajo Universe. I think it is published by
U of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. Date would be sometime in the 80s.
Hill, Jane and Mannheim, Bruce 1992 Language and World View. Annual Review of
Anthropology. vol 21: 381-406.
Ochs, Elinor and Capps, Lisa 1996 Narrating the Self. Annual Review of Anthropology.
vol 25:19-43.
Week Four September 17: (Internal and External Elements of Language)
Malinowski: 1935 [1978] An Ethnographic Theory of the Magical Word. Coral Gardens and
Their Magic vol II. London: Allen and Urwin. Part Four an Ethnographic Theory of Language and part Six
An Ethnographic Theory of the Magical Word 4-74 and 213-250 online.
Jakobson: 1960 Concluding Statement Linguistics and Poetics in Sebeok (ed) Style in Language
Cambridge: MIT Press 350-377 online.
Jakobson: 1971 Shifters, Verbal Categories and the Russian Verb. In Selected Writings of Roman
Jakobson vol 2. The Hague: Mouton Press 130-147. online.
Jakobson 1978 Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning. Cambridge: MIT Press. Chapters II, III and
IV 23-87.
Levi-Strauss: 1963 Language and the Analysis of Social Laws in Blount LCS 143-152.
Levi-Strauss: 1963 Structural Analysis in Linguistics and Anthropology in Structural
Anthropology. NY: Basic Books, Inc. 31-54. online.
Hanks: 1996 Second part of North American Formalism and the Problem of Meaning and
Sentences, Speech Acts and Utterances in Language and Communicative Practices 71-117.
Chomsky: 1986 Chapter Two in Knowledge of Language 15-24 and 40-46. Read the intervening
pages 24-40 if time permits.
Related Readings: Tambiah: The Magical Power of Words. Man 3 175-208.
Week Five September 24: (Crystallizing the Divide and its Surrounds)
Austin 1962 How to Do Things with Words (William James Lectures Delivered at Harvard in
1955) Oxford: Oxford U Press. Lectures I, II, IV, V, VIII, X, XI, XII.
Searle: 1972 What is a Speech Act in Language and Context Giglioli (ed) Language and Social
Context. 136-154 online.
Turner: 1970 Words, Utterances and Activities in Blount LCS 367-385.
Chomsky: 1986 Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin and Use. Chapter One 1-15;
Part of Chapter Three 51- 84; and Chapter 5 276-287.
Hanks: 1996 Three Phenomenologies of Language and Saturation by Context in Language and
Communicative Practices 118-169. Also review Chapter Four.
Lyons: 1981 Some Modern Schools and Movements Language and Linguistics 216-237.
Related Readings: Rosaldo: 1982 The Things We Do with Words: Ilongot Speech Acts and Speech Act
Theory in Philosophy. Language in Society 11:203-37.
Dougherty, J.W.D., James Fernandez, Clark E. Cunningham, and Norman E. Whitten,
Jr. (eds). 1981 Symbolism and Cognition. Special Issue of the American
Ethnologist 8:3:413-666.
Dougherty, J.W.D., James Fernandez, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, and Norman E.
Whitten, Jr. (eds). Symbolism and Cognition II. Special Issue of the American
Ethnologist 9:4:635-832.
Week Six October 1: (Structure and Function/Generativity and Emergence –Struggling for theories of
language, culture, society and practice)
Hymes: 1983 Pre-War Prague School and Post-War American Anthropological Linguistics and
The Linguistic Method in Ethnography. Both in Dell Hymes Essays in the History of Linguistic Science.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Bejamin Cummings Publishing Co. 331-343 and 135-245. online.
Hymes: 1962 The Ethnography of Speaking in Blount LCS 248-283.
Gumperz 1964 Linguistic and Social Interaction in Two Communities in Blount LCS 283-300.
Hanks: 1996 Relativity, Reflexivity and Difference; Beyond the Speaker and the Text; and
Elements of Communicative Practice in Language and Communicative Practices 169-228.
Lyons: 1981 Language and Mind and Language and Society in Language and Linguistics 238301.
Silverstein: 1987 Shifters, Linguistic Categories and Cultural Description in Blount LCS 187-222.
Briggs and Bauman: 1992 Genre, Intertextuality and Social Power in Blount LCS 567-603.
Week Seven October 8:
Jakobson 1978 Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning. Cambridge: MIT Press. Chapters V and VI
89-116.
Sapir 1958 Sound Patterns in Language and The Psychological Reality of Phonemes in
Mandelbaum (ed) 33-61 online.
Lyons 1981 The Sounds of Language in Language and Linguistics 66-100.
Saussure – 1966 review 23-64 on difference between transcription and orthography and Appendix
on Principles of Phonology in Course in General Linguistics.
Week Eight October 15:
Lyons 1981 Grammar in Language and Linguistics 100-135.
Silverstein 1977 Cultural Prerequistes to Grammatical Analysis. In Saville-Troike (ed) Linguistics
and Anthropology. Georgetown U. Press. online.
Week Nine October 22:
Lyons 1981 Semantics in Language and Linguistics 136-178.
Frake 1962 Ethnographic Study of Cognitive Systems in Blount LCS 125-142.
Week Ten October 29:
Lakoff, G. 1987 Part I. Categories and Cognitive Models in Women, Fire and Dangerous Things.
Chicago: U. of Chicago Press. 1-157. online.
Bauman: 1986 Introduction to Verbal Art as Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. online.
Week Eleven November 5: Contemporary Topics
Duranti, Alessandro 1999 Language Matters in Anthropology: A Lexicon for the Millenium.
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9:1 and 2.
Weeks 12 – 15 November 12, 19, December 3, 10: Special Topics Foci
Examples include:
Endangerment Issues: AA Linguistic Forum – Dec 03 (not yet available); Silverstein 1998
Contemporary Transformations of Local Linguistic Communities. Annual Review of Anthropology
27:401-26 online. And in press The Wheres and Whens--as well as Hows--of Ethnolinguistic
Recognition. Public Culture November 2003 (not yet available).
*Ideology and Power Issues: Briggs – Voices of Modernity 2003 and Hill and Silverstein 513-551
in Blount
Translation Issues: Rubel and Rosman (eds) Translating Cultures 2003 (selections not yet on line)
and Hanks 1989 Annual Review of Anthropology on Texts and Intertextuality online.
*Practice Issues: Hanks: Communicative Practice in the Corporeal Field and Meaning in History in
Language and Communicative Practices 229-306.
Universals and Relativity Issues: Berlin; Hunn; Kay, Berlin and Merrifield in Blount. Sahlins online.
Conklin, Harold 1955 Hanunoo color Categories. Southwestern journal of Anthropology 11(4):339-344.
online. Bennardo 2002 Representing Space in Oceania Pacific Linguistics Special Issue.Gumperz and
Levinson 1996 Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press. Hill, Jane and
Mannheim, Bruce 1992 Language and World View. Annual Review of Anthropology. vol 21: 381-406.
Ochs, Elinor and Capps, Lisa 1996 Narrating the Self. Annual Review of Anthropology. vol 25:19-43.
Sociolinguistics: Ervin-Trip Sociolinguistics and Goffman Face Work in Blount
Language Acquisition Issues: Ochs and Schieffelin and Blount in Blount
Online Readings: Anthropology 450K: Language and Culture
Janet Dixon Keller
1. Sapir, E.: Lang and Environment in Mandelbaum, David (ed) 1949 Selected Writings of
Edward Sapir Berkeley and LA: U of California Press. 89-103
2. Sapir, E.: Communication and Symbolism from Mandelbaum, David (ed) as above 104-109
and 564-569.
3. Pike, K.: Towards a Theory of the Structure of Behavior in Hymes, Dell (ed) 1964 Language in
Culture and Society: A Reader in Linguistics and Anthropology. NY: Harper and Row. 54-63.
4. Searle, J.: 1972 What is a Speech Act in Language and Context Giglioli, Paolo (ed) Language
and Social Context. 136-154.
5. Malinowski: 1935 [1978] An Ethnographic Theory of the Magical Word. Coral Gardens and
Their Magic vol II. London: Allen and Urwin. Part Four an Ethnographic theory of Language and part Six
An Ethnographic Theory of the Magical Word 4-74 and page 163; 213-255.
6. Jakobson: 1960 Concluding Statement Linguistics and Poetics in Sebeok (ed) Style in
Language Cambridge: MIT Press 350-377.
7. Jakobson: 1971 Shifters, Verbal Categories and the Russian Verb. In Selected Writings of
Roman Jakobson vol 2. The Hague: Mouton Press 130-147.
8. Levi-Strauss: 1963 Structural Analysis in Linguistics and Anthropology in Structural
Anthropology. NY: Basic Books, Inc. 31-54.
9. Hymes, D. 1983 Pre-War Prague School and Post-War American Anthropological Linguistics
and The Linguistic Method in Ethnography. Both chapters in Dell Hymes Essays in the History of
Linguistic Science. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamin Cummings Publishing Co. 331-343 and 135245.
10. Sapir, E. 1958 Sound Patterns in Language and The Psychological Reality of Phonemes in
Mandelbaum (ed) as above #1. 33-61.
11. Silverstein, M. 1977 Cultural Prerequistes to Grammatical Analysis. In Saville-Troike (ed)
Linguistics and Anthropology. Georgetown U. Press.
12. Lakoff, G. 1987 Part I: Categories and Cognitive Models in Women, Fire and Dangerous
Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1-157.
13. Bauman: 1986 Introduction to Verbal Art as Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
14. Silverstein, M. 1998 Contemporary Transformations of Local Linguistic Communities.
Annual Review of Anthropology 27:401-26.
15. Hanks, W. 1989 Texts and Textuality Annual Review of Anthropology 18:95-127.