Linguistic Anthropology: Boas, Sapir-Whorf, and Evolutionary Approaches (Lecture Notes)

Quiz Review

  • Cahokia and Thrift Palace are archaeological sites that prove The United States was sparsely populated before European settlement. True.
  • Distinctions: Structural (grammatical structures in a language) vs genetic (language families and historical relationships).
  • UPIC evidentiality: The hearsay marker in UPIC is an example of evidentiality; it indicates whether a message is hearsay. This affects how one communicates what one knows or has firsthand information about. In Greek and English, you can talk about hearsay too, but UPIC makes the evidentiality explicit.
  • When a quiz item seems unclear, it’s a cue to review the slides: Introduction to a Reader of Linguistic Anthropology, the general introduction to the field, its history, and how linguistic anthropology differs from sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics. It also covers major principles and the orientation of language toward culture.
  • Boas and the readings: Boas is introduced via a seminal work on language that is foundational for linguistic anthropology; Boas’s career and contributions are discussed in the context of his influence on the field.

Origins and Focus of Linguistic Anthropology (Overview)

  • The field bridges language and culture, contrasting itself with related fields like sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics.
  • It traces how language relates to worldview, culture, and social life, not just grammar in isolation.
  • Boasian emphasis: holistic approach and historical particularism; critique of ethnocentric evolutionary schemes.
  • The course uses primary texts and films to illustrate language loss and revitalization, and to amplify voices from native communities.

Early Approaches to Language in America: Biological and Evolutionary Perspectives

  • Before linguistic anthropology as a distinct field, some linguists and theorists linked language to biology and culture within an evolutionary framework.
  • European origins go back to around the 1700s1700s (the 1700s) with thinkers who tied linguistic structure to race and civilization—often justifying colonization and slavery.
  • Wilhelm von Humboldt (turn of the 1818th to 1919th centuries) argued that languages with many morphemes were more capable of expressing complex thought; conversely, languages like Chinese were thought to have fewer morphemes and to be less suited for what they called logical thought. He cited Arabic/Hebrew and Native American languages as examples with different morpheme boundaries. This thinking was later shown as problematic because every language can express diverse ideas; no single language is inherently more logical.
  • The approach connected language, race, and culture in ways that supported ethnocentric and hierarchical views of civilizations.
  • John Wesley Powell (1834−19021834-1902) conducted large surveys of Native American languages to categorize people and races, viewing language as a tool to delineate racial and cultural groups.
  • Lewis Henry Morgan (early anthropologist from Rochester, NY) proposed a unilinear evolution of societies from savagery to barbarism to civilization, using Native American cultures to infer broader pasts about European development. This embodied ethnocentrism, placing Europe at the apex of development.
  • Ethnocentrism: evaluating other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture. Examples discussed include Eurocentrism, religious fundamentalism, beauty standards, colorism, westernization, and language precedence (English at the center).
  • The language-based policy of categorizing “development” persists in terms like primitive vs. advanced, developed vs. developing, and the language of backward societies.

Franz Boas and Boasian Anthropology

  • Franz Boas ( 1858−1942~1858-1942) is a key figure; his background includes physics and optics, studying color perception and ocean color before turning to Native American languages.
  • Boas moved to the US and became the curator at the Field Museum (Chicago) and a professor at Columbia; he trained generations of anthropologists who pursued questions about culture, language, and history.
  • Boas founded Boasian anthropology, characterized by four core traits:
    • Holism: approach human problems from multiple perspectives—culture, biology, psychology, language—tusing a holistic view of humans.
    • Historical particularism: each culture has its own history and must be understood in its own terms, not by placing it on a universal evolutionary ladder.
    • Salvage anthropology: documenting cultures at risk of disappearing due to contact with governments and colonial societies; this included ethnographies, grammars, and museum collections. Boas sometimes staged photographs of Native peoples to preserve appearances of pre-contact traditions.
    • Anthropology as a means to improve society: Boas linked studying humans to broader social aims (egalitarianism, anti-racism), arguing that differences are shaped by environment rather than heredity and opposing racial determinism.
  • Boas’s influence: his students established major departments (e.g., UC Berkeley), shaping many modern anthropology programs.
  • Controversies and critiques:
    • Salvage anthropology raised questions about the ethics of collecting and the role of native informants and knowledge producers (credit often went to Boas or his assistants rather than to indigenous scholars, e.g., George Hunt; Marsh Bouchak’s Savage Kin discusses these dynamics).
    • Boas fought against the biological determinism that underpinned racial hierarchies.
    • He faced professional pushback (e.g., temporary removal from the American Anthropological Association) for criticizing ethnocentrism and certain wartime collaborations.
  • Boas’s legacy includes the idea that studying human diversity can inform a more just and egalitarian society.

Boas and the Reading: "Alternating Sounds" and Linguistic Relativity

  • The Boas piece on alternating sounds critiques the idea that Native American languages are linguistically deficient because researchers observed variable pronunciations of the same word.
  • Core argument: phonetic variation in field recordings often reflects the limitations of the observer’s ear and the recording instrument, not true variation in the speaker’s language.
  • Modern example: comparing Indian English accents—sounds like wah vs bah reflect phonemic distinctions that English speakers may not hear or categorize consistently; the brain often maps unfamiliar sounds to the closest English categories, producing a perceived alternation that isn’t actual in the speaker’s system.
  • Takeaway: speakers of different languages hear speech sounds differently; linguists must train their ears to understand phonemic inventories across languages.
  • Link to linguistic relativity: language shapes perception and categories, and Boas’s argument foreshadows the idea that worldviews are shaped by linguistic structures, contributing to the broader notion of cultural relativity in linguistic anthropology.
  • Controversy and credit: Boas’s salvage projects sometimes under-credited indigenous scholars and women who contributed essential knowledge; this is discussed in Marsh Bouchak’s Savage Kin.

The Indian Accent Example and Phonetics

  • The lecture uses a live demonstration with the words "wah" and "bah" to illustrate how different languages have phonemic distinctions that English speakers may misperceive.
  • Observations:
    • The English WAV sound involves a front-to-back lip movement and spread of the tongue; the Bah sound involves the lips and teeth in contact and a buzzing of the lip.
    • In many Indian languages, the contrast between these two sounds may be present while not existing as a distinct phoneme in American English.
    • Native English speakers often misclassify these sounds due to auditory categorization differences, leading to stereotypes about speakers (e.g., Indian accents).
  • Implication: speech perception is language-dependent; what counts as a distinct sound in one language may be indistinguishable in another to untrained listeners.

Linguistic Relativity vs. Strong Determinism (Sapir–Whorf Context)

  • Sapir (Boas’s student) and Whorf (Sapir’s student) are central figures in linguistic anthropology, often associated with the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.
  • Clarification from lecturer: Sapir and Whorf did not themselves publish a formal “Sapir–Whorf hypothesis” together; neither authored a published, explicit hypothesis of the form commonly cited today.
  • Two forms discussed historically:
    • Strong version (often called linguistic determinism): thought is determined by language.
    • Weak version (linguistic influence): language influences thought and perception, but does not determine it.
  • Historical trajectory:
    • The strong version was popularized by critics in the late 20th century who argued thought can occur independently of language, using Sapir–Whorf as a foil.
    • The idea of linguistic relativity emerged more fully as a nuanced position that language shapes habitual thought and perception in communicative and social contexts, rather than rigidly determining all cognition.
  • Sapir’s perspective on language and culture:
    • Language is not just a catalog of items of experience but a self-contained symbolic system that helps define experience for its speakers.
    • Grammar and categories become social norms, influencing how people perceive and interact with the world; language shapes social reality, not merely describing it.
  • Whorf’s contributions:
    • Studied indigenous languages (e.g., Hopi) and proposed ideas like cryptotypes (categories such as animate vs inanimate) that structure habitual thought; he highlighted how linguistic categories can influence cognitive patterns.
    • The Hopi example and related claims about tense have been debated; modern linguistics often challenges some of these claims but acknowledges the influence of linguistic structure on perception.
  • Why this matters for linguistic anthropology:
    • It reframes the study of language as inherently tied to culture, worldview, and social behavior, rather than as a neutral descriptive enterprise.
    • It connects with Boas’s emphasis on cultural relativity and the idea that languages encode distinct worldviews.
  • Important nuance: the popular image of Sapir–Whorf as a strict determinist has been contested; the field now tends to emphasize probabilistic and context-dependent effects of language on thought.

Connections to Duranti and Readings

  • The lecture relates to Duranti’s Section 3, which discusses evolutionary and holistic approaches to language, and how the field evolved beyond hereditarian and Eurocentric models.
  • The Boas article on alternating sounds shows the shift from deficit-focused assessments of “other” languages to an understanding of linguistic systems as rational, culturally meaningful in their own right.
  • The discussion of Sapir and Whorf connects to broader debates about how language relates to perception, cognition, and social life, which is central to linguistic anthropology and to Duranti’s framing of language as embedded in culture.

Real-World Implications and Modern Perspectives

  • Language loss and revitalization: videos introduced in the course illustrate lived experiences of Native communities and the importance of preserving linguistic diversity.
  • Globalization: language change is dynamic; globalization does not merely homogenize cultures but also creates new forms and identities (e.g., K-pop and hybrid linguistic practices).
  • Ethical considerations: salvage anthropology raises questions about who is saving whom, whose knowledge is represented, and how to ethically work with indigenous communities today.
  • Practical implications: understanding how evidentiality, tense, aspect, and animacy shape communication can improve cross-cultural communication and reduce misinterpretations.

Summary of Key Concepts and Takeaways

  • Early linguistic anthropology emerged within aEuropean intellectual tradition that linked language to race and civilization, often justifying colonialism.
  • Franz Boas founded Boasian anthropology, emphasizing holism, historical particularism, salvage anthropology, and social responsibility; his work reoriented anthropology toward culture in context and away from hierarchical evolution.
  • Salvage anthropology sought to document cultures at risk but faced ethical criticisms for credit allocation and the staged presentation of cultures.
  • Boas’s insights laid groundwork for linguistic relativity, the idea that language shapes perception and social experience, while not claiming pure determinism.
  • Sapir and Whorf contributed to discussions about language and thought; their work is often mischaracterized as a single rigid hypothesis, but the actual discussion includes strong and weak forms of linguistic influence on thought, with emphasis on culture and social practice.
  • The field today foregrounds the societal relevance of language, including issues of language loss, revitalization, globalization, and the ethical responsibilities of researchers.