HG3023 Anthropological Linguistics

Semester 2
Academic Year 2019-20

Subject description
Anthropological linguistics is an interdisciplinary sub-field of linguistics and
anthropology that examines the link between language and culture, and how they
influence each other. It is concerned with the role of language and meaning in their social
and cultural contexts, and how they contribute to creating and perpetuating social
structures and cultural practices.

Learning Objective
This interdisciplinary course provides you with a theoretical and practical training in
researching language and culture from an anthropological point of view. Though selected
readings, class discussions, and first-hand experience in doing anthropological/linguistic
fieldwork, by the end of this course you will appreciate how the study of communicative
practices in their cultural settings can reveal profound insights into the diverse ways that
humans perceive and contextualize their worlds.

Coordinator: Assoc. Prof. Alexander Coupe

Office: HSS 03-56
E-mail: arcoupe@ntu.edu.sg
Phone: 6592-1567

Consultation hours: Tuesday 1:30 – 3:30PM, or by appointment

Method of instruction: One three-hour seminar

Tuesday, 3:30 – 6:30 PM, HSS Seminar Room 4

Assessment components

100% continuous assessment, comprising: Value Due date

1. Group presentation/discussant role (group project) 20% Weeks 3–13
2. Recording and annotation of a text (individual project) 20% Week 10
3. Anthropological/linguistic analysis of text (individual project) 30% Week 13
4. In-class quiz 20% Week 14
5. Class participation 10%

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HG3023 Course guide Alexander R. Coupe

Assessment details

Assignment #1: Group presentation/discussant role

In groups of 3, students will present on a topic each week, starting in Week 3. The
presentation will involve each group seeking out and presenting new insights and
analyses on the selected topic, based on two journal articles (not book chapters). The
presenting group needs to provide 2 readings + relevant examples (e.g. clips, sound
recordings, web links, .ppt slides etc.) by the Friday in advance of their presentation
date in class. We will decide the schedule for presentations by drawing lots in the first
seminar.

Your group of 3 students will additionally play the role of discussants for another
group’s presentation. There should be no advance collusion with the presenting group.
As discussants, your group will be responsible for familiarizing yourselves with the
topic being presented, doing the same readings, and additionally seeking out other
relevant information so that you are in an informed position to lead the class discussion.
You will be assessed for your knowledge of the presentation topic, your ability to
enrich our understanding by asking key questions and clarifying concepts, and for your
ability to lead the class in a lively and relevant discussion.

across Weeks 4-13

Assignment #2: Linguistic fieldwork Individual project
You will record a short narrated folk tale (ideally less than 5 minutes) in your ancestral
language (or in any other language except English or Singlish), using professional
recording equipment borrowed from the school. The recorded data should then be
transcribed and annotated following standard linguistic interlinearizing conventions.
See the HG3023 assessment guidelines for specific instructions.

Deadline: Week 10
Assignment #3: Linguistic and anthropological analysis Individual project
Analyse the folk tale in a write-up of 2000 words. Your paper will be graded according
to the quality of the analysis of linguistic structure, the quality of the literature review,
and for the depth of insights into the cultural relevance of the folk tale and explanations
for its intergenerational persistence. See the HG3023 assessment guidelines for specific
instructions.

Deadline: Week 13
Assignment #4: In-class quiz
An in-class quiz of 1 hour’s duration will comprise multiple choice and short answer
questions and will test your knowledge of material covered in the readings and
seminars.

Quiz date: Week 14

Assignment #5: Class participation
You will be assessed on your participation in class discussions, demonstrated evidence
of having done the set readings in advance, and other evidence of engagement with the
module’s content.

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HG3023 Course guide Alexander R. Coupe

1. Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this unit you should be able to:
• analyse and critically discuss the complex relationship between culture and
language
• gather narrative linguistic data using professional recording equipment and
prepare it for linguistic analysis
• competently work with speakers of a non-native language to document your
language’s structure and the significance of folklore in the community’s culture
• work effectively with team members to achieve common research goals
• formulate arguments and confidently present your research ideas publicly in an
academic milieu
• confidently write up research essays that are consistent with established academic
practices and conventions

Tentative schedule of seminar topics

Week Date Topic
1 14 Jan Course overview and house-keeping;
What is language? What is culture?
2 21 Jan Palaeoanthropology, evolution, and the
origins of language
3 28 Jan Biology, language and culture:
Colour terminology
4 4 Feb Genre, oral literature and translation
5 11 Feb A study in the ethnography of
communication: naming
6 18 Feb Culture contact and language contact:
borrowings, pidgins & creoles
Attend seminar by Prof Catherine
Travis @ 3:30PM, HSS 05-57
7 25 Feb No class (Coordinator’s absence for conference attendance)
Readings
Duranti 2009 Ch 1 or
Foley 1997: Ch 1
Foley 1997: Ch 2; Diamond 1991;
Savage-Rumbaugh & Lewin 1994
Foley Ch. 7; Kay, Berlin et al. 1997:
21-56
Salzmann 1998: Ch 12; Foley Ch. 18
Suzman 1994, Geertz 1983
Foley Ch. 19; Field 2001

2-6 Mar RECESS

8 10 Mar Kinship Foley Ch. 5; Foley Ch. 6; Evans
2001; Burling 1970
9 17 Mar Language, space and cognition Foley Ch. 10; Foley Ch 11; Levinson
1996; Lucy 1992
10 24 Mar Non-verbal communication: Gesture Kita 2009; Wilkins 2004

11 31 Mar Social intelligence: Knowing other Goody 1995

minds
12 7 Apr Pragmatics, face and politeness Foley Ch. 13; Foley Ch. 14;
Schottman 1993
13 14 Apr Cultural scripts, metaphor and Foley Ch. 9; Sweetser 1990
inference
14 21 Apr Final in-class quiz

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HG3023 Course guide Alexander R. Coupe

Researching and writing up your assignment

Specific instructions are provided regarding getting consent, recording your speaker,
and writing up your individual fieldwork project – see the HG3023 Assessment
guidelines. Use an IPA font to transcribe your data – I recommend Doulos SIL,
available as freeware from: http://www.sil.org. The latest versions of Word should also
have IPA characters.
I strongly recommend looking at the Leipzig glossing “rules” – see:
http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php. This web page
demonstrates the conventions used by linguists for presenting interlinearized language
examples and has a handy list of glosses that are now becoming the standard in
language typology and linguistic description. You will be expected to be familiar with
these and employ them in your assignment. Knowledge of the common abbreviations
will also help you to understand linguistic academic writing.

References for readings

The main course text is:
Foley, William A. 1997. Anthropological Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.

This book will be supplemented by the following articles and chapters, plus other things
that I may recommend reading, depending upon the particular direction in which our
interests take us during the semester:

Burling, Robins. 1970. Man’s many voices. Language in its cultural context. Ch. 2.
Kinship terminology. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Pp. 18-33. ISBN 0
03 081001 9.
Durham, William A. 1991. Coevolution. Genes, culture and human diversity. Stanford
University Press. Pp. 1-17. ISBN 0 8047 2156 4.
Diamond, Jared. 1991. The Third Chimpanzee. Scoresby, Victoria: Random House. Pp.
125-149. ISBN 0 09 991380 1.
Duranti, Alessandro. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: CUP.
Evans, Nicholas. 2001. Kinship terminology. In Smelser, Neil J. & Paul B. Baltes (eds.)
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 8105-8111.
Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Evans, Nicholas. 2003. Culture and structuration in the languages of Australia. Annual
Review of Anthropology 32:13-40. ISSN 0084 6570
Evans, Nicholas & David Wilkins. 2000. In the mind’s ear: the semantic extensions of
perception verbs in Australian languages. Language 76.3:546-592. ISSN 0097-
8507 0023-8260
Field, Margaret. 2001. Triadic directives in Navajo language socialization. Language in
Society 30, 2:249-63.
Geertz, Clifford. 1974. Local Knowledge. “From the native’s point of view”: on the nature
of anthropological understanding. London: Fontana. Pp. 55-70. ISBN 0 465 04162
0.

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Goody, Esther. 1995. Introduction: some implications of a social origin of intelligence.

In E. Goody, ed. Social intelligence and interaction. Cambridge University Press.
pp. 1-33. ISBN 0 521 45949 4
Kay, Paul, Brent Berlin, Luisa Maffi & William Merrifield. 1997. Color naming across
languages. In C.L. Hardin & L. Maffi, eds. Color categories in thought and
language. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 21-56. ISBN 0 521 498005
Kita, Sotaro. 2009. Cross-cultural variation of speech-accompanying gesture: A review.
Language and Cognitive Processes 24.2: 145–167.
Levinson, Stephen C. 1996. Relativity in spatial conception and description. In S.
Levinson & J. Gumperz, eds., Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.. Pp. 177-202. ISBN 0 521 44890 5
Lucy, John. 1992. Language diversity and thought. Chapter 7. Overview and assessment
of previous empirical research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 257-
276. ISBN 0 521 38797 3,
Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue & Roger Lewin. 1994. Kanzi. The ape at the brink of the human
mind. Ch. 6. Inside Kanzi’s mind. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 155-178.
ISBN 0 471 15959 X
Schottmann, Wendy. 1993. Proverbial dog names of the Baatombu: a strategic alternative
to silence. Language in Society 22:539-554.
Strauss, Claudia & Naomi Quinn 1997. A cognitive theory of cultural meaning. Ch. 2.
Anthropological resistance. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 12-47. ISBN 0 521
59541.
Suzman, Susan M. 1994. Names as pointers: Zulu personal naming practices. Language
in Society 23:253-72. ISSN 0047 4045
Sweetser, Eve. 1990. From etymology to pragmatics. Metaphorical and cultural aspects
of semantic structure. Ch. 2. Semantic structure and semantic change: English
perception verbs in an Indo-European context. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. Pp. 23-48. ISBN 0 521 42442 9
Whorf, Benjamin L. (1939) The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language. In
John B. Carroll (ed. and intro) (1956) Language, Thought and Reality: Selected
Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. NY: MIT Press and John Wiley & Sons. Ferguson,
Gibson. 2006. Language Planning and Education. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
Wilkins, David. 2003. Why pointing with the index finger is not a universal (in
sociocultural and semiotic terms). In Kita, Sotaro (Ed.), Pointing: Where language,
culture and cognition meet. Hillsdale, NJ: LEA.

Other readings
Barth, Fredrik. 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organisation of Culture
Difference. Boston: Little Brown.
Cohen, Ronald. 1978. “Ethnicity: problem and focus in anthropology” in Annual Review
of Anthropology 7:379-403.
Gough, K. 1959. The Nayars and the definition of marriage. Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute. 89: 23-34.
Gough, K. 1961. Variation in matrilineal systems. In D. Schneider and K. Gough.
Matrilineal Kinship. Berkeley: U of California Press.

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HG3023 Course guide Alexander R. Coupe

Holliday, A., M. Hyde and J. Kullman (2004). Intercultural Communication: An

Advanced Resource Book. London and NY: Routledge.
Malmjaer, Kirsten (2005) Linguistics and the Language of Translation. Edinburgh UP.
Matsuki, Keiko. 1995. Metaphors of anger in Japanese. In J. R. Taylor and R. MacLaury
(eds.), Language and the Cognitive Construal of the World. Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter.
Myers-Scotten, Carol. 1993. Social Motivations for Codeswitching: Evidence from
Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rampton, Ben. 1995. Crossing: Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents. New York:
Longman.
Sapir, Edward. (1924) “Culture, Genuine and Spurious” in David G. Mandelbaum (ed.)
(1951) Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality.
Berkeley and L.A.: U of California Press.
Taylor, John R. and Tandi Mbense. 1998. Red dogs and rotten mealies: How Zulus talk
about anger. In A. Athanasiadou and E. Tabakowska (eds), Speaking of Emotions:
Conceptualisation and Expression, 191-226. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Wierzbicka, A. 1992. Semantics, Culture and Cognition. NY: Oxford UP.
Yu, Ning. 1995. Metaphorical expressions of anger and happiness in English and
Chinese. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10: 59-92.