Anthropological linguistics is a direction in linguistics science that studies the development of human thinking through the prism of the corresponding evolutionary changes in language, primarily in vocabulary. The basic idea of anthropological linguistics is that most cultural transformations, the history of human consciousness development, and the growth of social intelligence are reflected in the lexicon. This branch of linguistics is devoted to analyzing the synchronic and diachronic aspects of the language. Anthropological linguistics includes many directions related to different parts of the language. Ethnolinguistics and sociolinguistics are two significant branches of anthropological linguistics that strive to define the relationships between language and culture, which have similar and differentiating features.
Sociolinguistics discusses age, gender, ethnicity, religion, and occupation in relation to language. Through analyzing mentioned factors, sociolinguistics defines the relationships between the language and society. An example of recent anthropological research in sociolinguistics is the article called The dynamics of citizen sociolinguistics (Svendsen, 2018). The work analyses the languages in family interactions. Moreover, the impact of the particular language family on the formation of the worldview of individual personalities is discussed. The hypothesis of linguistic relativity is addressed within the work as one of the primary paradigms of sociolinguistics (Svendsen, 2018). Based on the research, scientists state that society and language are interdependent.
Thus, sociolinguistics studies language in connection with the social conditions of its existence. The language can function and develop only within the social structure. Sociolinguistics is devoted to examining society and culture from the perspective of the circumstances affecting language formation and development. This direction explores the cultural peculiarities of different ethnicities and the social order influencing language. Different qualities such as social status, age, education, occupation, and other features characterizing a person as a member of society are studied by sociolinguistics.
Similar to sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics analyses the connection between culture and language. The peculiar feature of this direction is that it is primarily focused on exploring the linguistic message, which is expressed through a cultural context. Originating from the study of American Indian cultures and languages, this area is primarily related to non-literate traditional cultures (Haviland, 2015). This branch also accepts the concept of linguistic relativism or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Nurova, 2021). However, ethnolinguistics also develops a general theory of language of communication within specific cultures in general and merges with socio- and psycholinguistics.
The object of study of ethnolinguistics is not only the language but the other forms and substances through which the collective consciousness is expressed. In other words, lexicon phraseology, paremiology, and folklore texts are the subjects of ethnolinguistics. The goal of ethnolinguistics is the semantic reconstruction of the traditional picture of the world and value system. Recent research on the role of ethnolinguistics shows that this area of study is significant due to analyzing the cultural notions expressed through language (Nurova, 2021). Therefore, ethnolinguistics is devoted to defining the representation of values of a particular ethnicity covered through language inquiries.
Anthropological linguistics includes many spheres and directions. Sociolinguistics and ethnolinguistics are similar in terms of identifying the connection between language and culture. Each approach has a different subject and object of exploration. Many differentiating features of mentioned approaches are vital for identifying the relationship between language and culture. Therefore, both directions are essential for anthropological linguistics exploring the correlation between language, culture, and society.
References
Haviland, W., McBride, B., Prins, H., & Walrath, D. (2015). Language and Communication. In The essence of anthropology (pp. 181–198). Cengage Learning.
Nurova, U. (2021). The emergence and development of ethnolinguistics.Middle European Scientific Bulletin, 8, 1–15. Web.
Svendsen, B. (2018). The dynamics of citizen sociolinguistics. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 22(2), 137–160.