ethnolinguistics (n.)

A branch of LINGUISTICS which studies LANGUAGE in relation to the investigation of ethnic types and behavior. The term overlaps to some degree with ANTHROPOLOGICAL LINGUISTICS and SOCIOLINGUISTICS, reflecting the overlapping interests of the correlative disciplines involved – ethnology, anthropology and sociology. The phrase ethnography of communication or ethnography of speaking has been applied by sociolinguists to the study of language in relation to the entire range of extralinguistic variables which identify the social basis of communication, the emphasis being on the description of linguistic interaction. The student of such matters is known as an ‘ethnolinguist’. Ethnosemantics (or ethnographic semantics) takes further the anthropological perspective in relation to cognitive science, studying the way meaning is structured in different cultural settings (e.g. in relation to the expression of kinship, color, or the DISCOURSE structure of SPEECH EVENTS) and the principles governing culturally conditioned SEMANTIC variation.