A Linguistics for Ethnography. Why Not Second Languaculture Learning and Translation?
Abstract
Language and ethnography have always gone hand in hand. In this article two kinds of linguistics are explored that seem to have a close relationship to ethnography, namely, second languaculture learning and translation theory. The article shows how the former resembles the ethnographic research process while the latter is similar to the usual ethnographic product. The irony is that neither of these two kinds of linguistics have played much of a role in ethnographic research in the past. By applying them to the author’s past work on ethnographic logic and exemplifying them with samples of applied ethnographic work, languaculture learning and translation help re-think the notion of "method" beyond the usual social science conversations while highlighting features of intercultural communication as it happens on the ground.
Full text article
References
AGAR, M. (1994) The Intercultural Frame. Journal of Intercultural Relations, 18, 221-237.
AGAR, M. (1995) Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation, New York, Wm. Morrow.
AGAR, M. (1996) The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography, New York, Academic Press.
AGAR, M. (2006) An Ethnography by Any Other Name... Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research. http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/4-06/06-4-36-e.htm
BAKER, M. (Ed.) (2001) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, Routledge.
CLIFFORD, J. & MARCUS, G. E. (Eds.) (1986) Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley, University of California Press.
FRIEDRICH, P. (1989) Language, Ideology, and Political Economy. American Anthropologist, 91, 295-312.
KASPER, G. & BLUM-KULKA, S. (Eds.) (1993) Interlanguage Pragmatics, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
PEIRCE, C. (1906) Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press.
ROBERTS, C., BYRAM, M., BARRO, A., JORDAN, S. & STREET, B. (2001) Language Learners as Ethnographers, Buffalo NY, Multilingual Matters.
STEINER, G. (1975) After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
VAN LIER, L. (2004) The Ecology and Semiotics of Language Learning: A Sociocultural Perspective, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic.
VYGOTSKY, L. S. (1978) Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Mental Processes, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press.
Authors
Copyright (c) 2008 Michael Agar

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This journal provides immediate and free open access to all its content and is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This means readers are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as proper attribution is given. This policy is consistent with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access.