Talk:Linguistic anthropology

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Article Checklist for "Linguistic anthropology"

Workgroup category or categories	Anthropology Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developed article: complete or nearly so
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	No
Checklist last edited by	Richard J. Senghas 13:40, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

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Original Authorship

Note: The original form of this CZ article has been written by James Wilce, who wrote the version that first appeared on Wikipedia.[1] He has moved the article here to CZ, in its original form ready for further development.

Style

What if we applied CZ:CZ4WP#Get_ready_to_rethink_how_to_write_encyclopedia_articles.21 (and the links that points to) to this? ---Stephen Ewen 14:57, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Maybe I'm just tired, but I'm not sure exactly which style issues in those articles you are most concerned about here. Is one of them voice/register? If so, I find this prose at a level appropriate for university readers, as called for in the articles you mention. Also, the narrative structure of the article is built sensibly on the chronological trajectory of the discipline, highlighting how it emerged and then can be seen to fall within three discernible paradigms (a useful way of characterizing that history, in my opinion), highlighting the key *kinds* of contributions of the subdiscipline and the names of scholars associated with those concepts. I think most of the initial wikifying process (links, referencing & typeface conventions) will help make it more readable to those outside the (sub)discipline. Do you have other particular style concerns that should be addressed before approval? ---Richard J. Senghas 00:33, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

There is some really great stuff here, so don't get me wrong -- this is a wonderful starting point that Dr. Wilce has given. The "meat" of it is just great. My issue is that I find the article to be too inaccessible for the university level person. It is quite jargon-laden, lacks adequate elucidation, is not really a narrative (which often show more than they tell) but is written in dense prose that exhibits erudition more than really introducing a topic to someone who needs one. It reads to me like a summary of the field written for graduate students who are already familiar with other anthropological sub-disciplines. One illustrative quote is, "It is the ideology that people should "really" be monoglot and effeciently targeted toward referential clarity rather than diverting themselves with the messiness of multiple codes in play at a single time." Most readers (assuming they keep reading that far) will probably think, Translation please? -- and I venture to say that will probably not be the first time they will have asked themselves that question during the reading.

By narrative, I have something like this in mind, which is similar in pattern to the intro I wrote for anthropology, although this was done as just a quick sketch for illustration:

Linguistic anthropology is the study of the relationship between language and culture. As one of the four primary fields within American anthropology, it developed during the 19X0s as anthropologists studied how the languages and thought processes of North American native people groups transmitted their culture to the succeeding generations. While such study remains an important focus of linguistic anthropologists today, many have applied their perspective to the study of kinship patterns and naming categories among diverse people groups. [Show several examples]. Throughout all their work, lingusitc anthropologists are guided by a fundamental question: Do differing people groups understand the world differently from one another because of cultural and structural differences in their languages? They seek to understand how peoples' understandings of the world may be encoded in their talk and texts.

I see no reason to rush this to approval -- or perhaps you can share the reason if there is one?

Stephen Ewen 02:14, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

Hey Stephen, thanks for the quick response, and for opening up what seems to me to be a useful discussion.

Well, I suspect we have different expectations on reading levels associated that would be tagged as "university level." (Of course, that's an age-old debate among both educators and students!) I see Jim's register as what I would expect to be accessible to upper division undergraduates, and the register you used above in your example as upper high-school or entry-level university. I know I push to the high end. But perhaps the level you used may be where CZ is most effective. If that is indeed the target level, it seems to me that the intro and first two paradigm subsections aren't all that problematic; the language seems relatively close to the level you have used, even if the voice is a little different (perhaps a little more formal). I do think some of the material in the third paradigm subsection might be tinkered with to increase accessibility. I think the third to last (or antepenultimate --I haven't had the chance to use that term in a long time, and I won't get to in any CZ article!) and last paragraphs are the most difficult and dense, and maybe we could do something to make those easier for the reader. Actual examples are always good, and data can be fun! (Note, though, that Jim has given specific examples, but how much data can be put in an encyclopedic article?)

If possible, though, I'd like to see the terminology of the field maintained, but "scaffolded" a bit more to make such terminology more easily understood for readers naive to linguistic anthropology. I think avoiding disciplinary terminology altogether eviscerates much of the core contributions made by a field. (I'm avoiding the term "jargon" because it has come to connote derogatory associations when used outside of academia.) The precision of such terms, and the types of categories and relationships used by practitioners are both the means and results of the discipline's insights. "Common sense" and "plain language" that reinforce habitual ways of (not) thinking about things are exactly what scientific disciplines and the arts are meant to transcend. (Why does Whorf come to mind?) Don't articles about subfields of disciplines (rather than the encompassing disciplines themselves) tend to be of interest to those already a little familiar with the mother disciplines, and therefore we can't assume a slightly more informed audience?

About the "rush" to approve. Maybe it's just eagerness, but maybe I am also a bit concerned that while CZ still enjoys some of the "novelty" factor, we need to encourage the approval of as many articles as can be made ready. We need a corpus that draws people into CZ. It's a critical mass sort of thing. If we can't get enough (approved) CZ mass gathered, we won't gather even more. The approved articles are our stock in trade here at CZ. There's a part of me that thinks tweaking the register shouldn't hold something back from approval if there's meat, there's accuracy/validity, some good sources that people can chase further, and good links and other wiki features. Better versions can be approved as they come along, why wait for perfection?

BTW: I don't think I'm staking out any fixed positions. Make a counter-argument, and I'll be open to reconsidering my positions.

Richard J. Senghas 16:04, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

I'll try to offer a more extensive reply later. For now:

I completely agree that avoiding disciplinary terminology altogether eviscerates much of the core contributions made by a field. I think what we need to do is explain disciplinary terminology in the article body, though, and not just let such terms be. I think the main reason people use encyclopedias for an intro on disciplinary subjects is because they are new, even brand new to the topic. For example, I recall when thinking about taking the class Social Psychology, I looked it up in an ecyclopedia beforehand. Encyclopedias are people's "first stop", we might say. I think we need to keep that in mind and write for that audience -- an actually very enjoyable challenge, I think, and one that causes us to ourselves have to expand along the way.

Also, one thing I always do when I write curriculum (part of my "day job" :D ) is run my writing through some software (MS Word and some other word processors actually have this function if you turn it on in the spellcheck options) that determines its Flesch-Kincaid reading level. Flesch-Kincaid is a widely used standard tool among educationalists for measuring readability. Of my above intro, Flesch-Kincaid says it is written at grade-level 15.4 -- the second semester of the junior year of college -- about right when most would be thinking about the subject or considering or actually taking the class. As the article currently stands, however, Flesch-Kincaid says it is written at grade-level 19.2! 20 is the maximum. —–Stephen Ewen 21:37, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

Sources

I think I got all of the sources. Feel free to re-adjust the format. --Joe Quick (Talk) 19:35, 9 April 2007 (CDT)