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In this book, Andrew J. Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart delineate the relationship between "language in particular" and "culture in general" by focusing on language as both social practice and a means of classifying and interpreting the world. A traditional linguistic approach to a focus on language is illuminated by their anthropological emphasis on the embodiment of relationships and experience. In the book, the body is placed in the foreground for understanding language in culture, which helps in turn to understand how it enables us to adapt to the world of lived material experience. Written in an accessible style and drawing on an extensive corpus of primary field research from Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Japan, Taiwan, Scotland, and Ireland, Strathern and Stewart present a world anthropology which links together European, North American, and Asia-Pacific approaches to the topic. Students and scholars alike of sociocultual anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and linguistics will benefit from this engaging work on how the various components of our culture are informed and shaped through language.
List of contents
About the AuthorsPrefaceAcknowledgements1. Language as Cultural Practice2. Origins3. Language, Practice, and Embodiment4. Themes in Language Practice5. Cognition and Categories: The Work of Roy Ellen6. Cognition and Categories: The Work of Anna Wierzbicka7. Cognitive Science and Language8. Language and Ritual: The Merina and the Melpa9. Language and Ritual: Maring and Melpa10. Language and Power11. Language, Literacy, and Change: Scots and Tok Pisin12. Excursions, Translations, and ExplorationsReferencesIndex
About the author
Andrew J. Strathern is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, USAPamela J. Stewart is Senior Research Associate at the the University of Pittsburgh, USA
Summary
In this book, Andrew J. Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart delineate the relationship between “language in particular” and “culture in general” by focusing on language as both social practice and a means of classifying and interpreting the world.
