Premium
Comment: Got Language? Law, Property, and the Anthropological Imagination
Author(s) -
Maurer Bill
Publication year - 2003
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.2003.105.4.775
Subject(s) - universalism , objectification , linguistic anthropology , sociology , value (mathematics) , politics , property (philosophy) , linguistic relativity , epistemology , relativism , linguistics , anthropology , philosophy , law , political science , psychology , cognition , machine learning , neuroscience , computer science
This comment reflects on the legal (specifically, proprietary) tropes of linguistics, and the linguistic tropes of legal anthropology.It suggests analogies between discussions around "language rights" in contemporary political struggles, and discussions around the delineation of objects and subjects in anthropological theory. Such analogies may help side‐step the relativism‐universalism impasse that has beset the critique of rights and the critique of the objectification of language. [Keywords: language, law, anthropological theory, value]