Anthropology and Ethnolinguistics

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Ethnolinguistics studies "the relationships between language and culture and how they mutually influence and inform each other" (Haviland et al., 117). Using the three examples of (1) gender differences in language use, (2) Ebonics, and (3) code switching, describe the contributions of ethnolinguistics to our understanding of human communication. I remember the first time I had boyfriend troubles in high school and happened to be trapped in the car with my mother, a lover of giving unsolicited advice. Her thesis boiled down to one simple theory – boys and girls speak different languages. She supported her claim that understanding Brian, the aforementioned boyfriend, would be impossible by citing that I also grew up in urban Seattle instead of rural West Virginia where we were living at the time, and where Brian had lived his entire life. This, to her, meant that I would never really understand what he was saying to me, nor would he understand me. Don't call her now and tell her that enthnolinguistics backs her up. Gender differences in language use have shown that women use less decisive speech patterns, therefore requiring them to adjust their word choice to create an impact as opposed to men who tend to use more basic words and a forceful delivery. This information is helpful in the modern world, particularly for me as a former call center manager. While we did have plenty of men working the phones, the site was predominately filled with women. Even loud women who were more frank than usual seemed to find better ways of getting information relayed than the men did. They routinely had higher satisfaction rates than the male reps. Another form of ethnolinguistics that applied to my high school drama was code switching – the process of changing from one language or dialect to another depending on the situation. Once my mother had noted that our language

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