Language and Materiality
Ethnographic and Theoretical Explorations

Language and Materiality argues the importance of analyzing language use with an eye toward new materialisms, semiotics, and ideology.

Jillian R. Cavanaugh (Edited by), Shalini Shankar (Edited by)

9781107180949, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 October 2017

320 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.2 cm, 0.57 kg

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.

List of images
List of tables
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1. Toward a theory of language materiality: an introduction Shalini Shankar and Jillian R. Cavanaugh
2. Curated conversation: 'materiality: it's the stuff!' Webb Keane and Michael Silverstein
Part I. Texts, Objects, Mediality: 3. Japan's trendy word grand prix and Kanji of the year: commodified language forms in multiple contexts Laura Miller
4. Fontroversy! Or, how to care about the shape of language Keith M. Murphy
5. Spelling materiality: the branded business of competitive spelling Shalini Shankar
Part II. Transformation, Aesthetics, Embodiment: 6. How the sausage gets made: food safety and the mediality of talk, documents, and food practices Jillian R. Cavanaugh
7. 'Your mouth is your lorry!' How honk horns voice the acoustic materiality of reputation in Accra Steven Feld
8. Transduction in religious discourse: vocalization and sound reproduction in Mauritian Muslim devotional practices Patrick Eisenlohr
Part III. Time, Place, Circulation: 9. Making and marketing in the bilingual periphery: materialization as metacultural transformation Nikolas Coupland and Helen Kelly-Holmes
10. Word-things and thing-words: the transmodal production of privilege and status Crispin Thurlow and Adam Jaworski
11. Language and materiality in the renaming of Indigenous North American languages and peoples Robert Moore
12. The semiotic ecology of drinks and talk in Georgia Paul Manning
Part IV. More Stuff: Short Topical Commentaries on Language and Materiality and Afterword: Can language be a commodity? Monica Heller
Language, music, materiality (and immateriality): entanglements beyond the 'symbolic' Paja Faudree
Why bodies matter Mary Bucholtz
Physicality and texts: rematerializing the transparent Jennifer Dickinson
History, artifacts, and the language of culture change in archaeology Mark W. Hauser
Afterword: materiality and language, or material language? Dualisms and embodiments Judith T. Irvine
Index.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM], Semiotics / semiology [GTE], Sociolinguistics [CFB], Philosophy of language [CFA]