Do you ever get the feeling that the ideal of the linguistic anthropologist is some kind of immortal alien who lives at the center of the Earth, observing the innumerable flickering acts of human semiosis with omniscient indifference?
In 5.4 billion years, the sun’s internal chemistry will cause it to greatly expand and occupy a space greater than the eclipse of Earth’s orbit. The referents of our contemporary words “Mercury” and “Venus” will cease to be perceivable as they are consumed by the growing star.
Linguistic Anthropologist Philosopher King the Immortal will be there, observing the increasingly panicked acts of discursive semiosis committed and construed by the strange and beautiful future lifeforms of which we today are the distant and simple ancestors.
When all these glorious star children are wreathed in flame, their lives and metasemiotic capabilities extinguished, Linguistic Anthropologist Philosopher King the Immortal will be there. As the final interpretant of Terran mortal life is intrasubjectively perceivable, Linguistic Anthropologist Philosopher King the Immortal shall observe, and then intone “When I finish this sentence, and evaporate into the Nameless Void, my purpose fulfilled, thus shall end the broadest sociohistorical moment on Earth of which it is possible to conceive.”
Speech Events 
That sums things up quite well, I think. Ling Anth has great descriptive and analytic tools, but it does seem to lack a raison d’etre, other than description for the sake of description. Like all rulers, Linguistic Anthropologist Philosopher King (or Queen) the Immortal would do well to think about how their powers can be used to accomplish social goals, such as improved education through analysis of classroom language use, or analysis of what rhetorical devices might contribute to governments & individuals taking measures against climate change etc etc.
Haha what this is the best
This is still my favorite post.
[…] Linguistic anthropology can have its flaws, but it does have some powerful tools for pointing out how people do all the complex stuff we do with language. Even when those people are Ghostbusters. […]