{"id":3751,"date":"2013-04-06T22:59:02","date_gmt":"2013-04-06T21:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/?p=3751"},"modified":"2013-04-06T22:59:23","modified_gmt":"2013-04-06T21:59:23","slug":"comments-on-linguistic-anthropology-laura-ahearn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/2013\/04\/comments-on-linguistic-anthropology-laura-ahearn\/","title":{"rendered":"Comments on Linguistic Anthropology (Laura Ahearn)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consider Marx\u2019s famous words in \u201cThe Eighteenth Brumaire o f Louis <\/span><\/p>\n

Bonaparte\u201d : \u201cMen make their own history, but they do not make it <\/span><\/p>\n

just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by <\/span><\/p>\n

themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and trans\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

mitted from the past\u201d (Marx 1978[1852]:595). In place o f the word <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201chistory\u201d in this remark, one could easily substitute \u201c language,\u201d \u201csoci\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

ety,\u201d or \u201c culture,\u201d and the statement would remain equally insightful. <\/span><\/p>\n

At the core o f what is known as \u201cpractice theory\u201d is this seeming <\/span><\/p>\n

paradox: that language, culture, and society all apparently have a pre\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

existing reality but at the same time are very much the products ot <\/span><\/p>\n

individual humans\u2019 words and actions.12 Many linguistic anthropolo\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

gists explicitly or implicitly draw upon practice theory in their work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Correct. Equally insightless.<\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

In sum, as important as the interview is as a research method, it is <\/span><\/p>\n

often mistakenly assumed to provide a simple, straightforward path <\/span><\/p>\n

toward \u201c the facts\u201d or \u201cthe truth.\u201d Interviews can indeed provide rich <\/span><\/p>\n

insights, but they must be appreciated as the complex, culturally <\/span><\/p>\n

mediated social interactions that they are.<\/span><\/p>\n

I cringe every time I read \u201dthe truth\u201d and \u201dthe facts\u201d. Social constructivism -_-<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

A researcher interested in language ideologies might conduct a <\/span><\/p>\n

matched guise test, a process that involves recording individuals as <\/span><\/p>\n

they read a short passage in two or more languages or dialects <\/span><\/p>\n

(\u201cguises\u201d). In other words, if four people are recorded, eight (or more) <\/span><\/p>\n

readings o f the same passage might be produced. For example, a <\/span><\/p>\n

researcher interested in whether listeners judge people who speak <\/span><\/p>\n

African American English differently from those who speak standard<\/span><\/p>\n

American English might choose four individuals who can code-switch <\/span><\/p>\n

fluently between these two ways o f speaking. Each o f these four <\/span><\/p>\n

individuals would record two readings o f the same passage, one in <\/span><\/p>\n

African American English, the other in standard American English. <\/span><\/p>\n

These eight readings would then be shuffled up and played back to <\/span><\/p>\n

other people who do not know that there were only four readers <\/span><\/p>\n

instead o f eight. The listeners would be asked to rank each o f the eight <\/span><\/p>\n

readings, rating each according to how honest, intelligent, sophisti\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

cated, likable, and so on, they thought the reader was. By comparing <\/span><\/p>\n

the scores listeners give to the same speaker reading in African <\/span><\/p>\n

American English vs. standard American English, it is possible to hold <\/span><\/p>\n

a person\u2019s other voice qualities constant and thereby determine how <\/span><\/p>\n

much influence simply speaking one or the other o f these language <\/span><\/p>\n

variants has on listeners\u2019 attitudes toward the speaker. In other words, <\/span><\/p>\n

matched guise tests can provide a measure o f people\u2019s unconscious <\/span><\/p>\n

language ideologies – which can be related to racial prejudices.6<\/span><\/p>\n

It is telling that the author uses \u201dprejudices\u201d instead of, say, \u201dbeliefs\u201d. Since it is well known that american blacks ARE less intelligent, and that there is a certain dialect used mostly by black americans, this the usage of this dialect can hence be used as a diagnostic tool for identifying american blacks. This in turn makes it a useful proxy for low intelligence (white american standards). Indeed, not using the information for that purpose if one knows about these correlations, would be to ignore relevant data.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

The message to scholars interested in language acquisition, therefore, is <\/span><\/p>\n

that they should consider cultural values and social practices to be <\/span><\/p>\n

inseparable from language and its acquisition (Slobin 1992:6). And the <\/span><\/p>\n

message to cultural anthropologists and other social scientists interested <\/span><\/p>\n

in processes o f childhood social practices, education, apprenticeship, or <\/span><\/p>\n

other ways o f learning or entering into new social groups is that they <\/span><\/p>\n

should look closely at linguistic practices. In other words, learning a first <\/span><\/p>\n

language and becoming a culturally competent member o f a society are <\/span><\/p>\n

two facets ot a single process. It is virtually impossible for a child to learn <\/span><\/p>\n

a language without also becoming socialized into a particular cultural <\/span><\/p>\n

group, and, conversely, a child cannot become a competent member o f <\/span><\/p>\n

such a group without mastering the appropriate linguistic practices.<\/span><\/p>\n

What about learning foreign languages? Especially dead foreign languages. Or constructed languages? Does one become a member of the nonexistent Klingon soceity if one learns that as a child? They must have some other way of thinking about this, if these obvious counter-examples do not work.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Franz Boas (1858-1942) is often considered the father o f anthropology <\/span><\/p>\n

in the United States. An important part o f Boas\u2019s research agenda <\/span><\/p>\n

involved disproving racist assertions about the existence o f so-called <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cprimitive\u201d languages, races, and cultures. At the turn o f the twentieth <\/span><\/p>\n

century, when Boas was writing, some scholars were arguing that <\/span><\/p>\n

people in certain societies were incapable o f complex, abstract, \u201cscien\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

tific\u201d thought because o f the seeming lack o f \u201clogical\u201d grammatical <\/span><\/p>\n

categories in their languages. Boas, who was keen on demonstrating <\/span><\/p>\n

the essential equality and humanity o f all people despite their tremen\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

dous linguistic and cultural diversity, disputed this interpretation, <\/span><\/p>\n

proposing instead that all linguistic and cultural practices were equally <\/span><\/p>\n

complex and logical. The particular language spoken by a group o f<\/span><\/p>\n

people merely tended to reflect their habitual cultural practices, Boas <\/span><\/p>\n

maintained. Language might facilitate certain types o f thinking and <\/span><\/p>\n

could provide a valuable way o f understanding unconscious patterns <\/span><\/p>\n

o f culture and thought, Boas declared, but it would not prevent people <\/span><\/p>\n

from thinking in a way that differed from the categories presented <\/span><\/p>\n

most conveniently in their language.<\/span><\/p>\n

I found it difficult to believe that there is nothing to this general idea. I expect there to be some correlations between population IQ and their language. And just trivial things like that indo-european and chinese languages are associated with high IQ. Something like that high IQ is associated with some measure of the advancedness of the language in question. But perhaps it’s not true. In any case, I don’t presume to know to begin with and am willing to look at the data. Apparently, this wasn’t true for Boas.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Another possible way o f researching the influence o f language-in- <\/span><\/p>\n

general on thought is studying children who have not yet learned a <\/span><\/p>\n

language. Clearly, it would be highly unethical to deprive a child o f <\/span><\/p>\n

access to a language; furthermore, studies o f abused children who have <\/span><\/p>\n

not been exposed to any language involve so many complicating fac\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

tors that the causes o f cognitive differences are impossible to ascertain. <\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers interested in the effects o f language-in-general on human <\/span><\/p>\n

thought have therefore turned to subjects such as very young, prelin- <\/span><\/p>\n

guistic infants, or deaf children who are raised in normal circum\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

stances but who have been deprived o f early exposure to language <\/span><\/p>\n

because they have hearing parents who do not use sign language. In <\/span><\/p>\n

the case o f infants, as noted in chapter 3, the language socialization <\/span><\/p>\n

process begins from day one (if not before), so it is impossible to study <\/span><\/p>\n

a truly \u201cprelinguistic\u201d infant. […]<\/span><\/p>\n

It does begin before, <\/span>at least, so claims this TED talk I saw a while back. http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/annie_murphy_paul_what_we_learn_before_we_re_born.html<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Much research remains to be conducted before a definitive under\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

standing of the potential effects o f language-in-general on various <\/span><\/p>\n

dimensions o f thought can be obtained. It may even turn out to be the <\/span><\/p>\n

case that there is no such general effect, since no one actually learns <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201clanguage-in-general\u201d but instead learns one (or more) particular lan\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

guage. In this regard, additional research is needed to explore the timing <\/span><\/p>\n

of theory o f mind development in children who speak languages other <\/span><\/p>\n

than English. There are some studies o f Baka- and Japanese-speaking <\/span><\/p>\n

children, among others, indicating that they are able to pass the stand\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

ard false-belief tasks at the same age as English-speaking children, but <\/span><\/p>\n

other children, such as those who speak Junin Quechua, seem not to <\/span><\/p>\n

be able to pass the classic false-belief tasks until much later, perhaps <\/span><\/p>\n

because o f the specific grammatical structures o f Junin Quechua or a <\/span><\/p>\n

very different cultural context (Villiers and Villiers 2003:372\u2014373). <\/span><\/p>\n

Many linguistic anthropologists question whether standard experi\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

ments devised in the United States can be exported, either in their <\/span><\/p>\n

original form or in \u201cculturally appropriate\u201d versions, to be used with <\/span><\/p>\n

children (or even adults) from very different linguistic and cultural <\/span><\/p>\n

backgrounds. At the very least, what little research there is o f this sort <\/span><\/p>\n

must be closely scrutinized for cultural and linguistic bias.<\/span><\/p>\n

Knowing that the japanese are similar to whites in intelligence, and not knowing the intelligence of the people speaking the mentioned language, this immediately gives one the idea that it might be an intelligence thing. The crucial test for that is whether false-belief tests correlate with intelligence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing useful on Wikipedia. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/False-belief_task#False-belief_task<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Did a brief search on GScholar, with terms: false-belief task, IQ. Result? IQ <\/span>does<\/em><\/span> predict better scores on false-belief tests. Cites:<\/span><\/p>\n