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Anthropology And The Study Of Culture

Good Essays

1. Anthropology and the Study of Culture
a. The field of anthropology that I find to be most interesting is anthropological linguistics. Personally, I believe this subdivision is so interesting because it is so diverse and covers so much ground on how our language and others have evolved over time. Ranging from early cave writings, to sign language, to the language and slang we all know and use today, language among not only our cultures but also others have vastly changed and there is proof of this that dates back to ancient times. The mere complexity of our current language is beyond what past civilizations could have even imagined it would come to be. What I find to be very interesting is the fact that even today our upbringing, social class, or cultural norms, can define how we speak. For instance, there are certain slangs or terms that someone may say because they were brought up around people who spoke using that kind of language. While this is true for some, but not all, children of an upper class parents may grow up speaking very formally, and be taught to not use any slang or vulgar words. They continue using this vocabulary further on in life because it is what they were taught to do. This can also be applied to any other social class, or even differ between people from different geographic locations. Linguistics is often learned and adopted from generation to generation and from civilization to civilization.
b. A person who studies anthropological linguistics

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