Linguistic Anthropology Commons^™

Storytelling In Appreciative Inquiry, Joel Jeppson Richards

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study is an examination of the role of story and storytelling within Appreciative Inquiry, a method of organizational change that orients around a consensus model building on individual and collective strengths instead of focusing on overcoming problems. Interviews with 12 Appreciative Inquiry practitioners were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed using a process of iterative coding consistent with a General Inductive method of qualitative research. Once consensus with a secondary coder was achieved, 6 themes emerged. The 6 emergent themes outlined general roles that story and storytelling plays in the Appreciative Inquiry process: relationship building, coauthoring a future, reframing narrative, narrative …

Person, Place, And Pronoun: An Examination Of The Idiosyncratic Pronoun Use And Language Ideologies In Dabhung Thanti, Nepal, Martha Schwarz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Language, the content and form of what people choose to say, has the ability to both describe facts about the world and change aspects of the world. Thus, what people utter is a critical instrument for measuring current social situations as well as social change. The honorific hierarchy of Nepali’s pronouns provides one particularly interesting tool for such measurement. This research examines the use and ideologies about second person pronouns in the village of Dabhung Thanti, Nepal in relation to their prescribed uses and ideologies in Kathmandu. Ultimately, this paper identifies the presence of two styles of Nepali spoken in …

Technically Speaking: On Equipping And Evaluating “Unnatural” Language Learners , Joshua Reno

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

This article compares different communicative trials for apes in captivity and children with autism in order to investigate how ideological assumptions about linguistic agency and impairment are constructed and challenged in practice. To the extent that Euro-American techniques of “unnatural” language instruction developed during the Cold War era have been successful, it is because communicative interactions are broken down into basic components, and would-be language learners are equipped with materials, devices, and habits that make up for their distinct bio/social deficits. Such linguistic equipment can present a challenge to the ideological presumption of a subject inherently gifted with the rudiments …

Front Speed Of Language Replacement, Joaquim Fort, Joaquim Pérez-Losada

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

We use two coupled equations to analyze the space-time dynamics of two interacting languages. Firstly, we introduce a cohabitation model, which is more appropriate for human populations than classical (non-cohabitation) models. Secondly, using numerical simulations we …nd the front speed of a new language spreading into a region where another language was previously used. Thirdly, for a special case we derive an analytical formula that makes it possible to check the validity of our numerical simulations. Finally, as an example, we …nd that the observed front speed for the spread of the English language into Wales in the period 1961-1981 …

An Ethnographic Study Of The Moth Detroit Storyslam, Catherine Jo Janssen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Moth Detroit StorySLAM is one of many storytelling events staged in urban bar environments. Unlike the increasingly aged audiences attending the National Storytelling Festival and similar story festivals, the Detroit StorySLAM consistently yields at capacity crowds of college students and young professionals.

Participants were informally interviewed during the September, October, and November slams of 2010 and the January 2011 slam. In addition to conducting these interviews, the researcher was a participant observer—throwing her name into the hat and being twice called to the stage. Data are presented as a thick description organized according to Richard Bauman's 6 situational factors …

Idea, Energy, And Power: Sayers’S Creative Process Model And The Storytelling Of Jay O’Callahan, Rebecca K. Reynolds

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research uses an adaptation of Dorothy L. Sayers's 3-step theory of creativity to analyze the self-described creation process of contemporary storyteller Jay O'Callahan. Sayers wrote that Idea, Energy, and Power are foundational elements of the creative process. Idea is the invisible image that provides vision and unity throughout a project. The Energy is the working out of art into a medium. The Power is the connective force that binds artist to art and both to audience. (Sayers, 1987). This hermeneutical study develops subcategories within each of those 3 primary elements of creativity, then uses qualitative methods to explore connectivity …

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …

La Sociolinguistique Postcoloniale En Amérique Hispanophone Et En Afrique Francophone : Un Drame Linguistique En Deux Actes, Eva Valenti

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes the sociolinguistic situations in postcolonial Latin America and francophone North Africa (the Maghreb) through a comparative lens. Specifically, it examines the ways in which Spain and France’s differing colonial agendas and language ideologies affected the relationships between colonizer and colonized, and, by extension, the role that Spanish and French play(ed) in these regions after decolonization. Finally, it explores how Spain and France’s contemporary discourses frame colonial participation in the two languages’ development, and the psychological effects these ideologies have had on the formerly colonized.

The Family Name As Socio-Cultural Feature And Genetic Metaphor: From Concepts To Methods, Pierre Darlu, Gerrit Bloothooft, Alessio Boattini, Leendert Brouwer, Matthijs Brouwer, Guy Brunet, Pascal Chareille, James Cheshire, Richard Coates, Paul Longley, Kathrin DräGer, Bertrand Desjardins, Patrick Hanks, Kees Mandemakers, Pablo Mateos, Davide Pettener, Antonella Useli, Franz Manni

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

A recent workshop on "Family name between socio-cultural feature and genetic metaphor - From concepts to methods" was held in Paris on the 9th and 10th December 2010, partly sponsored by the Social Science and Humanity Institute (CNRS), and by Human Biology. This workshop was intended to facilitate exchanges on recent questions related to the names of persons and to confront different multidisciplinary approaches in a field of investigation where geneticists and historians, geographers, sociologists and ethnologists have all an active part. Here are the abstracts of some contributions.

Changing Language, Remaining Pygmy, Serge Bahuchet

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

In this article I am illustrating the linguistic diversity of African Pygmy populations in order to better address their anthropological diversity and history. I am also introducing a new method, based on the analysis of specialized vocabulary, to reconstruct the substratum of some languages they speak. I show that Pygmy identity is not based on their languages, which have often been borrowed from neighboring non-Pygmy farmer communities with whom each Pygmy group is linked. Understanding the nature of this partnership, quite variable in history, is essential to address Pygmy languages, identity and history. Finally, I show that only a multidisciplinary …

Invited Editorial: African Pygmies, What's Behind A Name?, Paul Verdu, Giovanni Destro-Bisol

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

No abstract provided.

“He Loves Drinking Old Wine From The Jug”: Some Remarks On Alcoholic Beverages In Syriac Literature Based On Secular And Religious Texts, Adam C. Mccollum

HMML Lectures

The history of alcoholic beverages in various cultures, including our own, has often been written. These investigations have looked at viticulture, brewing, distillation, and the economic and religious uses and effects of alcoholic beverages. Syriac literature, being somewhat of an arcane area of interest, has rarely—if ever!—entered into any of the discussions. It is, nevertheless, a corpus with a breadth wide both in size and subject matter, and there is no dearth of references to alcoholic beverages, their preparation, and use. This paper, based on both secular and religious texts in Syriac, most of them composed in a Muslim-majority culture, …

On Swearwords And Slang, Robert Moore

Faculty Publications

Slang lexemes and swearwords are commonly discussed in conjunction with each other as though they were slightly different versions of the same phenomenon. However, they clearly are not, as a careful consideration of their different prototypical functions reveals. Each of these lexical categories has a central or core function, and in each case this function is linked to the obligatory expression of affect. Different kinds of affect are entailed in the prototypical uses of slang and of swearwords, but in the case of both of these lexical types, this affect is incompatible with the formality and deference of honorifics, or, …

Hello, I Love You, Won’T You Tell Me Your Name?: An Anthropological Investigation Of Naming, Haley Lisa Close

Senior Independent Study Theses

This study investigates how parents select the names of their children. Anthropological research on naming is very sparse, despite the immense power of names to reflect cultural variables, such as: kinship, gender relations, socioeconomic class relations, and differences in taste and personal preference. I surveyed a sample of parents at three daycare facilities in a small town in the Midwest about their children’s names and how they chose those names. My findings indicate that kin naming plays a significant role, but many parents find a balance between choosing a name with “meaning” and choosing a name based on their personal …