Dr. John A. Lucy will present the 54th Journal of Anthropological Research (JAR) Distinguished Lecture: The Influence of Language Structure and Function on Thought: A Comparison of Yucatec Maya and American English.
This seminar will revisit some classic methodological challenges in anthropological fieldwork by emphasizing how work on linguistic relativity complicates those issues. Various challenges to translation and interpretation cannot easily be resolved by appeal to our understanding of an independent reality since the issue at stake is how the reality itself is constructed in different communities. The balance of the discussion will center on presenting several approaches that can help attenuate these issues including how to tackle the analysis of local meanings, both structural and functional, and how to leverage various comparative methods, both areal and typological. For each approach, examples will be given of my own experiences coping with specific problems of language analysis, drawing out in each case the broader methodological and conceptual lessons for cultural analysis more generally.
This event is wheelchair accessible. If you don’t have a UNM permit, please park in a metered space along Redondo Rd. or Las Lomas to avoid a fine. The Journal of Anthropological Research has been published quarterly by the University of New Mexico since 1945. To subscribe: journals.uchicago.edu/JAR
