Linguistic Ethnography: Links, Problems and Possibilities. 2007 (original) (raw)

Linguistic ethnography and interdisciplinarity: Opening the discussion

Journal of Sociolinguistics, 2007

This Special Issue 1 focuses on an emerging area of work in the U.K. (with strong links in Europe and the U.S.) which calls itself 'linguistic ethnography'. The first article by Rampton takes stock of recent developments in this area and debate is then opened up with colleagues across the social sciences. The issue has a strong interdisciplinary flavour, deriving both from the nature of linguistic ethnography itself, which Rampton introduces as an 'interdisciplinary region', and from the range of disciplinary perspectives represented by the other contributors. Thus, Ron and Suzie Scollon write from long experience as U.S. linguistic anthropologists and Lukas Tsitsipis as a linguistic anthropologist in southern Europe, Alison Sealey from a background in applied linguistics and a close interest in sociological realism, and Margaret Wetherell from discursive psychology and ongoing research on identity. These are not a collection of linguistic ethnographies. Rather, contributors are responding to the linguistic ethnography initiative from their own disciplinary positions, making wider connections, drawing attention to neglected issues and often illustrating with data of their own. Some raise stringent questions about aspects of combining linguistics with ethnography. Finally, two discussants, Jan Blommaert and Martyn Hammersley, pick up and comment on particular themes in the papers from their respective perspectives in anthropology and sociology.

Neo‐Hymesian linguistic ethnography in the United Kingdom 2007

Journal of Sociolinguistics, 2007

This paper describes the development of 'linguistic ethnography' in Britain over the last 5-15 years. British anthropology tends to overlook language, and instead, the U.K. Linguistic Ethnography Forum (LEF) has emerged from socio-and applied linguistics, bringing together a number of formative traditions (inter alia, Interactional Sociolinguistics, New Literacy Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis). The career paths and the institutional positions of LEF participants make their ethnography more a matter of getting analytic distance on what's close-at-hand than a process of getting familiar with the strange. When linked with post-structuralism more generally, this 'from-inside-outwards' trajectory produces analytic sensibilities tuned to discourse analysis as a method, doubtful about 'comprehensive' and 'exotic' ethnography, and welldisposed to practical/political intervention. LE sits comfortably in the much broader shift from mono-to inter-disciplinarity in British higher education, though the inter-disciplinary environment makes it hard to take the relationship between linguistics and ethnography for granted.

Linguistic Ethnography: Studying English Language, Cultures and Practices

The Routledge Handbook of English Language Studies, 2018

The understanding of languages as bounded, enumerable codes closely tied to distinct national and ethnic cultures has been questioned from a range of perspectives for the past three or four decades. Alternative ways of seeing and studying language have been contributed by research affiliated with the strand that has become known as linguistic ethnography and combines ethnographic methodology (observations, interviews etc.) with micro-analysis of recorded interactions (employing tools from conversation analysis and linguistics). This chapter unfolds the theoretical and empirical directions suggested by the linguistic ethnographic approach through examples of situated use of forms of English from research conducted among youth in heterogeneous urban contexts in Denmark. Through this lens the chapter presents the foundation for the recent debates about the conceptualisation of language and discusses their relevance to the study of English. Thereby the chapter illustrates the potential of starting with the lived local realities of language users and linking these to larger-scale socio-cultural processes through an ethnographic perspective and a close investigation of contexts.

Reflections on linguistic ethnography

Journal of Sociolinguistics, 2007

In his opening article, Rampton portrays Linguistic Ethnography (LE) as consisting of a broad range of work, sharing family resemblances and reflecting features of the particular niche in which it has developed. The subsequent articles explore various issues and relationships relevant to LE. There is obviously much that could be said about these contributions, from many angles, but I will focus on just a few points here that seem of significance from my perspective: the nature of LE as an approach; realism versus constructionism; and the question of methodological warrant.

WP125 Rampton, Maybin & Roberts 2014. Methodological foundations in linguistic ethnography

This paper provides a sketch of the assumptions, values, frameworks and techniques that currently characterise linguistic ethnography, and in keeping with the dynamic that makes it such a productive and appealing perspective, we will ground our account in a series of historical, institutional and/or methodological encounters, looking at the questions and possibilities that these interactions generate. So we will consider the relationships between: * linguistics and ethnography * elements interacting in the communicative process * linguistic ethnography and researchers from different disciplines * linguistic ethnography and non-academic professionals

Methodological foundations in linguistic ethnography 2014

Working Papers in Urban Language & Literacies 125, 2014

This paper provides a sketch of the assumptions, values, frameworks and techniques that currently characterise linguistic ethnography, and in keeping with the dynamic that makes it such a productive and appealing perspective, we will ground our account in a series of historical, institutional and/or methodological encounters, looking at the questions and possibilities that these interactions generate. So we consider the relationships between: linguistics and ethnography; elements interacting in the communicative process; linguistic ethnography and researchers from different disciplines; and linguistic ethnography and non-academic professionals.

Alison Sealey Linguistic Ethnography in Realist Perspective

2015

This article engages with linguistic ethnography from the perspective of sociological realism. It begins by reviewing some of the positions expressed in the linguistic ethnography (LE) literature about the extent to which LE is defined by theoretical orientation as well as by method. The article is then framed around a kind of ‘generic’ sociolinguistic research question ‘Which people use which kinds of language in what circumstances and with what outcome(s)?’. Taking each element in turn, it explores the ways in which an ethnographic approach contributes to the processes of: classifying speakers as members of various kinds of social groups; identifying language varieties; accounting for the influence of ‘context’ and identifying ‘outcomes’. I suggest that each of these aspects of social linguistic research stands to benefit from the methods developed in ethnography, and from the theories and principles underlying the approaches it uses. However, drawing on the work of contemporary r...