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To understand what it means to study language as a linguistic anthropologist would, it is helpful to ask what it means to “know” a language (Cipollone et al. 1998). Linguists generally use the Chomskyan distinction between “competence,” the abstract and usually unconscious knowledge that one has about the rules of a language, and “performance,” the putting into practice – sometimes imperfectly – of those rules. De Saussure made a similar distinction between langue (the language system in the abstract) and parole (everyday speech). This distinction is partly analogous to the way a person might have abstract knowledge about how to knit a sweater but in the actual knitting of it might drop a stitch here or there or perhaps make the arms a bit shorter than necessary. In both the Chomskyan and Saussurean approaches, it is the abstract knowledge of a language system (competence or langue) that is of primary, or even sole, interest for a science of language; performance or parole is irrelevant.

To take the knitting analogy further, if Chomsky were a knittist instead of a linguist, he would be interested only in the abstract rules of Knitting (capitalizing the word, as he does with Language) such as the following: Row 20: P 1, (k 1, p 1) 11(13–15) times, k 5, T R 2, k 4, T R 2, k 1, p 12, k 1, T L 2, k 4, T L 2, k 5, p 1, (k 1, p 1) 11(13–15) times.⁷ Chomsky the knittist would posit the existence of a Knitting Acquisition Device (KAD, rather than LAD, a Language Acquisition Device), a specialized module of the brain that allows people to acquire knitting skills. While he would acknowledge that people require exposure to knitting in their social environments in order to learn how to knit, he would be completely uninterested in the following:

 How or why people learn to knit in various cultures and communities.

 How knitting practices have changed over time.

 The gendered nature of knitting and other handicrafts in many societies (though knitting is often associated with girls and women in this society, for example, handicrafts such as weaving were until recently conventionally produced by lower-caste men in Nepal).

 The role of Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, as she secretly encodes the names of counterrevolutionaries into her knitting.⁸

 The global political economy of the many different yarns people use to knit – anything from yak wool from Nepal to Icelandic wool to synthetic mohair.

 The many different kinds of products of economic, social, or emotional value that are made by knitters to be worn by themselves, given to loved ones, donated to charity, or sold totourists.

 The ways in which knitting is viewed by different groups in the society – as a hip, in-group practice (as evidenced, perhaps, by the millions of users registered on Ravelry.com, an online community for those who knit or crochet), or as an old, fuddy-duddy practice engaged in mostly by grandmotherly types, or as a useful, moneymaking skill by yet others.

 How one’s individual and social identities can be reflected in and shaped by whether, how, what, and with whom one knits.

While this analogy of language with knitting is not by any means a perfect one it does, nevertheless, demonstrate how narrowly Chomsky and most other linguists view language. Other practices such as playing music, dancing, or painting would work equally well in the analogy I set up above because knitting and all these other practices are – like language – socially embedded and culturally influenced. Of course, there are abstract cognitive and biological dimensions to anything that we as humans do, including language, but to reduce language solely to these dimensions, as Chomsky and others do when they claim they are interested only in competence and not in performance, is to miss the richness and complexity of one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence.

Therefore, linguistic anthropologists reject the Chomskyan/Saussurean distinction between competence (langue) and performance (parole), though they do so in various ways. Some deny the existence of any distinction at all between competence and performance (langue and parole), while others give primacy to performance (parole). Still others expand the definition of competence to include the ability to use language skillfully and appropriately in particular social contexts (cf. Hymes 2001[1972]), and many view competence and performance (langue and parole) as equally important. What all linguistic anthropologists agree upon, however, is that to know a language, one must know far more than an abstract set of grammatical rules.

What else must one know in order to know a language, then, aside from grammatical rules? According to Cipollone et al. (1998:8–11), there are five basic components of a language that can be studied, and one must master all five of these areas in order to know a language:

 Phonology. The study of sound in language. In order to know a language, one must be able to recognize and produce the sounds (phonemes) that are meaningful in that language. In the case of sign languages, instead of sounds, one must be able to recognize and produce the appropriate gestures.

 Morphology. The study of the internal structure of words. In order to know a language, one must be able to use suffixes, prefixes, or infixes (depending on the language). In English, for example, one must know how to create plurals by placing an “s” on the end of most (but not all) words, and must know what adding “un-” to the beginning of a word does to its meaning. In many Native American languages, these sorts of affixes are placed inside a word to create infixes, while in Chinese languages, each morpheme, or unit of meaning, is a separate word, including morphemes indicating tense or plurality.

 Syntax. The study of the structure of sentences, including the construction of phrases, clauses, and the order of words. In order to know a language, one must be able to combine subjects, verbs, and objects in a grammatically correct way. This is the area of language where Chomsky has had the most influence. Many linguists study linguistic structure (syntax) in one form or another.

 Semantics. The study of meaning in language, including analysis of the meanings of words and sentences. In order to know a language, one must know how to construct and interpret meanings.

 Pragmatics. The study of language use, of actual utterances, of how meanings emerge in actual social contexts. This includes culturally and linguistically specific ways of structuring narratives, performances, or everyday conversations. In order to know a language, one must be able to use language in socially and culturally appropriate ways.

Most linguists focus primarily or solely on one or more of the first three components (phonology, morphology, or syntax), with syntax being accorded primacy ever since Chomsky became dominant in the field. In contrast, most linguistic anthropologists (as well as some scholars in related fields such as sociolinguistics or discourse analysis) study the final two components (semantics and pragmatics) in ways that integrate these two components with the first three. Indeed, linguistic anthropologists consider phonology, morphology, and syntax to be so fundamentally affected by the social contexts in which these aspects of language are acquired and used that to consider them in isolation from these contexts is, at best, artificial and, at worst, inaccurate. For the linguistic anthropologist, every aspect of language is socially influenced and culturally meaningful. To use language, therefore, is to engage in a form of social action laden with cultural values (See Figure 1.3).

Figure 1.3 “Zits” cartoon about the varying cultural meanings associated with language use.

Source: Reproduced with kind permission of Dan Piraro and Bizarro.com. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.