language, culture, and society Language,ourprimarytoolofthoughtandperception,isattheheartofwhowe areasindividuals.Languagesareconstantlychanging,sometimesintoentirely newvarietiesofspeech,leadingtosubtledifferencesinhowwepresentourselves toothers.Thisrevealingaccountbringstogethertwelveleadingspecialistsfrom the fields of linguistics, anthropology, philosophy, and psychology, to explore the fascinating relationship between language, culture, and social interaction. A range of major questions are discussed: How does language influence our perceptionoftheworld?Howdonewlanguagesemerge?Howdochildrenlearn touselanguageappropriately?Whatfactorsdeterminelanguagechoiceinbi-and multilingualcommunities?Howfardoeslanguagecontributetotheformationof our personalities? And finally, in what ways does language make us human? Language,Culture,andSocietywillbeessentialreadingforallthoseinterested inlanguageanditscrucialroleinoursociallives. christine jourdan is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal. Trained in linguisticsandanthropology,herworkfocusesontheoriesofcultureandsocial change,onpidginsandcreoles,andonlinguisticrepresentationofculturalknowl- edge.ShehaspublishedbooksandarticlesonSolomonIslandsPijin,urbanization inthePacific,andsocio-culturalcreolization. kevin tuiteisProfesseurtitulaire(fullProfessor)ofAnthropologyattheUni- versite´deMontre´al.HespecializesinthelanguagesandculturesoftheCaucasus, especiallythoseoftheRepublicofGeorgia,wherehehasconductedfieldwork since1985.Hehaspublishedanumberofbooksandjournalarticlesonlanguage and culture, in journals such as Anthropological Linguistics, Anthropos, and Lingua. studies in the social and cultural foundations of language Theaimofthisseriesistodeveloptheoreticalperspectivesontheessentialsocialand culturalcharacteroflanguagebymethodologicalandempiricalemphasisontheoccur- renceoflanguageinitscommunicativeandinteractionalsettings,onthesocioculturally grounded“meanings”and“functions”oflinguisticforms,andonthesocialscientific studyoflanguageuseacrosscultures.Itwillthusexplicatetheessentiallyethnographic natureoflinguisticdata,whetherspontaneouslyoccurringorexperimentallyinduced, whethernormativeorvariational,whethersynchronicordiachronic.Worksappearing intheserieswillmakesubstantiveandtheoreticalcontributionstothedebateoverthe sociocultural-functionandstructural-formalnatureoflanguage,andwillrepresentthe concerns of scholars in the sociology and anthropology of language, anthropological linguistics,sociolinguistics,andsocioculturallyinformedpsycholinguistics. Editors EditorialAdvisers JudithT.Irvine MarjorieGoodwin BambiSchieffelin JoelKuipers DonKulick JohnLucy ElinorOchs MichaelSilverstein Alistofbooksintheseriescanbefoundaftertheindex. LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY KEY TOPICS IN LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY CHRISTINE JOURDAN ConcordiaUniversity KEVIN TUITE Universite´ deMontre´al cambridge university press Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown,Singapore,SãoPaulo Cambridge University Press TheEdinburghBuilding,Cambridgecb22ru,UK PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521849418 ©CambridgeUniversityPress2006 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexceptionandtotheprovisionof relevantcollectivelicensingagreements,noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplace withoutthewrittenpermissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublishedinprintformat 2006 isbn-13 978-0-511-16910-6 eBook (NetLibrary) isbn-10 0-511-16910-8 eBook (NetLibrary) isbn-13 978-0-521-84941-8 hardback isbn-10 0-521-84941-1 hardback isbn-13 978-0-521-61474-0 isbn-10 0-521-61474-0 CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyofurls forexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,anddoesnot guaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. InmemoryofRogerM.Keesing,apasse-muraille ofthebestkind. CONTENTS List of tables page ix List of contributors x Acknowledgments xi Introduction:Walkingthroughwalls 1 christine jourdan and kevin tuite 1 Anissueaboutlanguage 16 charles taylor 2 Linguisticrelativities 47 john leavitt 3 BenjaminLeeWhorfandtheBoasianfoundationsof contemporaryethnolinguistics 82 regna darnell 4 Cognitiveanthropology 96 penny brown 5 Methodologicalissuesincross-languagecolornaming 115 paul kay 6 Pidginsandcreolesgenesis:ananthropologicaloffering 135 christine jourdan 7 Bilingualism 156 monica heller 8 Theimpactoflanguagesocializationongrammatical development 168 elinor ochs and bambi schieffelin 9 Intimategrammars:anthropologicalandpsychoanalyticaccounts oflanguage,gender,anddesire 190 elizabeth povinelli vii viii Contents 10 Maximizingethnopoetics:fine-tuninganthropological experience 207 paul friedrich 11 Interpretinglanguagevariationandchange 229 kevin tuite References 257 Index 301 TABLES 11.1 Declensionofwordfor“tooth”infourIndo-European languages page235 11.2 Germanicsoundshift(Grimm’sfirstsoundlaw) 236 11.3 ApparentexceptionstoGrimm’sfirstlaw 238 ix