Language and Materiality: Ethnographic and Theoretical Explorations - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1316632393 ISBN 13: 9781316632390

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2024

Synopsis

Language and Materiality integrates linguistic anthropological and sociolinguistic scholarship on a range of topics: semiotic approaches to language, language commodification, sound, embodiment, mediatization, and aesthetics. Empirically rigorous, the volume engages scholars and students interested in language, its use, and meanings. It consists of three sections - 'Texts, Objects, Mediality', 'Sound, Aesthetics, Embodiment', and 'Time, Place, Circulation' - containing chapters and short commentaries, framed by a curated conversation about semiotics and materiality in anthropology. Each section theorizes intersections, connections, and relationships between language and materiality across diverse topics and ethnographic contexts. The volume shows that materiality may be approached as a feature of political economy, sensual experience, aesthetics, and affective relationships in its relation to language as talk, register, genre, ideology, and acoustic object. It consists of new perspectives on materiality as a vital dimension of social life and signification in global capitalism, connecting inquiries on subjects as diverse as food, media, fonts, and music.

About this title

About the Authors

Jillian R. Cavanaugh is the Leonard and Claire Tow Research Professor at Brooklyn College and Graduate Center at the City University of New York. She is author of Living Memory: The Social Aesthetics of Language in a Northern Italian Town (2009).

Shalini Shankar is Professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University, Illinois. She is the author of Advertising Diversity: Ad Agencies and the Creation of Asian American Consumers (2015) and Desi Land: Teen Culture, Class, and Success in Silicon Valley (2008).

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1316632393
• ISBN 13: 9781316632390
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Cavanaugh Jillian R.