Programs

The Appalachian Studies Program at Virginia Tech is an interdisciplinary program offering a minor in Appalachian Studies. While emphasis is on the study of a region from a number of different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, my course in Appalachian Languages in Cultures is a linguistic anthropology course. It emphasizes how variation in participant frameworks constitute intersecting social, environmental, political, economic, religious, and educational systems that, in turn, construct distinct local and areal identities within larger (dis)empowerment systems. Social and environmental issues inform how linguistic anthropological theory is incorporated into the course.

The UCSB Linguistics Department’s Ph.D. program is committed to the principle that linguistic theory should be based on language use. We seek explanations for the structures of the world’s languages in discourse and interaction, the sociocultural, cognitive, and physical forces shaping language use, and the ways in which these forces motivate language change. Our department has a strong tradition of language documentation and offers courses in field methods, typology, language contact, and grammar writing. We are also pioneers in sociocultural linguistics, which encompasses the traditional fields of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, socially oriented discourse analysis, and related areas. The department has additional strengths in cognitive linguistics and corpus linguistics.

The UCSB Linguistics Department is internationally known for its focus on language in use, linguistic diversity, and active fieldwork with speakers of a variety of languages. The undergraduate program has additional strengths in the relationship between language and cognition, and the connections between language, culture, and society. The undergraduate program boasts small classes, personal attention, a caring faculty, and opportunities for undergraduates to pursue original research, internships, and participation in faculty and graduate student research projects. The department offers a general major in Linguistics, an innovative major in Language, Culture & Society, and seven emphases that add a language specialization to the major.

The Georgetown MLC program features an individualized curriculum that develops skills in Sociolinguistics, Discourse analysis, and Pragmatics, which can be applied in professional fields such as Education, Health Care, Business, Law and Government. MLC students participate in professional socialization events and career education activities targeted for sociolinguists. This personalized career development is designed to enable students to articulate how their skills and training are of particular value in workplace settings, institutions, and professions which depend largely upon language to accomplish their goals.

MSU is a comprehensive research intensive institution, with an undergraduate major and Ph.D. program in anthropology. In addition to a four-field approach, the department offers medical anthropology, as well as signature programs such as "Culture, Resources, and Power."

NAU’s diverse Anthropology faculty maintain active research internationally and in the US Southwest. We offer outstanding terminal master’s degrees—internship (applied) or thesis track—in linguistic and sociocultural anthropology, and in archaeology. Students regularly present in discourse lab, using the latest software to analyze their data. Recent M.A. projects include internships in language revitalization and theses exploring the role of talk in identity formation. Graduates have gone on to excellent PhD programs or jobs in applied linguistic anthropology. The particular strengths of the program led by Dr. Jim Wilce are in semiotics; emotion; ethnopoetics and performance; and language, power, and medicine (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmw22/cv/index.html).

MA in Linguistic AnthropologyLinguistic anthropology, the study of language in the context of human social and cultural diversity, is central to the discipline of anthropology as a whole.Language is considered crucial to what makes us human: as a capacity that is in part biologically-based, language is a medium for thought, a vehicle for cultural transmission, and a means of social action. Linguistic anthropologists study the ways in which people negotiate, contest, and reproduce cultural forms and social relations through language, and the ways in which language provides insights into the nature and evolution of culture, cognition, and human society.Current emphases:Ethnographic Approaches to Language;Language and Cognition;Language and Space, Social Networks, and Cultural Models.

The Department of Anthropology at SIUC is building its graduate program in Linguistic Anthropology. SIUC has a vibrant four-field department, where students receive training in all major sub-disciplines. Linguistic anthropology students are trained in current linguistic and sociocultural theory as well as current methods of linguistic description and analysis. Our approach to language is ethnographic and eclectic, stressing the need to master basic analytic skills in order to address anthropological problems. The Department has a Linguistic Anthropology Lab with equipment for analog and digital audio and video recording and analysis. Faculty include Janet Fuller (bilingualism), C. Andrew Hofling (Mayan language history and documentation) and Anthony K. Webster (Native American verbal art).

The University of Aberdeen anthropology programme has a focus on the circumpolar north, as well as on Britain & other areas where individuals work. Alex King is most linguistic anthropological of the department but many work on storytelling and oral history. One Ph.D. is working on writing practices among Veps in Russian Karelia and how those intersect with language revival efforts. Another student is investigating language ideologies and practices among Evenkis and Sakha in Siberia, where the minority language is embedded in a regional language (Sakha) and a national language (Russian). King's own research is on documenting Koryak grammar, ethnopoetics, and ritual discourse in shamanic practices in northern Kamchatka.

The anthropology department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is comprised of a faculty doing significant research in all of the major subfields (archaeology, linguistic, biological, cultural). In linguistic anthropology, our faculty’s research interests center on language and identity, exile and migration as well as geographically on Asia. We also offer research facilities in our state of the art Linguistic Anthropology Laboratory, providing a research environment and equipment for examining the nexus of language, culture, and society. To this end, the Anthropology Department at UNLV, under the direction of Dr. Heidi Swank, created a laboratory that allows researchers to record, analyze, and edit audio, video, and photographic recordings so integral to linguistic anthropology.

A pioneer since its founding in 1976, the Educational Linguistics Ph.D. specialization at PennGSE focuses on language learning and teaching, and the role of language in learning and teaching. Its questions and concerns are situated in educational policy and practice, informed by and informing interdisciplinary theory and research in linguistics, anthropology, and other fields.

UVa's Anthropology Department has 4 faculty in linguistic anthropology, and a separate graduate program in linguistics. Financial support is available to Ph.D. students. Ellen Contini-Morava studies the meanings and functions of grammatical forms, especially in Bantu languages. Eve Danziger researches the relations between language and mind, with a focus on the Mesoamerican region. Lise Dobrin is interested in language endangerment and fieldwork ethics, and specializes in Melanesian languages. Dan Lefkowitz looks at emotion, identity, and social power in the Middle East. UVa is a historic insititution located in the sophisticated small town of Charlottesville in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains. For more, see: http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/linganth/Program/LingAnthHomepage.htm