What is linguistic anthropology?

Most of social, cultural, and political life happens through and is mediated by language. Linguistic anthropology is a vital part of anthropology that studies the way language participates in and shapes social life, from the small-scale level of momentary interpersonal interaction, to the larger scale of social and political groupings, hierarchies, movements, and conflicts.   

Linguistic anthropology provides a potent set of tools for unpacking and understanding, in a specific and systematic way, the dynamics of social life in any situation.



Some linguistic anthropologists specifically study language and language phenomena: for example, language educational policies; language disappearance and revitalization; sociolinguistic variation and the creation of social meaning; the negotiation of identity in multi-lingual contexts. Many others use linguistic anthropology’s theoretical approaches and methods of close analysis to study other things, including for example: racism and the perpetuation of racializing ideologies; the subjective experience of migration; the way language works with and against other modalities and media.