Language and Materiality: Ethnographic and Theoretical Explorations

1. Introduction: approaching language materially Shalini Shankar and Jillian R. Cavanaugh; 2. Curated conversation: materiality: it's the stuff! Webb Keane and Michael Silverstein; Part I. Texts, Objects, Mediality: 3. Essay: Japan's trendy word grand prix and Kanji of the year: commodified language forms in multiple contexts Laura Miller; 4. Essay: fontroversy! Or, how to care about the shape of language Keith M. Murphy; 5. Comment: physicality and texts Jennifer Dickinson; 6. Essay: spelling materiality: the branded business of competitive spelling Shalini Shankar; Part II. Transformation, Aesthetics, Embodiment: 7. Comment: why bodies matter Mary Bucholtz; 8. Essay: how the sausage gets made: food safety and the mediality of talk, documents, and food practices Jillian R. Cavanaugh; 9. Essay: 'your mouth is your lorry!' How honk horns voice the acoustic materiality of reputation in Accra Steven Feld; 10. Comment: language, music, materiality (and immateriality) Paja Faudree; 11. Essay: transduction in religious discourse: vocalization and sound reproduction in Mauritian Muslim devotional practices Patrick Eisenlohr; Part III: Time, Place, Circulation: 12. Essay: making and marketing in the bilingual periphery: materialization as metacultural transformation Nikolas Coupland and Helen Kelly-Holmes; 13. Comment: can language be a commodity? Monica Heller; 14. Essay: word-things and thing-words: the transmodal production of privilege and status Crispin Thurlow and Adam Jaworski; 15. Essay: language and materiality in the re-naming of Indigenous North American languages and peoples Robert E. Moore; 16. Comment: history, artifacts, and the language of culture change in archaeology Mark Hauser; 17. Essay: the semiotic ecology of drinks and talk in Georgia Paul Manning; 18. Afterword: materiality and language, or material language? Dualisms and embodiments Judith T. Irvine