Month: May 2015

My Bike: The Linguistic Anthropology of Gentrification

What is the meaning of an utterance? Who has power? And most importantly, what is gentrification? No seriously, what the hell is the referent of gentrification? Yesterday, exiting the YMCA I had a choice encounter that literally overwhelmed my little linguistic anthropological brain with potential answers to these questions. I did not record the encounter because… Read More My Bike: The Linguistic Anthropology of Gentrification

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Define and conquer

What is “language”? Here on Speech Events we’ve stated that we’re interested in what people do through language (Saussure’s parole), rather than linguistic form (Saussure’s langue, Chomsky’s grammatical competence, or universal grammar). We pay attention to what language practices do, what they mean socially, ideologically, and politically. Today I find myself asking what is “English… Read More Define and conquer

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