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Theory and Method in Linguistic Ethnography

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Linguistic Ethnography

Part of the book series: Palgrave Advances in Language and Linguistics ((PADLL))

Abstract

This chapter provides a sketch of the assumptions, values, frameworks and techniques that currently characterise linguistic ethnography. In keeping with the dynamic that makes it a productive and appealing perspective, we 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

  • linguistic ethnography and non-academic professionals

In the section titled ‘Ethnography, linguistics and linguistic ethnography’, we look at what is involved in the combination of linguistics with ethnography, and at some relatively recent historical changes that have influenced their relationship, strengthening the epistemological status of ethnography and sharpening the analytic relevance of linguistics. In the section titled ‘Describing the elements interacting in communication’, we turn to the communication process itself and describe key elements in the theory of language and society developed in linguistic anthropology. We emphasise the power of the contribution not just to linguistic ethnography but to practice theory more generally, with practice theory understood as a ‘broad and capacious … general theory of the production of social subjects through practice, and the production of the world itself through practice’ (Ortner 2006: 16).

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Authors
  1. Ben Rampton
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  2. Janet Maybin
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  3. Celia Roberts
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leeds, UK

    Julia Snell

  2. Queen Mary University of London, UK

    Sara Shaw

  3. University of Stirling, UK

    Fiona Copland

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© 2015 Ben Rampton, Janet Maybin and Celia Roberts

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Rampton, B., Maybin, J., Roberts, C. (2015). Theory and Method in Linguistic Ethnography. In: Snell, J., Shaw, S., Copland, F. (eds) Linguistic Ethnography. Palgrave Advances in Language and Linguistics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137035035_2

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