Approaches to Language and Culture

This book provides an overview of approaches to language and culture, and it outlines the broad interdisciplinary field of anthropological linguistics and linguistic anthropology. It identifies current and future directions of research, including language socialization, language reclamation, speech styles and genres, language ideology, verbal taboo, social indexicality, emotion, time, and many more. Furthermore, it offers areal perspectives on the study of language in cultural contexts (namely Africa, the Americas, Australia and Oceania, Mainland Southeast Asia, and Europe), and it lays the foundation for future developments within the field. In this way, the book bridges the disciplines of cultural anthropology and linguistics and paves the way for the new book series Anthropological Linguistics.

"[T]his anthology presents a number of excellent to outstanding essays within the field of LA-AL [Linguistic Anthropology/Anthropological Linguistics]. As the editors point out, it is not meant as a handbook, but it definitely ‘pave[s] the way for the [editors’ new] "Anthropological Linguistics" book series’ with de Gruyter Mouton (p. 26)."

Gunter Senft, 2023, in Anthropological Linguistics 63:3, 318-321