Natural Causes of Language Frames, Biases, and Cultural Transmission
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Catalyst, Fall 2010
Founded in 1888 as the Marine Biological Laboratory Catalyst Fall 2010 Volume 5, Number 2 IN THIS ISSUE 4 Diamond In the Rough 8 Life, Interrupted 10 Bird Strike! Where Are They Now MBL People Shaping Science and Society Page 2 F r o m t h e D i r e c t o r Dear Friends, MBL Catalyst One of the great pleasures of teaching is hearing good news from former students. For those who have taught at the MBL—whether it was in a summer course, or in Fall 2010 Volume 5, Number 2 our resident undergraduate and graduate programs—alumni news is often very MBL Catalyst is published twice yearly by the Office rewarding. We hear from former undergraduates who are now enrolled in the best of Communications at the MBL in Woods Hole, Ph.D. programs in the country. We hear from post-docs who have published exciting Massachusetts. The Marine Biological Laboratory research, and who find the dream of establishing their own lab is within reach. We (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery and are delighted to hear from senior scientists who are in leadership positions, or are improving the human condition through research recipients of the highest accolades in science and scholarship, yet who stay in touch and education in biology, biomedicine, and with their colleagues or mentors at the MBL. environmental science. Founded in 1888, the MBL is an independent, nonprofit corporation. This is the scientific family that so much defines the MBL: the successive generations of teachers and their students, many of whom eventually come back to the MBL to Senior Advisors Director and CEO: Gary Borisy teach. -
Confessional Reflexivity As Introspection and Avowal
Establishing the ‘Truth’ of the Matter: Confessional Reflexivity as Introspection and Avowal JOSEPH WEBSTER University of Edinburgh The conceptualisation of reflexivity commonly found in social anthropology deploys the term as if it were both a ‘virtuous’ mechanism of self‐reflection and an ethical technique of truth telling, with reflexivity frequently deployed as an moral practice of introspection and avowal. Further, because reflexivity is used as a methodology for constructing the authority of ethnographic accounts, reflexivity in anthropology has come to closely resemble Foucault’s descriptions of confession. By discussing Lynch’s (2000) critical analysis of reflexivity as an ‘academic virtue’, I consider his argument through the lens of my own concept of ‘confessional reflexivity’. While supporting Lynch’s diagnosis of the ‘problem of reflexivity’, I attempt to critique his ethnomethodological cure as essentialist, I conclude that a way forward might be found by blending Foucault’s (1976, 1993) theory of confession with Bourdieu’s (1992) theory of ‘epistemic reflexivity’. The ubiquity of reflexivity and its many forms For as long as thirty years, reflexivity has occupied a ‘place of honour’ at the table of most social science researchers and research institutions. Reflexivity has become enshrined as a foundational, or, perhaps better, essential, concept which is relied upon as a kind of talisman whose power can be invoked to shore up the ‘truthiness’ of the claims those researchers and their institutions are in the business of making. No discipline, it seems, is more guilty of this ‘evoking’ than social anthropology (Lucy 2000, Sangren 2007, Salzaman 2002). Yet, despite the ubiquity of its deployment in anthropology, the term ‘reflexivity’ remains poorly defined. -
Building a Popular Science Library Collection for High School to Adult Learners: ISSUES and RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Building a Popular Science Library Collection for High School to Adult Learners: ISSUES AND RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Gregg Sapp GREENWOOD PRESS BUILDING A POPULAR SCIENCE LIBRARY COLLECTION FOR HIGH SCHOOL TO ADULT LEARNERS Building a Popular Science Library Collection for High School to Adult Learners ISSUES AND RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Gregg Sapp GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sapp, Gregg. Building a popular science library collection for high school to adult learners : issues and recommended resources / Gregg Sapp. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–313–28936–0 1. Libraries—United States—Special collections—Science. I. Title. Z688.S3S27 1995 025.2'75—dc20 94–46939 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright ᭧ 1995 by Gregg Sapp All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 94–46939 ISBN: 0–313–28936–0 First published in 1995 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. Printed in the United States of America TM The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10987654321 To Kelsey and Keegan, with love, I hope that you never stop learning. Contents Preface ix Part I: Scientific Information, Popular Science, and Lifelong Learning 1 -
Stephen Jay Gould's the Mismeasure of Man1
- 1 - STEPHEN JAY GOULD’S THE MISMEASURE OF MAN1 The first thing that a man will do for his ideals is lie. (Joseph Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis. Oxford University Press, 1954: page 43) INTRODUCTION There is no better illustration of the non-existence of arguments and evidence against the genetic determinism of intelligence and of racial differences in intelligence than Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man and no better illustration of the ignorance and bias of the press on this subject than its treatment of it. 2 Since its publication (by Penguin) in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man has been the Bible of the opponents of genetic determinism of intelligence and one of the most frequently cited books on any topic in the social sciences.3 It has been translated into ten languages and received the Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1995 two collections of articles attacking The Bell Curve were published: The Bell Curve Debate4 and The Bell Curve Wars.5 The first article in both is by Gould, and in both these articles Gould cited his book and repeats its arguments. The reviews of The Mismeasure of Man in the popular press were uncritically adulatory. The reviews in scholarly journals, by experts, all of whom point out that it is a mosaic of blatant lies and gross misrepresentations. The media’s acclaim for The Mismeasure of Man stems not only from receptivity to its ideas but also from the eminence of its author. -
The Society of Linguistic Anthropology
Anthropology News February 2000 SECTION NEWS Emory U, Georgia Institute of Technology and in anthropology is marginal and he considers his anthropological approaches. Likewise, I have International Society for the Study of Narrative main interests as sociolinguistics. learned greatly from their dedication to studies of Literature will sponsor an International Confer- At the U of Auckland, until very recently, lin- NZ English, Maori and languages of the Pacific. ence on Narrative Apr 6-9,2000. See the Meeting guists belonged to two departments: English and Calendar for further details. Anthropology. Now, all linguists belong to a Us@l Addresses. Susan Gal, SLA Presidenl;.Dept Lmguistics Dept. I still have limited knowledge of of Anth, U of Chicago, 1126 E 59th St, Chicago IL Sociolinguistics and Anthropology in these liiguists, but my understanding is that 60637-1539; [email protected]. New Zealand those who were under the English department Alessandm Wanti, Journal of Linguistic An- are mostly formal (Chomskian) people, whereas thropology Edim; Dept of Anth, UCLA,CA 90095- By Yukako Sunaoshi (V of Auckland, New Zealand) those who were under the Anthropology depart- 1553; [email protected]. As an American-trained sociolinguist, I wasn’t ment are mostly descriptive people. It should be Laura Milk, SLA Progrmn Orgrmizer;.Dept of Soc sure what to expect when I first arrived in New noted, however, that many of these linguists are and Anthm, Lopla U, 6525 North Sheridan Road, Zealand. What I found was people doing very interested in the sociocultural aspects of language Chicago, IL 60626; tel 773/508-3469, fax 508- interesting work in sociolinguistics, but very little use and that the division between formal and 7099, lmil&[email protected]. -
Linguistic Anthropology in 2013: Super-New-Big
AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST Linguistic Anthropology Linguistic Anthropology in 2013: Super-New-Big Angela Reyes ABSTRACT In this essay, I discuss how linguistic anthropological scholarship in 2013 has been increasingly con- fronted by the concepts of “superdiversity,” “new media,” and “big data.” As the “super-new-big” purports to identify a contemporary moment in which we are witnessing unprecedented change, I interrogate the degree to which these concepts rely on assumptions about “reality” as natural state versus ideological production. I consider how the super-new-big invites us to scrutinize various reconceptualizations of diversity (is it super?), media (is it new?), and data (is it big?), leaving us to inevitably contemplate each concept’s implicitly invoked opposite: “regular diversity,” “old media,” and “small data.” In the section on “diversity,” I explore linguistic anthropological scholarship that examines how notions of difference continue to be entangled in projects of the nation-state, the market economy, and social inequality. In the sections on “media” and “data,” I consider how questions about what constitutes lin- guistic anthropological data and methodology are being raised and addressed by research that analyzes new and old technologies, ethnographic material, semiotic forms, scale, and ontology. I conclude by questioning the extent to which it is the super-new-big itself or the contemplation about the super-new-big that produces perceived change in the world. [linguistic anthropology, superdiversity, new media, big data, -
Throw Away That Science Book! Enlightened
Throw Away That Science Book! “Errant Texts” and “Where’s the Book?” by Janet Raloff, in Science News (Mar. 17 & 24, 2001), 1719 N St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. Don’t know much about history, Advancement of Science, project director Don’t know much biology. George Nelson says, “Even if the science had Don’t know much about a science book, been 100 percent accurate, students still Don’t know much about the French I took. wouldn’t learn from these books, because the instruction [in them] was inadequate.” Often, Those memorable lines from Sam Cooke’s legions of facts were crammed into the texts, with “Wonderful World,” that golden oldie from little to connect them. 1960, could well be the anthem of American The middle-school textbooks are typically students today, to judge from the grades they put together by an editor working with contri- regularly get on international tests in science butions from contract writers who often have lit- and math. U.S. fourth graders did poorly in tle control over the final product. And the 1996, and four years later, as eighth graders, results are less likely than high school and col- they did even worse, trailing their counter- lege science textbooks to be vetted by profes- parts in 17 other countries. Ironically, a big part sional scientists. of the problem may be that very science book One exception to the dismal rule, Raloff they don’t know much about. found, is Introductory Physical Science (1999, A recent study of the dozen physical-science seventh rev. -
Ethnolinguistics in the Year 2016∗
Ethnolinguistic 28 Lublin 2017 I. Research articles DOI: 10.17951/et.2016.28.7 Jerzy B a r t m i ń s k i (UMCS, Lublin, Poland) Ethnolinguistics in the Year 2016∗ This article is the voice of Etnolingwistyka’s Editor-in-Chief on the current tasks of ethnolinguistics as a scholarly subdiscipline, as well as those of the journal. According to the author, of the two foundations of Slavic ethnolin- guistics mentioned by Nikita Tolstoy (i.e., its pan-Slavic character and the unity of language and culture) it is mainly the latter that has preserved its topicality: language is the source of knowledge about people and human com- munities, as well as the basis for building one’s identity (individual, national, regional, professional). The agenda of cultural linguistics has been followed by the contributors to the present journal and its editorial team with a focus on various genres of folklore, the problems of the linguistic worldview, and in recent issues with studies on the semantics of selected cultural concepts (FAMILY, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY, OTVETSTVENNOST’, etc.). An ethnolinguistics that thus seeks “culture in language” (i.e. in the semantic layer of linguistic forms) is close – especially in its cognitivist variant – to Western cultural or anthropological linguistics. When Slavic ethnolinguistics focuses on the semantics of value terms, it stands a good chance of engaging in a dialogue with Western anthropological linguistics and contribute original insights to the common body of research on values. A specific proposal in this direction is the international project EUROJOS. Key words: cultural linguistics, culture in language, Etnolingwistyka, EUROJOS, Axiological Lexicon of Slavs and their Neighbours, cultural concepts ∗ This is a revised and extended version of the paper presented at the conference Slawische Ethnolinguistik: Methoden, Ergebnisse, Perspektive (17–19 December, 2015), organized by the Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Vienna. -
White Noise: Bringing Language Into Whiteness Studies
Introduction ■ Sara Trechter CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, CHICO ■ Mary Bucholtz TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY White Noise: Bringing Language into Whiteness Studies Although the burgeoning field of whiteness studies encompasses a pan- oply of disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, including edu- cation (Fine et al. 1997), literary criticism (Morrison 1990), ethnic studies (Almaguer 1994; Lipsitz 1998), gender studies (Frankenberg 1993; Pfeil 1995), and history (Roediger 1991; Saxton 1990), it owes a special debt to anthro- pology. After all, the fundamental postulate of whiteness studies—that race is socially constructed—is based on extensive anthropological research ex- tending back to Boas and continuing to the present moment (e.g., Harrison 1995, 1998). Moreover, as a phenomenon grounded in what Hill (this issue) calls the “culture of racism,” the racial project of whiteness is especially suited to anthropological study. Indeed, anthropologists have been at the vanguard of scholarship in the critical investigation of whiteness. The in- fluential studies of such researchers as Karen Brodkin (1998) and John Hartigan (1999) have enriched the field by demonstrating the importance of historical, geographic, and ethnographic specificity in understanding the workings of whiteness. It is important to acknowledge, too, that these insights, which Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11(1):3–21. Copyright © 2001, American Anthropological Association. 3 4 Journal of Linguistic Anthropology are currently getting renewed attention under the rubric of whiteness studies, have long been fundamental to the work of scholars of color in numerous disciplines, including anthropology. From W. E. B. Du Bois (1935) to James Baldwin (1985) to bell hooks (1990, 1992) and beyond, African Americans and other scholars of color recognized early on that race is a politicized social construction (see Roediger 1998 for an excellent compilation of such work). -
Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Popular Science Book
EDITORIAL Ten simple rules for writing a popular science book Adam J. Kucharski* Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom * [email protected] Scientists have a long history of writing for a general audience [1]. By communicating ideas and discoveries to the wider public, popular science books can generate debate, influence cul- ture, and inspire future researchers. They can also provide new skills and opportunities, and in some cases a second career, for their authors [2]. Writing scientific papers is a central part of academic life, but there are some notable differ- ences when it comes to publishing books for a wider audience. Based on my experience of writing and contributing to popular science books [3±5], the following rules summarise the main points a budding author needs to consider, from initial proposal through to postrelease publicity. a1111111111 Rule 1: Build writing experience a1111111111 a1111111111 There's an old adage that to write a good novel, you should write a complete draft, put it in a a1111111111 drawer, then forget about it and start work on what will become the real book. Nonfiction is a1111111111 similar. Writing takes a huge amount of practice, which means it's a good idea to first build up a portfolio of articles, stories, and blog posts. Not all of these attempts will work out; it's likely that many of your words will go unpublished. However, writing regularly means you can explore and refine your style. In the process, you'll develop many of the skills necessary for book writing, from spotting stories and pitching ideas to structuring and editing content. -
Introduction Reframing Framing: Interaction and the Constitution of Culture and Society
Pragmatics 21:2.185-190 2011 International Pragmatics Association DOI: 10.1075/prag.21.2.01par INTRODUCTION REFRAMING FRAMING: INTERACTION AND THE CONSTITUTION OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY Joseph Sung-Yul Park and Hiroko Takanashi Abstract This special issue revisits the notion of framing based on several recent developments in the fields of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and linguistic anthropology, particularly the current interest in the notions of stance, style, metalinguistics and language ideology. In doing so, the contributions highlight the importance of framing not only in the management of micro-level interactional practices but also in the reproduction of cultural ideologies and social relations. Keywords: Framing; Stance; Style; Language ideology; Interaction. This special issue aims to renew the interest in framing as a key concept for the analysis of interactional discourse. In particular, it highlights the role of framing in mediating the constitution of culture and social order in interactional contexts. Based on interactional data gathered from diverse contexts of Africa, Asia, and America, and building upon recent developments in the study of stance, style, and language ideology, the papers in this collection underline how speakers’ practices of framing can be understood as a locus for the dynamic reproduction of cultural assumptions and social organization. Goffman’s (1974, 1981) formulation of framing, based on Bateson’s (1972) work, has already had a major influence on how we understand the way participants in interaction intersubjectively negotiate and manage social meaning and social relations: that is, how they understand what is going on in the situation at hand, how they make sense of utterances produced, how they determine the positions they should take in relation to each other (Tannen and Wallat 1987). -
History of Linguistic Anthropology - Alessandro Duranti
LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY - History of Linguistic Anthropology - Alessandro Duranti HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY Alessandro Duranti Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles Keywords: Language as culture, history of anthropology in the U.S., American Indian languages, linguistic diversity, linguistic relativity, the ethnography of communication, language socialization, indexicality, heteroglossia. Contents 1. Introduction 2. The First Paradigm: The Boasian Tradition 3. The Second Paradigm: The Ethnography of Communication and the Birth of Sociolinguistics 4. New Directions of Research: Language Socialization, Indexicality, and Heteroglossia 5. A Third Paradigm: Language as a Flux of Indexical Values 6. Conclusion Glossary Bibliography Biographical Sketch Summary The field of linguistic anthropology was born in the United States and Canada at the beginning of the twentieth century as one of the four fields of North American anthropology. At first it was mainly focused on the documentation of aboriginal languages (especially in North America) and grammatical structures. Later it became more concerned with language-mediated activities and the relationship between language and context. The chapter uses Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shift framework to discuss how goals, key concepts, units of analysis, issues, and methods have changed over the last one hundred years without necessarily replacing older paradigms. The first paradigm emerged with the pioneering work of Franz Boas on American Indian languages and continues today in the descriptive work of so-called “field linguists,” who are committedUNESCO to writing grammars – of previouslyEOLSS undocumented aboriginal languages around the world. This paradigm persists today in much of so-called cognitively oriented linguistics (and cognitive oriented anthropologists) especially with regard to their interest in language as a resource for the encoding of experience.