2024/2 PBI Introduction to Linguistics

Linguistic anthropology began in the early 20th century in the US and Canada, initially focusing on documenting and analyzing the grammar of aboriginal languages, especially in North America. This effort to document endangered languages was a major catalyst for the discipline's formation.

The field's evolution can be understood through Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigm shifts, showing how its goals, concepts, units of analysis, issues, and methods have changed over the past century. These shifts have been cumulative, meaning older approaches are integrated and built upon rather than completely replaced. For instance, early work in language documentation remains a vital part of the discipline today. This highlights a robust intellectual tradition that values diverse research goals and methodologies, leading to a more holistic understanding of language.

The First Paradigm: The Boasian Tradition

Originating with Franz Boas's work on American Indian languages, the Boasian tradition continues to influence contemporary research, particularly in the descriptive work of "field linguists" documenting previously undocumented aboriginal languages worldwide. This paradigm also persists in cognitively oriented linguistics and anthropology, focusing on language as a resource for encoding experience. Key figures like Edward Sapir contributed significantly to the linguistic reconstruction of native North American languages, and Alfred Louis Kroeber conducted fieldwork on 33 languages.

The Second Paradigm: The Ethnography of Communication and Sociolinguistics

This paradigm, emerging in the 1960s, conceptualized language as a variable entity both sensitive to and actively structuring context. It aligns with the ethnography of communication (EOC) and interactional sociolinguistics. Key figures like John Gumperz and Dell Hymes shifted the field's focus to the relationship between language and its contexts of use. This approach also shares strong ties with urban sociolinguistics, exemplified by William Labov's work. Dell Hymes specifically proposed EOC to analyze language use patterns within speech communities, supporting his concept of communicative competence.

The Third Paradigm: Language as a Flux of Indexical Values

Many scholars from the second paradigm contributed to this third paradigm, which expanded on previous understandings of language's role in constructing identities, institutions, and communities. This paradigm is characterized by new research areas like language socialization and the elaboration of concepts such as indexicality, heteroglossia, and agency, creating a closer connection with contemporary social theory. Research within this paradigm, starting in the 1980s, focuses on language use in socialization, identity negotiation, power struggles, and the formation of diverse communities. Don Kulick's work, for example, illustrates how language use can index different identities and how public discourse can be used to assert identity.

This historical progression reveals a shift from a static, structural understanding of language to a dynamic, performative, and constructivist one. This evolution highlights a growing recognition that language is not just a system of rules but a primary means by which individuals and groups build relationships, negotiate power, form identities, and create shared realities. This fundamental shift underpins many core theoretical frameworks in the field, emphasizing language's active role in shaping social life.

Here's a summary of the paradigms: