An American Indigenous perspective in what we label the study of language in culture: Is it 'Anthropology' or 'Linguistics' and does it matter\ulcorner

Social scientists in North America, especially anthropologists, folklorists and linguists, who focus on the study language use and its connection to society, use a variety of labels to describe what they do. Among the best known are 'anthropological linguistics' , 'linguistic anthropology', and 'sociolinguistics'. All of these labels imply that their focus is on the study of language usage in society and culture for their teaching, research and publications. In this paper I am examining the intellectual issues and history that underlie the differences in the labels. The differences and similarities that characterize them are discussed. The author proposes 'linguistic anthropology' as the most useful disciplinary terminology if the study of language combined with culture is to be 'community-centric' and not only 'profession-centric' . He encourages a renewed focus on working with communities. Also, a need to find ways to engage Indigenous members of minority language communities more actively should be a primary goal in the process of 'academic' language work. This is important due to the loss rapid extinction of the many of the world's languages. The author points out that it does matter what we call the work we do, as a label may carry a message of meaning, intent and focus.