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Franz Uri Boas was a German-born American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical particularism and cultural relativism.
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The claim that Eskimo words for snow are unusually numerous is often used to support the linguistic-relativity hypothesis or "Whorfianism". That hypothesis, which posits that a language's vocabulary shapes or defines its speakers' view of the world, is largely discredited, though a 2010 study supports the core notion that these languages have many more root words for "snow" than the English language. The original claim is based in the work of anthropologist Franz Boas and was particularly promoted by his contemporary, Benjamin Lee Whorf, whose name is connected with the hypothesis.
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Richard Bauman is a folklorist and anthropologist, now retired from Indiana University Bloomington. He is Distinguished Professor emeritus of Folklore, of Anthropology, and of Communication and Culture. Before coming to IU in 1985, he was the Director of the Center for Intercultural Studies in Folklore and Ethnomusicology at the University of Texas and a faculty member in the UT Department of Anthropology. Just before retiring from Indiana, he was chair of the IU Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, as well as an important member of the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Communication and Culture.
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- biological anthropology
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References
- Hart, W.B. (2005). "Franz Boas and the roots of intercultural communication research". International and Intercultural Communication Annual (28): 176–193.
- Ottenheimer, H.J. (2006). The anthropology of language: An introduction to linguistic anthropology. Belmont: Thomson Higher Education.
- ↑ Ottenheimer 2006, p. 266.
- ↑ Ottenheimer 2006, p. 15.
- ↑ Hart 2005, p. 179.
