Anthropological Linguistics Quiz

Anthropological linguistics is a subfield of linguistics and anthropology that studies the role of language in its social and cultural context. The field grew in prominence during the early twentieth century when anthropologists and linguists worked in conjunction to analyze Native American languages and study how language related to the origins, distribution, and characteristics of these indigenous populations. Anthropological linguistics initially focused largely on unwritten language, but now examines languages both with and without written traditions. Anthropological linguistics has had a major impact on the studies of such areas as visual perception and bioregional democracy, both of which are concerned with distinctions that are made in languages about perceptions of the surroundings. Anthropological linguistics has two branches: nomenclatural/classificational and ethnographic/sociolinguistics. Anthropological linguistics uses more distinctly linguistic methodology, and studies languages as "linguistic phenomena," while linguistic anthropology uses more anthropological methods to analyze language through a cultural framework and determine the rules of its social use. Anthropological linguistics has several branches, including phonology, morphology, and code-switching. Code-switching is a situation in which a speaker alternates between two or more languages in the context of a single conversation. Anthropological linguistics is concerned with the social and cultural meaning of language, with more of an emphasis on linguistic structure. Sociolinguistics examines how language relates to various social groups and identities like race, gender, class, and age. Anthropological linguistics uses language to determine cultural understandings, while sociolinguistics views language itself as a social institution.