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Anthropological Linguistics: An Introduction. William A. Foley. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1997.495 pp.
Anthropological linguistics has been in need of a new introductory text for the past two decades: a text that would represent the range of contemporary research, provide historical context for developments in the subfield, and address the contributions to be made by drawing on language to investigate questions in anthropology generally. The year 1997 has brought us not one but two such introductions: Foley's Anthropological Linguistics and Alessandro Duranti's Linguistic Anthropology (Cambridge University Press). Both books are exceptional. Each selectively emphasizes particular advances and perspectives in the field against a broad background of recent approaches and historical achievements. In an advanced undergraduate or a graduate course the two books would usefully complement one another. Either would serve as an excellent text to organize an undergraduate's first course in the anthropology of language.
"Anthropological linguistics," according to Foley, "views language through the prism of the core anthropological concept, culture, and . . . seeks to uncover the meaning behind the use, misuse or non-use of language, its different forms, registers and styles" (p. 3). The critical notion here is meaning, and Foley uses this concept to critique standard approaches and to introduce enaction as key to the analysis of cultural and linguistic practices. His framework rests heavily on the interdependence of knowledge and action, what Foley refers to as the structural coupling of practices constituting everyday behavior. Notions of lived history and habitus rather than intentions, representations, and goals are called upon as Foley emphasizes interpretation rather than explanation as the object of research.
This conceptual framing is both insightful and provocative. It will challenge the truly introductory user of the text and requires that the professional reevaluate traditional lines...