AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST

Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic Anthropology in 2012: Language Matter(s)

Steven P. Black

ABSTRACT

In this article, I discuss the accomplishments of scholars of language and culture in 2012

and the questions raised by those accomplishments. I review matters of languageexpansions and refinements of existing research topics, including linguistic relativity, language socialization, sociolinguistic variation, and language ideologies. I then consider a trend of research on topics of embodiment, materiality,
and the senses, discussing the matter (in the physics sense) of language. I then use the term engagement to comment on developments in research on language endangerment, language circulation and shift,
language and health, language and education, and language and social justice. This is rooted in the notion that
language makes a difference (or matters) in cultural practice. I conclude with a brief discussion of the ontology of
language, the epistemology of linguistic anthropology, and the roles of scholars of language and culture in anthropology as a whole. [engaged anthropology, language and the senses, linguistic anthropology, materiality, sociolinguistics]

he phrase language matter(s) is interpretable in at least

three ways.11 First, the phrase indicates a topical focus on things that have to do with talkthat is, a focus on
matters that concern language. This is the most inclusive
and mundane meaning of the term. Second (and without the
plural s), language matter refers to the idea that language is
material, tangible, and felt. The matter (in the physics sense)
of language is explored in research on topics as diverse as
the semiotics of human artifacts, the movement of bodies in
space and time, and the connections between language and
the phenomenal world of lived experience. Third, linguistic
anthropologists insist that language makes a differencethat
language matters. Indeed, the subdiscipline is built on the
fundamental conviction that language, conversation, and discourse have their own distinct properties and that the human
significance of these semiotic properties is at least partially
inaccessible to studies of society and culture that do not take
language into account. This is true whether examining the
complexities of linguistic discrimination or merely carrying
out ethnographic fieldwork. As Susan Gal writes, Whatever
counts as a [field] site, ethnographers must engage people
in talk about and in it; they must decipher semiotic/linguistic
materials. Communicative action remains the major source
of ethnographic evidence (2012:38). This suggests that most

(if not all) anthropologists should attend to the ways that language matters.
In this review of work in linguistic anthropology in 2012,
I explore these three meanings of language matter(s). First,
I discuss expansions of and refinements to research topics
such as linguistic relativity, language socialization, variationist sociolinguistics, play, and language ideologies. Second, I
identify and explore a trend in current scholarship on embodiment, objectification, and the senses. Third, I examine
the increasing amount of work that could be categorized
as engaged anthropology, using engagement in a narrowly
defined way that focuses on researcher collaboration with
research participants, advocacy on their behalf, and commitment to social critique, teaching, and public education
(Baer 2012; Low and Merry 2010).12 Note that although the
second and third topics are discussed as emerging trends,
they are nonetheless also expansions of previously developed
concepts. I conclude with a brief discussion of the place of
linguistic anthropology in the discipline as a whole. This essay is not only a survey of some of the accomplishments of
scholars of language and culture in 2012 but also a discussion
of some of the questions raised by those accomplishments
questions about the limits of language, the reach of linguistic
anthropology, and the roles that linguistic anthropologists

C 2013 by the American Anthropological

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 115, No. 2, pp. 273285, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433. 

Association. All rights reserved.

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might play in anthropology as a whole in the years to

come.13
EXPANSIONS AND REFINEMENTS

As has been noted in past year-in-review articles, a constellation of topics (including but not limited to language
ideologies, language socialization, linguistic relativity, and
stylistic variation) has become more or less canonical in linguistic anthropology (Cody 2010; Monaghan 2011). Below,
I discuss some of the ways that current scholarship benefits from reappraisals of and revisions to these established
research frameworksgaining, that is, by not taking such
topics for granted. This first category of current research
also demonstrates the value of continuity of theory over an
extended period of time. Note that much work that could
be discussed under this heading is placed within other categories below in the service of discussing current trends, and
in turn much of the work discussed here is closely linked to
topics examined in other sections.
Linguistic anthropology straddles the fields of linguistics
and sociocultural anthropology and also draws from other
fields such as the philosophy of language, literary theory,
developmental psychology, sociology, and folklore studies.
The links among these disciplines, especially past dialogues
of key scholars including Erving Goffman, John Gumperz,
Dell Hymes, and William Labov, were highlighted at a
panel organized by Marco Jacquemet, Gumperz at 90: The
Ethnography of Communication and Its Legacy, at the 2012
American Anthropology Association annual meetings. Connections with the linguistic study of pragmatics are evident in
an edited volume on Pragmaticizing Understanding published

this year (Meeuwis and Ostman

2012), which includes contemporary perspectives on long-term research on pragmatics
in contributions by scholars Peter Auer (2012), Jenny CookGumperz and John J. Gumperz (2012), Susan Ervin-Tripp
(2012), Robin Lakoff (2012), Jacob Mey (2012), Michael
Silverstein (2012), and Teun A. Van Dijk (2012), among
others.
It has been suggested that underlying these diverse
threads of theory are a few central concepts, including performance, indexicality, and agency (Duranti 2012), that recur in much of the work reviewed here. Performance refers to
any combination of three interrelated concepts: (1) speech
produced explicitly within social activities oriented toward
audiences, similar to popular usage of the term (Bauman
1975; Hymes 1975); (2) the more generally performative
capacity of language to produce social action (Searle 1969);
and (3) a dramaturgical metaphor modeling the performance
of social roles in everyday life (Goffman 1959). Indexicality
is used to describe the semiotic process of pointing, either gesturally or linguistically, often within the context of
the negotiation of social identities and the constitution of
cultural meaning (Peirce 1985; Silverstein 1976; cf. Labov
1964). Finally, agency, a concept well known in anthropology, takes on added meaning when scholars investigate not
only the agency of talk but also how agency is encoded and

represented in language itself (Ahearn 2001; Duranti 2004).

In work reviewed below, scholars test the boundaries of
these concepts and contribute longitudinal perspectives to
ongoing research on topics such as linguistic relativity, language socialization, play, stylistic variation, language ideologies, enregisterment, and voice.
Linguistic Diversity

Linguistic diversity, one of the longest-lived foci of study

in linguistic anthropology, continues to attract scholarly interest. Early understandings of linguistic diversity led to the
concept of linguistic relativity, an idea that still intrigues
researchers. The basic notion that languages shape, constrain, or determine the way that people think is appealing
and intuitive but difficult to prove. Building on previous
work on spatial perception and linguistic classification, functional magnetic resonance imaging has now been used to
identify the neural activation patterns associated with different languages patterns of reference to space and directions. This demonstrates that for spatial perception and directional reckoning, at least, there is a robust correlation
among how one speaks about space and directions, how one
completes experimental tasks testing spatial perception, and
how specific neural pathways activate (Janzen et al. 2012).
Jack Sidnell and N. J. Enfield (2012) synthesize the classic
linguistic relativity concept with the field of conversation
analysis, suggesting that languages and culturally specific
conversational practices provide distinct conversational resources to speakers, resources that facilitate or hinder the
capacity to complete particular social actions. Speakers relative ease or difficulty producing these actions may shape
their perceptions of (social) reality. Thus, it seems that not
only linguistic structure but also the temporal unfolding of
conversation may shape the way that humans think. Other
scholarship that discusses linguistic diversity more broadly
explores topics such as how Aymara interjections constitute
nonhuman entities as different types of quasi-thinking beings
(Smith 2012). Another piece discusses how language typological studies can be retooled to theorize absolute gender
indexicality in the Americas (Fleming 2012). Here, absolute
social indexicals are contrasted with relative social indexicals,
the latter being words or affixes that define a relationship
between speaker and addressee (e.g., honorifics). Absolute
social indexicals, in comparison, are ostensibly not dependent on a speakeraddressee relationship (e.g., many terms
or affixes that mark gender explored in the article).
Language socialization theory remains another key approach to examining how linguistic diversity intersects with
sociocultural difference. This approach broadly holds that
novices learn culture at the same time that they acquire language, such that the processes otherwise referred to as language acquisition and enculturation are inseparable (Ochs
and Schieffelin 1984). In 2012 a collaborative effort resulted
in the publication of The Handbook of Language Socialization
(Duranti et al. 2012). Here I mention only a few contributions to the volume. In the Interactional Foundations

Year in Review: Linguistic Anthropology

section of the book, Penelope Brown (2012) discusses how

caregivers in Mexico and Papua New Guinea socialize preverbal children to attend to different aspects of their world
through pointing routines. Still, she supports the idea of a
universal trajectory of child development of joint attention
toward objects and events by 12 months of age. In the section on socialization strategies, Amy Paugh (2012) details
the importance of local theories of child rearing in shaping
language socialization and their impact on language shift in
Dominica, West Indies. Paul Garrett (2012) expands on
this intersection of language socialization and language shift
in the section on language and culture contact. He further
addresses the topic of language ideologies to articulate how
inequality, power, and linguistic difference converge on socialization into patterns of use or nonuse of marginalized
language varieties.
Play, an important focus for language socialization studies (Aronsson 2012), is also an object of inquiry in its own
right. Such research explores how play and performance
frames are employed to shape the social production of meaning. For example, Graham Jones (2012) analyzes how evangelical magicians, in contrast to other magicians, actively
draw attention to the performance framing of magic, saying
some variant of thats just a trick. Such reflexive attention
to the performance frame allows these artists to put on a show
and simultaneously juxtapose what they see as the deceit of
magic with the veracity of the gospel. Kathe Managan (2012)
discusses how Guadeloupean linguistic stereotypes are circulated through comedy sketches. These performances comment on political and social issues, contributing to the constitution and maintenance of Guadeloupean publics. In addition, Anna Marie Tresters (2012) interdisciplinary research
on play and performance discusses the socialization of new
members of an improvisational theater troupe, demonstrating how backstage talk recontextualized in performances
becomes central to the construction and maintenance of a
community of performers. Finally, Yoshiko Matsumotos
(2011) analysis of older Japanese womens conversations
about life changes highlights how playful quotidian reframing of potentially serious topics of life and death allows
older women to breach these topics.
The interdisciplinary popularity of play and performance
is particularly evident in a theme issue of the Journal of Sociolinguistics on staging language and the sociolinguistics
of performance (Bell and Gibson 2011). This journal issue
includes a reappraisal of 35 years of investigation into the linguistic and communicative shape of performance (Bauman
2011). One article in the issue explores enregisterment in
performance, discussing how links between language variation and social identities are intentionally exploited by DJs
to invoke multiple interpretations of radio sketch-comedy
speech (Johnstone 2011). Another piece analyzes how contemporary white Hollywood film actors appropriations of
the language variety often referred to as African American English contributes to the simultaneous reinforcing
and challenging of hegemonic stereotypes of white hetero-

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sexual masculinity (Bucholtz and Lopez 2011). Finally, a

variationist approach to live recordings of popular music
describes the push and pull of genre and style in the construction of vernacular identities (Coupland 2011). As a
collection, this journal issue demonstrates the complexity
and social significance of language in performance.
In general, too, sociolinguistics maintains close links
with linguistic anthropology (see Eckert 2012). For instance,
another theme issue of the Journal of Sociolinguistics explores
South Korean transnationalism, discussing the role of language in globalization and neoliberalism with attention to
the changing dynamics of South Korean migration (Park and
Lo 2012). In addition, a new book, Articulate while Black,
explores President Obamas speech patterns (such as style
shifting from mainstream to African American English), discussing the interpretation of these patterns in public discourse (Alim and Smitherman 2012). The book adds a sorely
needed language-oriented perspective to public discussion
of race in the United States. Variationist sociolinguistics also
influences scholarship on language and nonnormative sexualities, as evident in a theme issue of the Journal of Homosexuality
on language (Leap and Provencher 2011).
Language Ideologies and Related Concepts

The topic of language ideologies, too, continues to shape

researchers understandings of how language intersects with
power, politics, and social life. Broadly, the theory of language ideologies uses peoples explicit commentary on different ways of speaking (e.g., accents, dialects, languages)
and implicit experientially based valuation of different ways
of speaking as a theoretical bridge that connects linguistic structure and language use to socioeconomic, political, and historical processes of differentiation (Schieffelin et al. 1998). For instance, a volume edited by Alexandre
Duchene and Monica Heller (2011) addresses the role of
language and linguistic practices in the constitution of social
distinction in late capitalism. The book includes contributions from Susan Gal (2011) on the linguistic management
of diversity and Bonnie McElhinny (2011) on sociolinguistic variation in Silicon Valley. In other work, Hilary
Dicks (2011) review of language and migration to the
United States discusses how people (including migrants)
are categorized and ranked through linguistic practices and
ideologies. In addition, Nathaniel Dumass (2012) study
of introductions in a community of stutterers reinterprets
conversational openings as embodied encounters between
language ideologies. Such a standpoint allows him to understand the ways that pathology can be constructed or challenged through the minute details of everyday interactions,
thus depathologizing stuttering.
In other language ideologies research, Jon Bialecki and
Eric Hoenes del Pinal (2011) edit a theme issue of Anthropological Quarterly titled Beyond Logos: Extensions of the Language Ideology Paradigm in the Study of Global Christianity.
In their new book, Creatures of Politics, Michael Lempert and
Michael Silverstein (2012) utilize language ideologies and

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media discourse analysis perspectives to discuss presidential

speechmaking. Susan Philips (2011) discusses the shooting
of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona and its political aftermath, focusing especially on personal experiences
of the shooting. Finally, Kathryn Woolard (2011) returns to
work with research participants from her 1987 study of high
school language practices in Barcelona, identifying underacknowledged changes in bilingual repertoires throughout the
lifespan.
Some current research overlaps thematically with the
above scholarship but does not always draw explicitly from a
language ideologies framework. Such research analyzes topics such as enregisterment, voice, evidentiality, and communication in situations of culture and language contact (e.g.,
a theme issue of Pragmatics and Society [Hanks 2012]). For
instance, research set in Papua New Guinea reveals how implicit assumptions linking figures of speech (aka shibboleths)
to particular villages are used not only to index ones own
village affiliation but also to construct social meaning through
the use of other villages shibboleths (Slotta 2012). This highlights the crucial importance of implicit understandings of
language use (implicit metapragmatics) in the process of creating and maintaining (or enregistering) distinct dialects (see
also Goebel 2012). In addition, recent work on multicultural
communication combines a language ideologies framework
with the concept of contextual cues (Wodak et al. 2012).
Finally, in another example of a return to a long-standing
object of inquiry, Ben Rampton (2011) discusses the subject
of language crossing among urban youth to examine how
adolescent multiethnic heteroglossia has been transformed
into adult urban vernaculars.
The above contributions to existing research topics
demonstrate the value of continuity from the early burgeoning of poststructural linguistic anthropology to the present.
Indeed, the strength of the concepts and analysis of topics
discussed above provides stable ground for scholars to expand into focal areas discussed below. The innovations I have
outlined in this section highlight the profoundly interdisciplinary nature of linguistic anthropology as it has developed
over the past 50 years. These expansions and refinements
remind us that one should not take core concepts of the subdiscipline for granted and that even well-established theories
are open to revision and reinterpretation.
EMBODIMENT, OBJECTIFICATION, AND
THE SENSES

At this point, I shift to a discussion of current topical trends

in linguistic anthropology and to the second meaning of language matter(s)to language as embodied, objectified, and
sensed. This should not be taken as an indication that the
above scholarship does not touch on these topics in various ways or that the research discussed below does not rely
heavily on the core concepts of linguistic anthropology. Language is sometimes considered to be primarily ideational.
Although this notion is in a sense correct, much linguistic anthropological research has shown that it is also incomplete.

Language is indeed symbolic and ideological. It is integral in

the interpretation of meaning. At the same time, language
is physical and physiological. Current research in linguistic
anthropology dispels mindmatter dualisms in a number of
ways. Some scholars theorize the materiality of language
to explore the economic and political impact of embodied
semiosis. Others investigate language, the senses, and experience. A few focus on the connections between music,
language, and sound. In each of these and other endeavors,
linguistic anthropologists continue to explore and redefine
the limits of language through investigation of its material
properties.
Embodiment, Materiality, and Objectification

One object of inquiry that I place in this category of research is mediatized communication, including new media
studies. I do so because such scholarship is (to varying degrees of explicitness) about the disembodiment of language
in media and the ways that language becomes entextualized
and re-embodied. One approach to this topic is to explore
the ways that texts and personae move through various media over time, focusing how objectified communication is
reincorporated into social life (Agha 2012). This approach
is evident in an edited volume on language and new media, titled Digital Discourse (Thurlow and Mroczek 2011).
This volume includes contributions on language, race, and
humor on YouTube and in Internet commentary (Chun
and Walters 2011; Walton and Jaffe 2011), as well as a
piece on the dynamics and social functions of online gossip
(Jones et al. 2011).
Some recent scholarship draws from language ideologies, Marxist anthropology, and practice theory to reframe
the materiality of language (Shankar and Cavanaugh 2012).
Here, the notion of the material is conceptually linked
to Karl Marxs objective conditions of production (e.g.,
Marx 1964), allowing for further connections with sociocultural anthropological work on semiotics and materiality
(e.g., Rogers 2012). This extension of the theoretical limits of language opens another path for conceptualizing the
commodification of language, the language of commodification, and the role that communication plays in constituting
global capitalism. For instance, in his book Discipline and
Debate, Michael Lempert (2012a) analyzes a shift from corporeal reprimand to verbal argument in a Tibetan Buddhist
monastery in India, suggesting that, although this shift is
evidence of the influence of neoliberal conceptualizations of
autonomy and subjectivity, it is not a simple or wholesale
adoption of these ideals. Rather, he argues that the monks
changing practices are aimed at making their interaction
rituals take on some of the qualities of the liberal subject,
so that this may in turn invite liberal subjectspluralto
feel for them and come to their aid (Lempert 2012a:10).
Here, the removal of certain forms of embodiment is what
matters. Other contemporary work melds microanalysis of
phonology with discussions of ideology and political economy, investigating how pronunciation and prosody among

Year in Review: Linguistic Anthropology

Korean speakers is enmeshed within language ideological

processes of differentiation (Harkness 2012). Both of these
examples connect the physiology of communicating to sociopolitical ideologies.
Contemporary work also focuses on how embodiment
is interconnected with the definition and semiotic valuation
of objects. One such piece by Marjorie Goodwin and Charles
Goodwin (2012) examines the ongoing organization of talk
and attention among members of middle-class families in
Los Angeles as they drive in cars from one activity to the
next. Although the focus in this piece is the dynamics of multimodal interaction in the car setting, socioeconomic class
underlies the analysis in the sense that playing on a Blackberry
phone while being driven by a stay-at-home mother from
school to karate practice is the sort of activity engaged in by
(upper-)middle-class families (see also Arnold et al. 2012).
Paul Mannings (2012) new book titled Semiotics of Drink
and Drinking analyzes the embodied practices through which
drinks and drinking become key signs in the production of
social meaning. Finally, a piece by Keith Murphy (2012)
explores what he terms transmodality, discussing the ways
that moments of talk in design studios cumulatively affect
the properties of objects and imbue them with symbolic
meaning. This work, in conjunction with past research on
the subject, demonstrates how objects are endowed with
symbolic meaningin other words, how things become
objectified.
Language, Sound, and the Senses

The limits of language are extended further still in contemporary explorations of language and the senses. Although
linguistic anthropologists have long been interested in
multimodal sign systems, approaches for the exploration
of semiotics are increasingly oriented toward how touch,
sight, and sound are felt or experienced. These shifting
boundaries of the concept of language are made clear in
a panel at the 2012 American Anthropology Association
annual meeting titled The Limits of Language. Organizers
Terra Edwards and E. Mara Green ask, Now that channel
(visual, tactile, auditory) no longer guides us in distinguishing language from nonlanguage, how do questions about
language and embodiment appear anew? (see http://
aaa.confex.com/aaa/2012/webprogram/Session6974.
html). Similar issues are explored in a piece that discusses the dynamics of tactile language among research
participants who are deaf and blind (Edwards 2012). In
a related move, Christopher R. Engelke and Marjorie
Goodwins AAA panel, Haptic Trails to You, directs
analysts attention to the sense of touch, discussing tactile
engagement in activities as diverse as everyday interactions between parents and children, scientific inquiry,
therapy sessions, and other forms of healing (see http://
aaa.confex.com/aaa/2012/webprogram/Session6520.
html). Finally, Asta Cekaites (2012) research on socialization demonstrates how the embodied deployment of affect

277

in a Swedish first-grade classroom leads to problems in

second-language acquisition.
There is potential here for research on language and the
senses to be synthesized with other anthropological investigations into the senses and the nature of human experience
(see Cresswell and Smith 2012 on conversation analysis,
ethnomethodology, and experience). Current and past psychological and medical anthropological work discusses the
key roles that embodiment and language play in constituting cultural experience (e.g., Inhorn and Wentzell 2011),
albeit sometimes with a narrowly referentialist viewpoint in
which there is perceived to be a one-to-one relationship between terms and objects/concepts. Also, some sociocultural
anthropological and cultural studies scholarship focuses on
affect as social (or intersubjective) and embodied, analyzing
how the senses are integral in constituting cultural difference
(e.g., Ameeriar 2012; Besnier 2012; Parrenas 2012). These
are areas where linguistic anthropologists could make subdisciplinary connections with other scholars and vice versa.
Indeed, contemporary scholarship does indicate a shift toward further subdisciplinary dialogue in this regard (e.g.,
Throop 2012). For instance, Kevin Groark (in press) analyzes how bodies, the physical environment, and linguistic
registers intersect to constitute a cultural inflection of intersubjectivity among speakers of Tzotzil Maya. In this and other
recent syntheses of research on language and experience, understandings of how humans communicate experience are
enhanced through further investigation into how humans
may experience language (Ochs 2012). Embodiment, materiality, semiotics, and the senses are pivot points for these
overlapping scholarly discourses.
Another locus of scholarship on language, the body,
and the senses is the intersection of language, music, and
sound. In Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra (2012), Steven Feld,
a pioneer of anthropological research on language, music,
and sound, explores the global and local dynamics of jazz
in diaspora, critiquing both U.S. nationalist and Afrocentric discourses about jazz history. Additionally, the recent
creation of the American Anthropological Association Music and Sound Interest Group indicates a renewed concern
for the role of sound in human experience and meaning
making (see Samuels et al. 2010). The resurgence of research on music and sound includes a focus on sound as
physical: that is, (1) sound as something with a felt impact
on human bodies and (2) soundscape as a way to materialize sounds (Samuels et al. 2010:338). Alternatively,
linguistic-anthropological approaches often emphasize the
textual analysis of sound. For instance, analysis of Kriolu rap
in Portugal discusses the language ideological force of conceptualizations of time and place (Pardue 2012). In addition,
a recent study of jazz education in U.S. university settings
discusses jazz recordings as texts, focusing on the semiotic
and ideological processes through which students understand
recordings made by famous musicians as stable text objects,
imitate and internalize them, and then innovate in their own
musical practice based on this internalization (Wilf 2012). A

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challenge in scholarship on music and language, and perhaps

more broadly in work on language and materiality, is to
maintain a balanced viewpoint on both the materiality and
textuality of sound (Faudree 2012). Strengthening connections with scholarship on music and sound might enhance
not only a musical linguistic anthropology but also broader
understandings of the ways that language is physical and
physiological.
In sum, the above work on embodiment, objectification,
and the senses shows that recognition of the physiological
and physical nature of speaking and signing can provide novel
paths for the investigation of political economy, ideology,
intersubjectivity and the experiential grounding of communication, and the soundscapes through which humans travel.
This scholarship is not simply a reiteration of the linguistic
anthropological statement that (despite ideologies that tell
us otherwise) language fulfills functions beyond pure reference (see Jakobson 1960). Rather, it is the continuation of
a detailed exploration of how semiosis is inscribed in and
on human bodies, spaces, and artifacts. It is also an ongoing discussion of the implications of these inscriptions for
social life and cultural practice. Theorization of the material
grounding of language provides a holistic viewpoint on communication and suggests new solutions to the puzzle of how
moments of talk are connected to the ongoing constitution
of institutions, subjectivities, and communities.
ENGAGING LANGUAGE

At this point, I turn to the third meaning of language matters. Here I refer to the idea that the ways people talk and the
languages we speak have broad sociopolitical significance that
is revealed through close analysis of language and communication. I adopt the term engagement in the service of promoting dialogue with sociocultural anthropologys turn toward
an engaged anthropology (Baer 2012; see below). There
have long been scholars of language and culture who have
focused on inequality and power and oriented their work
explicitly toward public institutions and discourses.14 For
instance, much research on language ideologies can be read
in this way, in the sense that publicly expressed attitudes,
entextualized in institutional documents or otherwise, are
key parts of language ideologies work. Language endangerment scholarship has always been engaged in this manner, as
has work on language politics, multilingualism, and minority
languages. Currently, linguistic anthropologists are applying
the lessons learned from this previous work to an expanding array of research topics, including language circulation
and medical anthropology. Perhaps most significantly, more
and more linguistic anthropologists are choosing field sites
and research topics that put them in direct contact with activist groups, public institutions, and producers of media. A
majority of contemporary research projects, like many language politics and language endangerment research projects
of the past and present, tends to be intertwined with public discourses from the initial stages of the selection of field

sites and research topics onward (during-research engagement).

I suggest that this scholarship can be understood as engaged linguistic anthropology. I note at the outset that this
discussion indicates my own interpretation rather than scholars own positioning of their work.5
Language-oriented scholars need not conceptualize their
work within this framework of engaged anthropology, but
I suggest that to do so facilitates dialogue with sociocultural
anthropologists on the epistemological and moral grounding
of ethnographic research. Engagement is a noted theme in
current sociocultural anthropology. Here, the term engaged
has operational meanings associated with it that are linked
to public anthropology (Baer 2012). According to current
definitions of engagement, engaged (sociocultural) anthropologists draw from, critique, and contribute to texts and
discourses circulating in the public sphere. Implicit in this notion are issues of politics and power. Indeed, many contemporary engaged anthropologists explicitly align themselves
with marginalized communities (Low and Merry 2010). Although most linguistic anthropologists do not label their
research as engaged or write in dialogue with recent work
on engagement, I suggest that much of the current research
in the subfield is indeed engaged in this narrow sense of the
term. For some, this research orientation is a form of focused activist linguistic anthropology (e.g., Zentella 1997;
see Monaghan 2011 for a review). Others may not see themselves as activists making direct interventions in the public
sphere but still generally incorporate discourses on power,
socioeconomic inequality, and researcher positioning into
their writing and conduct fieldwork in dialogue with public
discourses, institutions, and concerns.
Language Shift, Ideologies, and Education

Engagement comes naturally to the study of language shift

and language endangerment. Scholarship on this topic has
been engaged or activist oriented ever since Franz Boas
articulated his concern for documenting and preserving indigenous North American languages (see Ball 2012). Here,
engagement often comes in the form of fieldwork with research participants who are themselves working to stem the
tide of language loss (e.g., Romero 2012). For instance,
an analysis of pan-Indian organizing and Kichwa activism in
Ecuador is by its very object of study an issue at hand in
the public sphere. This work focuses on a potential conflict
between political consolidation among marginalized communities into a panethnic grouping, on the one hand, and
preservation of Kichwa dialect (not spoken by all of the indigenous activist research participants), on the other hand
(Wroblewski 2012). Another example of engagement in
current scholarship on language endangerment and language
shift is the examination of the public circulation of a story
about a dying indigenous Mexican language whose last
two speakers will (according to the story) not speak to one
another (Suslak 2011). Here the concept of circulation
models how words become a sort of text and move through

Year in Review: Linguistic Anthropology

the world from speaker to speaker (Urban 2001). This piece

includes reflexive attention paid to the researchers role in
the circulation of this story and discussion of why such a
story (though inaccurate) is so appealing to many. Finally,
an edited volume, Telling Stories in the Face of Danger, includes
many contributions that explore language revitalization efforts in Native American communities through the lens of
storytelling (Kroskrity 2012).
Contemporary scholarship on language circulation and
language ideologies also exhibits during-fieldwork engagement. In each of these cases, the field of fieldwork includes an institution or organization that is itself explicitly
or implicitly broaching the topics of circulation and language
shift (e.g., Urla 2012). Perhaps nothing better illustrates
the trend of during-fieldwork engagement than Karl Swinehart and Kathryn Grabers (2012) edited journal issue on
the topic, Languages and Publics in Stateless Nations, which
was discussed in last years linguistic anthropology year-inreview piece (Ball 2012). Research based on fieldwork in
Norway approaches a now-classic topic of language shift and
the ideological valuing of dialects in comparison to a standardized language variety through an analysis of a popular
radio shows dialect contest (Strand 2012). Similarly, an
exegesis of the circulation and stylization of a variety of
urban Swedish known as Rinkeby Swedish takes a public
school panel debate as one key point of departure (Milani
and Jonsson 2012). Another school-based ethnography explores the contradictions between teachers discourses about
Tamil dialects and their actual linguistic practices, revealing
how social hierarchies are configured in a multilingual Sri
Lankan school (Davis 2012). Finally, in an article advancing a linguistic anthropological perspective on heritage language learning, Sonia Neela Das (2011) describes the agency
of Tamil speakers in the context of language policies and
school-board actions in Montreal, Quebec.
As the final two examples above suggest, the topic of
language and education has also long been oriented toward public discourses and issues of marginality, focusing
as it does on institutions of schooling. For instance, Nancy
Hornberger and Karl Swinehart (2012) focus on Andean
hip hop both inside and outside of school contexts to explore how indigenous language speakers intervene in issues
of multilingualism and bilingual intercultural education in
the context of historical globalized inequality. Inmaculada
Garca-Sanchez, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, and Megan
Hopkins (2011) discuss the important role that child translators play in communication between parents and teachers
who speak different languages. A theme issue of Anthropology
and Education Quarterly edited by Stanton Wortham (2012)
focuses directly on the linguistic anthropology of education.
This issue includes a contribution by James Collins (2012)
on migration-based language pluralism and social inequality,
as well as one by Betsy Rymes (2012) on the relationship
between individuals communicative repertoires and popular songs embedded (and recontextualized) in novel videos

279

on YouTube (see also Bucholtz et al. 2012; Lempert 2012b;

Warriner 2012). There is overlap here with research on
literacy and culture. For instance, a new book by Valerie
Kinloch (2012), Crossing Boundaries, explores literacy and
social justice in educational settings. An edited volume,
Orthography as Social Action, discusses scripts and spelling inside and outside of the classroom (Sebba et al. 2012). Finally,
Shirley Brice Heath (2012) returns to her long-standing engagement with issues of class, race, literacy, and language
inside and outside of classrooms in the United States in her
new book, Words at Work and Play.
Health, Illness, and Inequality

The trend of expanding during-research engagement is also

reflected in recent work that links linguistic and medical
anthropology. Current research at the intersection of language and medicine currently tends to favor either linguistic
or medical anthropological framings. Some work incorporates methods and theory from linguistic anthropology to
explore topics germane to medical anthropology. Charles
Briggs (2011), who has been doing work at the intersection
of linguistic and medical anthropology in dialogue with public discourses and institutions for many years, contributes an
analysis of media storytelling in conjunction with extensive
interviewing of health professionals and laypeople in Cuba.
This analysis reveals multiple models of the circulation of
health knowledge operating in public discourse. In other
current research, a theoretical focus on register allows for
an exploration of how South Indian womens complaints and
states of injury in a clinical setting give voice to certain facets
of the experience of gendered violence while muting other
significant aspects (Chua 2012). Finally, linguistic anthropological methods for recording, transcribing, and analyzing
naturally occurring interactions are key to an analysis of clinical explanatory frameworks of chronic pain in the United
States (Buchbinder 2011). This piece discusses how clinicians
use personal attributes of patients (such as intelligence and
creativity) to provide an alternative causal model of chronic
pain and to open up new pathways to recovery.
Complementary scholarship incorporates perspectives
from medical anthropology in research framed as linguistic
anthropology. For example, research on social inequality
and ethnicnational belonging examines school practices of
(re)socialization into culturally specific notions of healthy
food (Karrebaek 2012). This article combines theorization
of language ideologies and language socialization with a concern for childrens health and inequality in an institutional
setting. In another piece, research with an HIV support
group/choir in South Africa discusses how linguistic features of a particular genre of joking aided people living with
HIV in constituting support amid stigma and structural inequality. Although framed as linguistic anthropology, this
analysis relies on a close understanding of explanations of
illness and culturally specific patterns of stigma to document
and analyze joking about HIV (Black 2012). Finally, research

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American Anthropologist Vol. 115, No. 2 June 2013

based on fieldwork in U.S. Chinese medicine school settings

explores the hidden dynamics of translation among teachers and English-speaking student-practitioners (Pritzker
2012). As mentioned, current engaged scholarship at the
intersection of linguistic and medical anthropology tends to
favor one or the other subfield. Perhaps the choice between
a primarily linguistic or medical anthropological framework
is shaped by the availability of journals for publication that
cater to one or the other.
Social Justice

Engagement as defined here and in previous scholarship,

alongside a great deal of earlier research in dialogue with
public institutions and discourse, often involves researcher
alignment with marginalized individuals and groups. This
alignment is rooted in anthropological concern with inequality. Much (though not all) of the research discussed above involves work with activist organizations or public institutions
but stops short of advocating on their behalves outside of
the academic sphere. However, some of these same scholars
organize interventions in public discourses and institutions
to combat social exclusion and inequality. Recent scholarship continues to tease out the topic of the moral positioning
of researchers in activist linguistic anthropological work,
focusing on relationships among researchers, practitioners,
and other research participants (Jaffe 2012).
Linguistic activism is especially evident in the work of
the Society for Linguistic Anthropologys Committee on
Language and Social Justice.6 In early 2011, one of the
groups first engagements with public discourse was to begin dialogue with the United States Census Bureau. The goal
was to replace the category linguistically isolated in the bureaus documents. The term refers to households in which
there is no adult who speaks English very well. The task
group saw the term as stigmatizing as well as inaccurate in
light of the vibrant multilingual communities in which many
speakers of languages other than English live. In 201112,
the task force built on this early activism, discussing specific
wording that might be used to replace the three proficiency
categories formerly labeled linguistically isolated. Reframing these questions is an important step, given the fact that
this statistical information is used not only for scholarly
work but also for implementing social programs and allocating resources throughout the country. On a related note,
last year the task force also addressed a vote by the House of
Representatives to eliminate funding for the American Community Survey, which provides yearly data on the languages
spoken in different communities and is in fact the source of
data for the linguistically isolated category discussed above.
Moving forward, the task group hopes to ensure availability of services in languages other than English to those who
need it.
Finally, ongoing work is being done to address the use of
the word illegal in discourse about migration to the United
States. This includes the term illegal immigrant. Most egre-

gious, however, is the nominalized term illegals, which the

task force views as a slur that uses immigration status as
a metonym for personhood and promotes gross overgeneralizations and misrepresentations of migrants. In the task
forces analysis, the correlation between language and inequality is direct whereas links to race and ethnicity are
indirect. These indirect links result in part from normative
positioning of speakers of other languages as foreign and
ethnically or racially distinct in popular discourse. Such positioning contributes to processes of racialization and the
construction of subaltern communities.
In sum, the scope of what could be termed engagement in
linguistic anthropological scholarship is expanding outward
from research on language politics, language endangerment,
and minority languages as junior scholars work in dialogue
with public institutions and discourses throughout the fieldwork, analysis, and publication process. Well-established
traditions of engagement on topics such as language shift,
multilingualism and language politics, and language and education are now complemented by contemporary research
on language circulation and language and health. Furthermore, some of the scholars conducting this work are also
participating to various degrees in activist work in the Society for Linguistic Anthropologys Committee on Language
and Social Justice. In this regard, it is an exciting time to be
a linguistic anthropologist.
CONCLUSIONS

This review of linguistic anthropology in 2012 has discussed

three meanings of the phrase language matter(s): (1) a focus
on human actions and activities having to do with language;
(2) speech and communication as physical, physiological,
and otherwise embodied; and (3) linguistic practices as key
aspects of the constitution of social inequality and difference. Here, an insistence on the significance of language
is not professional protectionism or a superfluous reveling in the microdynamics of cultural processes that other
anthropologists generally grasp. Rather, it is a theoretical
standpoint: namely that the structuring of languages, the
co-construction of meaning, and the flow of conversation
are integral in the constitution of culture and society. Much
contemporary scholarship is rooted in a postmodern epistemology that motivates a great deal of what I have labeled
engaged linguistic anthropology. If language is necessarily ideologicalif there is no viewpoint from nowhere
scholars must look beyond the quest for knowledge for its
own sake to provide epistemological grounding for conducting research. I suggest that the expansion of work explicitly
oriented toward public discourses and institutions is at least
in part a response to postmodern deconstructions of empiricist epistemology. That is, like earlier research on language
endangerment, language politics, and multilingualism, much
of this contemporary scholarship is implicitly (and in some
cases explicitly) grounded in a commitment to understanding the perspectives and linguistic patterns of marginalized

Year in Review: Linguistic Anthropology

groups (see Fassin 2011). Engagement of this sort promises

to continue to make anthropology in general, and linguistic
anthropology in particular, relevant beyond the academic
sphere.
Such epistemological grounding is coupled with ongoing ontological examination into the nature of language. In
the work examined above, language is variously taken to
mean morphosyntax, phonology, embodied speech, experienced talk, signed communication, semiotically saturated
objects, various forms of mediated discourse, or some combination of these. This ontological diversity is a strength
rather than a weakness of current linguistic anthropology,
allowing scholars to make connections to work in other subfields and disciplines and to thereby explore the breadth and
depth of language as culture or language as cultural. In such
endeavors, one challenge for linguistic anthropologists in
2013 will be to continue to demonstrate to other scholars
this complexity of languages and to indicate the significance
of this complexity in the constitution of cultural practice and
social life.
Steven P. Black
University,

Atlanta,

Department of Anthropology, Georgia State

GA

30302-3998;

sblack@gsu.edu;

http://

www.cas.gsu.edu/anthropology/13781.html

NOTES
Acknowledgments. Thank you to Kathryn Woolard and Michael

Chibnik for the opportunity to write this review and to Kathryn

Woolard and an anonymous reviewer for many helpful comments
that have greatly improved the article. Thanks also to Paja Faudree
and Keith Murphy for informal conversations about the state of the
subfield. Thank you to Kathryn Kozaitis for an in-depth conversation on the topic of engaged anthropology. Finally, a large debt is
owed to Elizabeth Falconi for her comments about the wording of
various phrases and paragraphs; suggestions on areas of research to
include and ways to conceptualize, categorize, and write about current scholarship; and a careful reading of various sections of article
drafts.
1. The first part of this title and one of its puns are used in Leap and
Provenchers (2011) theme issue of the Journal of Homosexuality,
titled Language Matters.
2. I credit Deniz Dazer, Tristan Jones, Dorothy Hodgson, and other
colleagues and graduate students at Rutgers University, New
Brunswick, as well as Kathryn Kozaitis at Georgia State University, for helping me to further investigate the notion of engaged
anthropology. All views represented are of course my own.
3. As with previous year-in-review pieces, although I attempt to cast
a wide net I do not claim to cover the entire depth or breadth
of the subdiscipline. To a certain extent, the review will be a
reflection of my own research interests and foci.
4. Note that a fair amount of the work discussed above also engages
with public institutions and discourses.

281

5. Although I have chosen the term engagement to categorize this

trend, the trend should be examined and theorized regardless of
whether or not this specific label is adopted more broadly.
6. Task group members author many of the pieces discussed above
as engaged.

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