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Linguistic Magic Bullets in the Making of a Modernist Anthropology
Author(s) -
Briggs Charles L.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.2002.104.2.481
Subject(s) - linguistic anthropology , anthropological linguistics , ideology , introspection , sociology , unconscious mind , linguistics , magic (telescope) , linguistic relativity , sociocultural anthropology , anthropology , epistemology , four field approach , cultural anthropology , politics , anthropology of art , history , philosophy , applied linguistics , psychology , clinical linguistics , cognition , law , quantum mechanics , political science , art history , physics , contemporary art , neuroscience , performance art
This article engages current debates about concepts of culture in U.S. anthropology by examining how assumptions about language shape them. Characterizing linguistic patterns as particularly inaccessible to conscious introspection, Franz Boas suggested that culture is similarly automatic and unconscious—except for anthropologists. He used this notion in attempting to position the discipline as the obligatory passage point for academic and public debate about difference. Unfortunately, this mode of inserting linguistics in the discipline, which has long outlived Boas, reifies language ideologies by promoting simplistic models that belie the cultural complexity of human communication. By pointing to the way that recent work in linguistic anthropology has questioned key assumptions that shaped Boas's concept of culture, the article urges other anthropologists to stop asking their linguistic colleagues for magic bullets and to appreciate the critical role that examining linguistic ideologies and practices can play in discussions of the politics of culture. [Keywords: Franz Boas, culture concept, linguistic anthropology, language ideologies, scientific authority]