After several previous attempts to schedule this, I’m delighted to finally be giving a talk at the Linguistic Anthropology Lab, at one o’clock at room 340 SSRB.

The talk’s title is “Ideology to Affect: Evangelical Speech and Pentecostal Prayer.” Here is the abstract:

“While the concept of language ideology has been well received by many different anthropological sub-disciplines, it has arguably had the most effect in the nascent Anthropology of Christianity. In this new anthropological endeavor, language ideology (occasionally repackaged as ‘semiotic ideology’) has quickly achieved the status of ‘normal science,’ and in particular has been used to promulgate an influential model of referentially-oriented, sincerity-centered Protestant ethic of speech.

This framing, though, obscures the fact that in some forms of Protestantism that have adopted Pentecostal practices, there are multiple and to some degree incommensurable models for what consists of ethical speech. This talk maps the relations and differentials between the speech ethics found in the Vineyard, a Southern California originated Evangelical movement, and concludes with a discussion of ongoing research regarding the role of affect as force that effects switches between these different language ideologies.”