Linguistic Anthropology in 2018: Signifying Movement

Abstract

Using the keyword movement, this essay reviews linguistic anthropological research that appeared in 2018 (November 2017 to October 2018) to highlight how linguistic anthropology continues and extends the discipline's traditional focus on the deep embeddedness of language in the dynamism of sociocultural practice.Based on an overview of works on (1) itineraries of people, (2) tensions with the nation-state, (3) shifts in the political economy, (4) digital communicative practices, (5) metasemiotic chains of interdiscursivity, and (6) movements of

Transience

“…Recently, however, research concerned with mobility and movement has increasingly come to the fore within sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology (see e.g. Blommaert 2016, Pennycook 2016, Park 2019, and scholars interested in social settings characterized by transience have begun to explore contexts where the existence of sedimented social and linguistic norms cannot be assumed to be in place a priori, but must be explored as an emergent phenomenon developing in situ over time as a joint effort of the participants, in an interplay with the wider social context. Research interested in transient social communities, defined as "social configurations where people from diverse sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds come together (physically or otherwise) for a limited period of time around a shared activity" (Mortensen and Hazel 2017:256), serve to complexify the object of analysis within the study of language and social life.…”

Exploring (Im)mobilities: Language Practices, Discourses and Imaginaries. AnnaDe Fina and GerardoMazzaferro (Eds.), Bristol: Multilingual Matters. 2021. 296 pp. Hardback (9781788925297) 149.95 USD, Paperback (9781788925280) 49.95 USD, Ebook (9781788925310) 40 USD

“…The contributors mainly analyze situations of immobilization and the kinds of linguistic resources used by migrants, asylum seekers, and exploited groups to deal with these conditions. This narrowing of the subject matter is a pity because the sociolinguistic study of (im)mobility is so much richer than that, including among others “(1) itineraries of people, (2) tensions with the nation‐state, (3) shifts in the political economy, (4) digital communicative practices, (5) metasemiotic chains of interdiscursivity, and (6) movements of social transformation” (Park, 2019, p. 403).…”