Living Language

Laura M. Ahearn is an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow serving as a Senior Learning Advisor in the U.S. Agency for International Development s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance. She is the author of Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, and Social Change in Nepal (2001) and is the Series Editor Oxford Studies in the Anthropology of Language.

List of Figures vii List of Tables ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xvii Part I Language: Some Basic Questions 1 1 The Socially Charged Life of Language 3 2 Gestures, Sign Languages, and Multimodality 33 3 The Research Process in Linguistic Anthropology 52 4 Language Acquisition and Socialization 69 5 Language, Thought, and Culture 87 Part II Communities of Speakers, Hearers, Readers, and Writers 117 6 Communities of Language Users 119 7 Multilingualism and Globalization 136 8 Literacy Practices 156 9 Performance, Performativity, and the Constitution of Communities 176 Part III Language, Power, and Social Differentiation 201 10 Language and Gender 203 11 Language, Race, and Ethnicity 230 12 Language Death and Revitalization 255 13 Conclusion: Language, Power, and Agency 273 Notes 305 References 321 Index 355