The Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology

by Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer

The new edition of this highly successful, student-centered text fully engages students by emphasizing contemporary issues and the application of linguistic anthropology. Students easily learn from real-life chapter-opening vignettes ("In the Field"), and the boxed features that provide concrete examples of "Doing Linguistic Anthropology" and "Cross-Language Miscommunication." This edition continues to use a holistic framework to discuss the three key areas of linguistic anthropology -- historical linguistics, structural linguistics, and sociolinguistics -- and provides more emphasis on methodology, skills, techniques, tools, and applications, including new sidebars, more visuals, and more examples from different languages.

Genres: Linguistics, Anthropology, Language, School, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Reference

372 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2005

Reviews

[Riversue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable, clearly written textbook.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book (and its companion reader) as a way of reviewing the material I learned as an undergrad majoring in Language Studies. Yes – it’s true – for fun I read linguistic textbooks. Call me a nerd – I’m fine with that.

This book is an excellent overview of the major disciplines in linguistics such as phonetics, syntax, semantics, historical linguistics, etc. all through the lens of anthropology. The author’s voice comes through clearly and the result was that reading it I felt like I was in Professor Ottenheimer’s class and she was one of my favorite profs.

The text is easy to understand and when used in conjunction with the reader, allows one to easily teach oneself the basics of many aspects of linguistics. Since this is an overview of course it’s just the basics, but the reader should come away with a new appreciation of language, its usage, and its study.

[Evan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a terrible book. It oversimplifies, it is filled with inaccuracy, it makes logical errors on nearly every page, and it is just plain bad. In addition, it is written as if its readers are young children with short attention spans and poor reading skills. Find a different book if you are interested in this subject matter.