Reading the Field: The Shape of Linguistic Anthropology (Duranti's Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader) Author(s): J.A.

Dickinson Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 43, No. 2 (April 2002), pp. 337-338 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/339382 . Accessed: 08/07/2011 14:34
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Books

Reading the Field: The Shape of Linguistic Anthropology

j. a. dickinson Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109-1382, U.S.A. (jdcknson@umich.edu). 30 viii 01 Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. Edited by Alessandro Duranti. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001. 493 pp. As editor of Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader, Alessandro Duranti has tackled the challenge of choosing articles that will accurately reect the shape of linguistic anthropology as a eld. He has succeeded in compiling an excellent reader that many instructors and students will nd useful as an introduction to key works in linguistic anthropology. However, those seeking either a historical overview of the eld or a volume of diverse ethnographic articles from speech communities around the world will be disappointed. The new reader ts neatly into the gap between two other popular anthologies in linguistic anthropology, Brenneis and Macaulay (1996) and Blount (1995), the former emphasizing articles that richly blend linguistic and ethnographic data and the latter offering a historical overview of the elds theoretical development. Duranti has here collected a range of previously published articles at both ends of this spectrum as well as review articles that underscore the value of cross-cultural comparisons. Leaders in the theory and practice of contemporary linguistic anthropology are well represented, and all of the articles are excellent; indeed, most are recognized as contemporary classics in the eld. Durantis comprehensive introductory chapter outlines the development of linguistic anthropology and its dialogue with other areas of linguistics, notably sociolinguistics. It also includes a theoretical overview of the development of linguistic relativity as a cornerstone of theory in linguistic anthropology and brief but helpful overviews of theoretical approaches to the topics of the books four thematic sections: speech community and communicative competence, performance and language, language acquisition and socialization, and the power of language. A short introduction, including helpful questions to guide students reading, precedes each section, making the reader suitable for use in an undergraduate introductory course. Within the sections, articles genPermission to reprint items in this section may be obtained only from their authors.

erally appear in chronological order, encouraging readers to trace the development of enduring theoretical questions. While there is considerable diversity in topics across the articles, the reader falls short of its goal of offering a representative selection of contemporary linguistic anthropology by failing to showcase the geographic diversity of its research locales. While the crossculturally comparative articles do utilize materials from around the world, a large majority of the remaining ones are based on research among North American populations (albeit diverse ones). The book is divided into four parts. Part 1, Speech Community and Communicative Competence, begins with key articles by Gumperz and Hymes on the concepts of speech community and communicative competence. More recent articles follow, demonstrating how these concepts have been utilized and incorporated into linguistic anthropological analyses of identity formation and interethnic communication. An article by Morgan critiques sociolinguistic studies of the African-American speech community, Spitulnik discusses the role of the media in dening speech communities in Africa, and Bailey combines a communicative-competence approach with an analysis of perceived politeness in service encounters between Korean shop owners and African-American customers. Part 2, The Performance of Language: Acts, Events, and Activities, shifts the focus from the linguistic construction of communities to the performance of utterances and theories of how linguistic events are recognized and interpreted within communities. The ve articles in this section all deal with language as socially situated action while also taking up the challenge of trying to tease out universal elements of verbal behavior. In addition, the articles look for formal dening properties of types of language-in-use: Mitchell-Kernan considers signifying and marking as types of speech acts in African-American English; Baumans seminal article Verbal Art as Performance draws on Goffmans vocabulary to describe the nature of verbal performance; Irvine asks how formality and informality of events are signaled in different linguistic communities; Duranti examines the nature of greetings; and Goodwin and Goodwin offer an analysis of how emotion becomes, literally, embodied in verbal and nonverbal expression. Part 3, Language Socialization and Literacy Practices, examines language learning in diverse contexts. Ochs and Schieffelin focus on language socialization, offering cross-cultural perspectives on the social context of and cultural expectations for language learning by small children in three distinct settings. The remaining three articles in the section compare different contexts for language and literacy learning or learning in an institutional setting. Both Philips and Heath examine com337

338 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y

munities in which expectations for linguistic behavior at home may differ sharply from institutional expectations at school and explore how institutional practices for teaching literacy or controlling participation in classroom situations draw, sometimes incorrectly, on expectations of shared communicative strategies. BaquedanoLopez offers a different perspective on language and socialization in an institutional setting, demonstrating how through learning religious narratives children learn to participate in and conrm their identity as members of a Spanish-speaking religious community. The nal section, The Power of Language, is the most thematically diverse, and the unique grouping of articles again encourages the reader to draw parallels between these different interpretations of how language functions, as Goodwin and Goodwin argue, as a social tool for organizing groups, for shaping alignment and social identities of participants. (p. 239). The chapter begins with two articles on the power of language to structure and, in some sense, delimit our understanding of the world: Whorfs classic article on the power of language to inuence worldview, The Relations of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language, and Silversteins elaboration of metapragmatic effects, The Limits of Awareness. Kroskritys article on language ideologies as a means of maintaining power structures offers a very different notion of how ideas about language contribute to language use and social power. Two articles on language, gender, and power follow. Gal offers a review of

research on language, gender, and power, and Ochs and Taylor look to the American family dinner table as a place where a gendered power structure is learned and maintained through patterns of linguistic interaction. In the nal article of the book, Hills discussion of mock Spanish and covert racism reiterates the theme of this section: that language often works most powerfully to shape our understandings of the world when we are least aware of it. Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader brings together 20 articles that represent diverse approaches to some key themes in contemporary linguistic anthropology. While some may nd the ethnographic case studies narrow in their geographic focus on North American populations, for others this aspect of the book will be its greatest asset. Despite this potential shortcoming, this reader is an excellent addition to the growing library of readers in linguistic anthropology and a valuable new resource for both students and teachers.

References Cited
b l o u n t , b e n . Editor. 1995. Language, culture, and society: A book of readings. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press. b r e n n e i s , d o n a l d , a n d r o n a l d m a c a u l a y. Editors. 1996. The matrix of language: Contemporary linguistic anthropology. Boulder: Westview Press.