Anthropological Linguistics - Recent Work

Recent Work

Mark Fettes, in Steps Towards an Ecology of Language (1996), sought "a theory of language ecology which can integrate naturalist and critical traditions"; and in An Ecological Approach to Language Renewal (1997), sought to approach a transformative ecology via a more active, perhaps designed, set of tools in language. This may cross a line between science and activism, but is within the anthropological tradition of study by the participant observer. Related to problems in critical philosophy (for instance, the question who's we, and the subject-object problem).

In many respects, the scope of interest of ethnolinguistics and linguistic anthropology overlap. Both are concerned with the relationship between language and culture. Both work with the concept of worldview. But unlike linguistic anthropology which as a discipline of anthropology, focuses on man, the individual representing his culture, ethnolinguists are concerned with the way individuals express themselves and how they communicate together. Ethnolinguistics looks at the relationship between discourse and language, while linguistic anthropology tends to make more general claims about vocabulary and grammar. Anna Wierzbicka is one of the best-known exponents of ethnolinguistics in English-speaking countries. James W. Underhill redefined the term in his Ethnolinguistics and Cultural Concepts: truth, love, hate & war (Cambridge University Press 2012). See anthropology, linguistics.