Language and Materiality in Global Capitalism

Language and materiality have long been considered separate phenomena, but an increasing interest in their convergence suggests the productive potential of considering the linguistic and the material within the same analytic frame. Linguistic anthropologists and scholars in allied disciplines have e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annual review of anthropology 2012-01, Vol.41 (41), p.355-369
Main Authors: Shankar, Shalini, Cavanaugh, Jillian R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aesthetics
Anthropologists
Anthropology
Capitalism
circulation
Cognitive problems, arts and sciences, folk traditions, folklore
Commodification
Cultural values
Economic liberalism
Embodiment
Ethnography
Ethnolinguistics
Ethnology
Global economy
Globalization
Ideology
Language
Language Attitudes
Linguistic anthropology
Linguistic studies. (onomastics, ethnonymy, anthroponymy, toponymy)
Linguistics
Material culture
Materialism
Meaning
Neoliberalism
Objectification
Political Economy
Scholarship
Scholarships & fellowships
Semiotics
Signs
Social research
Sources and methods
Specific concepts
Traffic
Values
Words
World Economy
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Summary:Language and materiality have long been considered separate phenomena, but an increasing interest in their convergence suggests the productive potential of considering the linguistic and the material within the same analytic frame. Linguistic anthropologists and scholars in allied disciplines have ethnographically investigated how the linguistic and the material are intertwined, focusing on various ways in which this occurs. In order to highlight what is shared across these endeavors, we discuss a range of scholarship, including how words and objects may cosignify meaning and value; practices of embodiment, aesthetics, and style; linguistic objectification and the circulatory possibilities of linguistic forms; and language commodification in global capitalism. We see these efforts as contributing to an emerging field of scholarship we call "language materiality" that captures both the materiality of language as well as how the linguistic and material may interact to create meaning and value. We illustrate how such an approach may address current exigencies of neoliberal projects, global capitalism, and new forms of circulation.
ISSN:0084-6570
1545-4290
DOI:10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145811