anthropological linguistics

A branch of LINGUISTICS which studies the role of language in relation to human cultural patterns and beliefs, as investigated using the theories and methods of anthropology. For example, it studies the way in which linguistic features vary in order to identify a member of a speech community with a social, religious, occupational or kinship group. Any social situation can be explored from an anthropological point of view, such as everyday interaction, ritual behavior, political discourse, verbal art and educational practice. The term overlaps to some degree with ETHNOLINGUISTICS and SOCIOLINGUISTICS, reflecting the overlapping interests of the correlative disciplines involved – anthropology, ethnology and sociology. When the research takes place primarily within an anthropological paradigm, the subject is known as linguistic anthropology, and the practitioners as linguistic anthropologists.