What is ethnography?
(From Greek ἔθνος ethnos = folk/people and γράφω grapho = to write) Is a qualitative research method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group.
What is linguistic ethnography?
Is a theoretical and methodological development orientating towards particular, established traditions but defining itself in the new intellectual climate of late modernity and post-structuralism.
Who have been the most representative in linguistic ethnography studies?
Edward Sapir (1884–1939) was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the disciplines of linguistics.
Franz Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology"
Where the ethnographic linguistics had taken the most of research?
Linguistic ethnography is an orientation towards particular epistemological and methodological traditions in the study of social life.
Mainly in Europe and in America.
Linguistic ethnography argues that ethnography can benefit from the analytical frameworks provided by linguistics, while linguistics can benefit from the processes of reflexive sensitivity required in ethnography. In a recent discussion paper, Rampton et al. (2004) argue for ‘tying ethnography down and opening linguistics up’ (p. 4) and for an enhanced sense of the strategic value of discourse analysis in ethnography. Ethnography provides linguistics with a close reading of context not necessarily represented in some kinds of interactional analysis, while linguistics provides an authoritative analysis of language use not typically available through participant observation and the taking of field notes.
It has been particularly influenced by research on literacy, ethnicity and identity, ideology, classroom discourse and language teaching. It aims to use discourse analytic tools in creative ways to extend our understanding of the role language plays in social life. It combines a number of research literatures from conversational analysis (CA), post-structuralism, urban sociology and US linguistic anthropology It also has much in common with the North American perspective of LAE. It is worth summarizing the particularly influential elements of more recent US LAE work on Linguistics Ethnography.
