Anthropology of Language at UCSD

Ongoing Workshop:

• Workshop on Language Ideology and Change in Multilingual Communitues

• The Linguistic Anthropology Laboratory

Program Description

The Department of Anthropology at UCSD, drawing in part on coordinated resources in other departments, offers growing opportunities for graduate training and research in the anthropology of language.

The field of linguistic anthropology has traditionally addressed a broad range of topics, from the relation of language and cognition, through the linguistic organization of social difference, to interlinguistics and to the politics of performance and representation. At UCSD, we provide opportunity for graduate work in all of these areas.

Although not a distinct distinct degree in the department, linguistic anthropology can be a focus of study within the socio-cultural anthropology track. UCSD provides an unusual opportunity to explore linkages between linguistic and psychological anthropology.

Language practices are a topic of central concern in anthropology because they mediate human existence in a social world. Language enables humans to construe their environment, construct self, society, and social bonds, constitute authority, and legitimate power.

Anthropology approaches language as a cultural system, speaking and literacy as social practices, and speakers as social actors. Linguistic forms are of interest to anthropologists because of their contribution to social action and social meaning.

Linguistic anthropologists at UCSD share a particular focus on the ways that speakers and societies use language to mark and manage social boundaries (ethnic, national, gender, class). We offer a strong concentration on the relationship of language to ethnicity in multilingual societies, particularly in the Spanish-speaking world from Spain to Latin America to the U.S.

We also emphasize the study of linguistic ideologies, that is, morally and politically loaded cultural conceptions of language and social life. We encourage ethnographic research on the way that such ideologies mediate the relations between linguistic and social structure, and between social structure and individual agency.

Anthropology of Language Faculty

Although most members of our faculty have some language-related interests, the following members of our faculty have particularly strong research specializations in the area of the anthropology of language, and we invite you to examine the links to pages containing fuller detail:

• Thomas J. Csordas
• John B. Haviland
• David K. Jordan
• Esra Özyürek
• Joel Robbins
• Kathyrn Woolard

Additionally, the linguistic anthropologist Ana Celia Zentella offers graduate coursework in this area in the neighboring department of Ethnic Studies. The Departments of Communication, Linguistics, and Cognitive Science are among other resources for anthropology students pursuing this topic of study.

Inquiries about graduate training in the anthropology of language at UCSD can be directed to John B. Haviland by Email or telephone (1-858-822-0752).

Return to top.