Legendary linguist John Gumperz passed away recently, and leaves behind a body of work that changed linguistic study as we know it.
Gumperz was a pioneer of the burgeoning field of interactional sociolinguistics, and it explains how we understand each other — or misunderstand each other — across cultures.
Linguist Daniel Midgley gets social on this episode of Talk the Talk.
Listen to this episode
You can listen to all the episodes of Talk the Talk by pasting this URL into your podlistener.
http://danielmidgley.com/talkthetalk/talk_classic.xmlJohn Gumperz was someone whose work I remember reading waaaaay back in my Linguistics study, back when I first became aware of sociolinguistics. Since he’s passed away, I thought it would be good to take a look at what he started. Interactional sociolinguistics, metaphorical code-switching — it’s all here.
The most interesting part about this podcast for me was how easy it was for Ben and me to come up with examples of all of the above. It’s just a part of our lives. Very relevant. See if you don’t agree.
Show notes
John Gumperz’s Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._Gumperz
The New York Times obit, with the gravy story!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/education/john-j-gumperz-linguist-of-cultural-interchange-dies-at-91.html?ref=languageandlanguages&_r=0
Ben Zimmer’s tribute on Language Log
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4546
and one from the Atlantic
http://m.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2013/04/john-j-gumperz-who-mapped-infrastructure-spoken-language-dies-91/5179/
Metaphorical code-switching
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphorical_code-switching
NPR’s article
http://www.npr.org/2013/04/03/176166674/linguist-did-pioneering-work-on-discourse-across-cultural-boundaries
Watch a bit of Crosstalk with John Gumperz. (RealPlayer, though. Ugh.)
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ANTH/emeritus/gumperz/gumptalk.html
