Concept
Interactional sociolinguistics is a subdiscipline of linguistics that uses discourse analysis to study how language users create meaning via social interaction. It is one of the ways in which linguists look at the intersections of human language and human society; other subfields that take this perspective are language planning, minority language studies, quantitative sociolinguistics, and sociohistorical linguistics, among others. Interactional sociolinguistics is a theoretical and methodological framework within the discipline of linguistic anthropology, which combines the methodology of linguistics with the cultural consideration of anthropology in order to understand how the use of language informs social and cultural interaction. Interactional sociolinguistics was founded by linguistic anthropologist John J. Gumperz. Topics that might benefit from an Interactional sociolinguistic analysis include: cross-cultural miscommunication, politeness, and framing. John J. Gumperz was an integral figure in the solidification of anthropology as an academic discipline and in the creation of the interdisciplinary field of linguistic anthropology. Born in 1922 he was able to play a crucial role in setting up how future scholars looked at language, culture, and social meaning. Gumperz conducted ethnographic work around the world as well as teaching at many esteemed universities in the United States. He worked with several great thinkers across disciplines (including: psychology, sociology, linguistics, anthropology) in order to establish his framework around Interactional sociolinguistics. In terms of research methods, interactional sociolinguists analyze audio or video recordings of conversations or other interactions. Concerning the methodology of discourse analysis, by which instances of interactional sociolinguistics can be isolated, there are many ways in which language can be analyzed. Though Gumperz pioneered his framework several decades ago it is still being used by anthropologists today in their research.