Linguistic Anthropology
Linguistic Anthropology is viewed as the comparative study of how language shapes social life [Society for Linguistic Anthropology]. This branch of Linguistics explores different ways in which practices of language use can shape communication patterns, establish categories of social identity and group membership, and organize large-scale cultural beliefs and ideologies. Therefore, it provides knowledge of common cultural representations of natural and social worlds.
Linguistic Anthropology is an interdisciplinary field that deals with studying language as a cultural resource and speaking as a cultural practice. It views human language faculty as a cognitive and a social achievement that provides the intellectual tools for thinking and acting in the world [Oakland.edu]. Its study requires detailed documentation of what speakers say in daily social activities and relies on participant observation and other methods, including audiovisual recording, annotated transcription, and interviews with participants.
Anthropological linguistics is a subfield of linguistics that is concerned with the place of language in its broader social and cultural context and its role in forging and sustaining cultural practices and social structures. Anthropological linguistics views language through the prism of the core anthropological concept, culture, and, as such, seeks to uncover the meaning behind the use, misuse, or non-use of language, its different forms, registers, and styles. It is an interpretive discipline, peeling away at language to find cultural understandings.
⠀ Linguistic Anthropology. Retrieved from: https://oakland.edu/bals/interdisciplinary-careers/linguistic-anthropology/
⠀ Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA). Retrieved from: http://www.linguisticanthropology.org/about/