1932
0
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Annual Review of Anthropology
  4. Volume 47, 2018
  5. Article

Annual Review of Anthropology

Volume 47, 2018

Language of Kin Relations and Relationlessness

Abstract

Language has long been at the center of kinship studies, where there has been a tendency to see the role of language in terms of nomenclature for labeling preexisting relations. Linguistic anthropologists have turned to the constitutive role of language in the formation of kin relations. People enact kin relations through behaviors that include, but are not limited to, the linguistic. Rather than static grids of terminology, linguistic anthropology finds its empirical object in the reflexive practices of speakers as they construct, reformulate, transform, and sometimes undercut cultural norms for being kin. Taking kinship behaviors that include language to be in dialectical relation to kinship structures, I review recent work that exemplifies linguistic anthropology's pragmatic approach to kinship, from the richness and diversity of kin relations to the possibility of the lack of kin relations as such.

Keyword(s): kinship, language, relationality, relationlessness
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102317-050120
2018-10-21
2024-04-25
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/anthro/47/1/annurev-anthro-102317-050120.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102317-050120&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Agha A. 2007. Language and Social Relations Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  2. Agha A. 2015. Chronotopic formulations and kinship behaviors in social history. In Special Collection: Kinship Chronotopes.Anthropol. Q 88:2401–15
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Allison A. 2013. Precarious Japan Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
  4. Anderson B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism London: Verso
  5. Bakhtin M. 1981. Forms of time and of the chronotope in the novel. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin M Holquist 84–258 Austin: Univ. Tex. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Ball C. 2011. Inalienability in social relations: language, possession, and exchange in Amazonia. Lang. Soc. 40:3307–41
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Ball C. 2015. Avoidance as alterity stance: an Upper Xinguan affinity chronotope. Special Collection: Kinship Chronotopes. Anthropol. Q 88:2337–72
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Ball C, Harkness N 2015. Special Collection: Kinship Chronotopes. Anthropol. Q. 88:2)
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Ball C, Nozawa S 2016. Tearful Sojourns and Tribal Wives: primitivism, kinship, suffering, and salvation on Japanese and British reality TV. Am. Ethnol. 43:2243–57
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Bean S. 1978. Symbolic and Pragmatic Semantics: A Kannada System of Address Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  11. Beer B, Gardner D 2015. Friendship, Anthropology of. International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences JD Wright 425–31 Oxford, UK: Elsevier, 2nd ed.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Berman E. 2014. Holding on: adoption, kinship tensions, and pregnancy in the Marshall Islands. Am. Anthropol. 116:3578–90
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Bloch M. 1971. The moral and tactical meaning of kinship terms. Man 6:179–87
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Blommaert J, Rampton B 2016. Language and superdiversity. Language and Superdiversity K Arnaut, J Blommaert, B Rampton, M Spotti 21–48 London: Routledge
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Blum SD. 1997. Naming practices and the power of words in China. Lang. Soc. 26:3357–79
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Blythe J. 2013. Preference organization driving structuration: evidence from Australian Aboriginal interaction for pragmatically motivated grammaticalization. Language 89:4883–919
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Boas F. 1889. On alternating sounds. Am. Anthropol. 2:47–53
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Bourdieu P. 1990. The Logic of Practice Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press
  19. Brightman R. 2013. Hierarchy and conflict in mutual being. Comment on Sahlins, Marshall. 2013. What Kinship Is—And Is Not. HAU: J. Ethnogr. Theory 3:2259–70
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Carsten J. 2013. What kinship does—and how. Comment on Sahlins, Marshall. 2013. What Kinship Is—And Is Not Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press HAU: J. Ethnogr. Theory 32245–51
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Dent AS. 2007. Country brothers: kinship and chronotope in Brazilian rural public culture. Anthropol. Q. 80:2455–95
     [Google Scholar]
  22. De Vienne E 2012. “Make yourself uncomfortable”: joking relationships as predictable uncertainty among the Trumai of Central Brazil HAU: J. Ethnogr. Theory 22163–87
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Durkheim E. 1951. 1897. Suicide: A Study in Sociology New York: Free Press
  24. Durkheim E. 1982. The Rules of the Sociological Method New York: Free Press
  25. Eisenlohr P. 2015. Mediating disjunctures of time: ancestral chronotopes in ritual and media practices. In Special Collection: Kinship Chronotopes.Anthropol. Q 88:2281–304
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Fleming L. 2011. Name taboos and rigid performativity. Anthropol. Q. 84:1141–64
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Fleming L, Lempert M 2011. Introduction: beyond bad words. Anthropol. Q. 84:15–13
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Fleming L, Slotta J 2015. Named relations: a universal in the pragmatics of reference within the kin group. Proc. Chicago Linguist. Soc. 51:165–79
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Franklin S, McKinnon S 2001. Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
  30. Goldfarb KE. 2016. ‘Coming to look alike’: materializing affinity in Japanese foster and adoptive care. Soc. Anal. 60:247–64
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Goodenough WH. 1956. Componential analysis and the study of meaning. Language 32:1195–216
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Goodenough WH. 1970. Description and Comparison in Cultural Anthropology Chicago: Aldine
  33. Greenberg JH. 1990. Universals of kinship terminology: their nature and the problem of their explanation. On Language: Selected Writings of Joseph H. Greenberg Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Gregory C. 2011. Skinship: touchability as a virtue in East-Central India. HAU: J. Ethnogr. Theory 1:1179–209
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Gregory CA. 1982. Gifts and Commodities London: Academic
  36. Guemple DL. 1965. Saunik: name sharing as a factor governing Eskimo kinship terms. Ethnology 4:3323–35
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Harkness N. 2015. Basic kinship terms: Christian relations, chronotopic formulations, and a Korean confrontation of language. In Special Collection: Kinship Chronotopes.Anthropol. Q 88:2305–36
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Haviland JB. 1979. Guugu Yimidhirr brother-in-law language. Lang. Soc. 8:365–93
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Herzfeld M. 2018. Anthropological realism in a scientistic age. Anthropol. Theory 18:1129–50
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Irvine JT. 1998. Ideologies of honorific language. Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory B Schieffelin, K Woolard, P Kroskrity 51–67 New York: Oxford Univ. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Irvine JT, Gal S 2000. Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. See Kroskrity 2000 35–84
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Jakobson R. 1960. Closing statement: linguistics and poetics. Style in Language T Sebeok 350–77 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Jakobson R. 1978. Six Lessons on Sound and Meaning Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
  44. Keen I. 2014. Language in the constitution of kinship. Anthropol. Linguist. 56:11–53
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Kockelman P. 2009. Inalienable possession as grammatical category and discourse pattern. Stud. Lang. 33:125–68
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Kroeber AL. 1909. Classificatory systems of relationship. J. R. Anthropol. Inst. G. B. Irel. 39:77–84
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Kroskrity P 2000. Regimes of Language Santa Fe, NM: Sch. Am. Res
  48. Lakoff G. 1996. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  49. Leach ER. 1958. Concerning Trobriand clans and kinship category tabu. The Developmental Cycle of Domestic Groups J Goody 120–45 Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Lévi-Strauss C. 1963. Structural analysis in linguistics and in anthropology. Structural Anthropology31–54 London: Penguin
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Lévi-Strauss C. 1969. The Elementary Structures of Kinship New York: Beacon
  52. Levine NE. 2008. Alternative kinship, marriage, and reproduction. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 37:375–89
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Lounsbury FG. 1969. A formal account of the Omaha- and Crow-type kinship terminologies. Cognitive Anthropology: Readings SA Tyler 212–55 New York: Holt, Reinhardt and Winston
     [Google Scholar]
  54. Lucy JA, Shweder RD 1979. Whorf and his critics: linguistic and nonlinguistic influences on color memory. Am. Anthropol. 81:3581–615
     [Google Scholar]
  55. Luong HV. 1984. “Brother” and “Uncle”: an analysis of rules, structural contradictions, and meaning in Vietnamese kinship. Am. Anthropol. 86:2290–315
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Luong HV. 1990. Discursive Practices and Linguistic Meanings: The Vietnamese System of Person Reference Amsterdam: John Benjamins
  57. Malinowski B. 1923. The problem of meaning in primitive languages. The Meaning of Meaning: A Study in the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism CK Ogden, IA Richards 146–52 London: Routledge
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Marx K, Engels F 1998. 1932. The German Ideology Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books
  59. Mauss M. 2016. The Gift, transl. JI Guyer Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
     [Google Scholar]
  60. McIntosh J. 2015. Autochthony and “family”: the politics of kinship in white Kenyan bids to belong. Special Collection: Kinship Chronotopes. Anthropol. Q 88:2251–80
     [Google Scholar]
  61. McKinnon S, Cannell F 2013. Vital Relations: Modernity and the Persistent Life of Kinship Santa Fe, NM: Sch. Adv. Res. Press
  62. Merlan F. 1982. Egocentric and altercentric usage of kin terms in Mangarayi. Languages of Kinship in Aboriginal Australia J Heath, F Merlan, A Rumsey 125–40 Sydney: Univ. Sydney
     [Google Scholar]
  63. Morgan LH. 1871. Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family Washington, DC: Smithson. Inst
  64. Murdock GP. 1949. Social Structure New York: Macmillan
  65. Nakassis CV. 2014. Suspended kinship and youth sociality in Tamil Nadu, India. Curr. Anthropol. 55:2175–99
     [Google Scholar]
  66. Needham R. 1971. Rethinking Kinship and Marriage London: Tavistock:
  67. Nozawa S. 2015. Phatic traces: sociality in contemporary Japan. Special Collection: Kinship Chronotopes. Anthropol. Q 88:2373–400
     [Google Scholar]
  68. Peletz MG. 1995. Kinship studies in late twentieth-century anthropology. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 24:343–72
     [Google Scholar]
  69. Radcliffe-Brown AR. 1941. The study of kinship systems. J. R. Anthropol. Inst. G. B. Irel. 71:1/21–18
     [Google Scholar]
  70. Rivers WHR. 1907. On the origin of the classificatory systems of relationships. Anthropological Essays Presented to E.B. Tylor309–24 Oxford, UK: Clarendon
     [Google Scholar]
  71. Rivers WHR. 1915. Kin, kinship. Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics J Hastings 700–7 Edinburgh/New York: Scribner
     [Google Scholar]
  72. Robbins J. 2013. On kinship and comparison, intersubjectivity and mutuality of being. HAU: J. Ethnogr. Theory 3:2309–16
     [Google Scholar]
  73. Rosaldo MZ. 1982. The things we do with words: Ilongot speech acts and speech act theory in philosophy. Lang. Soc. 11:2203–37
     [Google Scholar]
  74. Roth CF. 2002. Gods, names, and selves: rethinking the Tsimshan potlatch. Am. Ethnol. 29:10123–50
     [Google Scholar]
  75. Rumsey A. 1990. Wording, meaning, and linguistic ideology. Am. Anthropol. 92:2346–61
     [Google Scholar]
  76. Rutherford D. 2015. Introduction: about time. Special Collection: Kinship Chronotopes. Anthropol. Q 88:2241–49
     [Google Scholar]
  77. Sahlins M. 2013. What Kinship Is—And Is Not Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  78. Scheffler HW. 1972. Kinship semantics. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1:309–28
     [Google Scholar]
  79. Schneider DM. 1984. A Critique of the Study of Kinship Ann Arbor: Univ. Mich. Press
  80. Silverstein M. 1985. Language and the culture of gender: at the intersection of structure, usage, and ideology. Semiotic Mediation E Mertz, R Parmentier 219–59 New York: Academic
     [Google Scholar]
  81. Silverstein M. 1987. Cognitive implications of a referential hierarchy. Social and Functional Approaches to Language and Thought M Hickman 125–64 New York: Academic
     [Google Scholar]
  82. Silverstein M. 1996. Whorfianism and the linguistic imagination of nationalism. See Kroskrity 2000 85–138
     [Google Scholar]
  83. Silverstein M. 2013. Worora kinship and ‘parenteral’ relationships. Anthropol. Theory 13:1/289–103
     [Google Scholar]
  84. Simmel G. 1971. Georg Simmel on Individuality and Social Forms DN Levine Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  85. Stasch R. 2002. Joking avoidance: a Korowai pragmatics of being two. Am. Ethnol. 29:2335–65
     [Google Scholar]
  86. Stasch R. 2003. Separateness as a relation: the iconicity, univocality, and creativity of Korowai mother-in-law avoidance. J. R. Anthropol. Inst. 9:2317–37
     [Google Scholar]
  87. Stasch R. 2009. Society of Others: Kinship and Mourning in a West Papuan Place Oakland: Univ. Calif. Press
  88. Stasch R. 2011. Word avoidance as a relation-making act: a paradigm for analysis of name utterance taboos. Anthropol. Q. 84:1101–20
     [Google Scholar]
  89. Strathern M. 1992. After Nature: English Kinship in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  90. Strathern M. 2017. Connections, friends and their relations: an issue in knowledge-making. Comparative Metaphysics: Ontology After Anthropology P Carbonnier, G Salmon, P Skafish 61–84 London: Rowman and Littlefield
     [Google Scholar]
  91. Tadmor N. 2001. Family and Friends in Eighteenth-Century England: Household, Kinship, and Patronage Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  92. Urban G. 1996. Metaphysical Community: The Interplay of the Senses and the Intellect Austin: Univ. Tex. Press
  93. Vatuk S. 1969. Reference, address, and fictive kinship in urban North India. Ethnology 8:3255–72
     [Google Scholar]
  94. Viveiros de Castro E 2003. And. Manchester Pap. Soc. Anthropol. 7, Dep. Soc. Anthropol Univ. Manchester, Manchester, UK
  95. Vom Bruck G, Bodenhorn B 2006. The Anthropology of Names and Naming Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  96. Wagner R. 2011. Vújà De and the quintessentialists’ guild. Common Knowl 17:1155–62
     [Google Scholar]
  97. Watson RS. 1986. The named and the nameless: gender and person in Chinese society. Am. Ethnol. 13:4619–31
     [Google Scholar]
  98. Zeitlyn D. 1993. Reconstructing kinship, or, the pragmatics of kin talk. Man 28:2199–224
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102317-050120
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error