Product Description

The key to communication, says linguistic anthropologist Michael Agar, is understandingthe context and culture of conversation. In Language Shock, Agar reveals how deeply our language and cultural values intertwine to define who we are and how we relate to one another. From paying an electric bill in Austria to opening a bank account in Mexico to handling a parking ticket in the United States, he shows how routine tasks become lessons in the subtleties of conversation when we venture outside our cultural sphere. With humorous, insightful stories from his extensive travels, Agar engages us in a lively study of "languaculture" and enriches our view of the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118038 in Books
• Published on: 1996-12-16
• Released on: 1996-12-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Agar, an anthropologist and ethnographer, wants Americans to break out of their cultural superiority complex and to join "the growing global conversation" embracing multicultural voices. Leaning on linguist Benjamin Whorf's theory that each language shapes its speakers' ways of seeing, acting, thinking and feeling, Agar relates personal encounters with language and cultural differences, drawing on his stay in Austria during the Kurt Waldheim Nazi scandal in 1986, his work as a public health official treating heroin addicts in Kentucky in 1968, travels in Mexico and Greece and village kinship systems in India. The informal, highly anecdotal narrative sketches a theory of "languaculture," Agar's coinage emphasizing the inextricable links between language and culture and the way we build mental "frames" to organize our expectations. Agar, who teaches anthropology at the University of Maryland, serves a smorgasbord with tasty tidbits instead of a full meal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From The Washington Post
"An engaging summary of important studies in linguistic anthropology."

From Kirkus Reviews
Perceptive anecdotes from Austria, India, and Mexico, from heroin-addict treatment centers, scuba dives, and linguistics conferences pepper this primer on the intricacies of cross-cultural discourse and ordinary conversation. Coining the term ``languaculture'' to merge two somewhat ambiguous concepts into one slightly less uncertain term, Agar, a professor of linguistic anthropology (Univ. of Maryland, College Park), argues that language is not simply grammar and vocabulary (never mind phonology); that culture is as tangible and fluid as daily life; and that the two are intertwined--and often get snarled up. In his astute informal gloss of converging concepts in linguistics and cultural anthropology, Agar takes exception to the Berlitz notion of standardized phrases for generic situations as a means of getting along in foreign countries, as though communication merely involved set responses to set frames of reference. In his search for ethnographic ``rich points'' (where native and non-native speakers are likely to trip themselves up), Agar sometimes fixes on commonplace words that have particular cultural significance but slippery definitions. In one instance, while working in Vienna, he spent some free time trying to find the meaning of Schm„ha sort of defensive irony, or sly black humor, or slick equivocation. One student gave the example of Austrian-born Marie Antoinette's infamous ``Let them eat cake'' as typical Schm„h; but though Marie's French was perfect grammatically, the sans-culottes still did not catch on to her intention, which was not to mock the lower classes but to deflect the tension of the situation through humor. Speech acts--more general forms of social discourse like joking or lying--can be more slippery still for both speakers and society, as Agar demonstrates in an analysis of Kurt Waldheim's rationalizations of his Nazi collaboration. If his discussion of scholarship tends to skim over important figures and ideas (such as Wittgenstein and anthropologist Harold Garfinkel) and his original insights are slight by comparison, his presentation is readable and his observations engaging. A stimulating personal reflection on the complexities of communication between people, in whatever language or culture. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Insight into other cultures
"Language Shock" helped me to understand my experience of living in a foreign land -- China, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Agar's inights drawn the fields of anthropology and linguistics gave me a way of processing the "rich points" of those cultures. Since first reading the book a few years ago I have studied linguistics in more depth, and I have to say that Agar's approach to langauge and culture is still one of the best I have encountered. I highly recommend it to anyone living in a foreign country, and anyone with an interest in language and culture.

Fantastic Read!
I highly recommend this book to anybody with an interest in getting a rudimentary introduction to the ways in which language and culture intermesh. I read it as part of a class at the UMD, though I didn't take it with Agar, and it was one of my most favorite parts of the class. I think it deserves credit as a book that's enjoyable, not just educational. There's a very short list of the books I've read for classes that were hard to put down.

Agar's ego interferes with his insight
The actual content of this book and its truly interesting parts are muddled by its author's self-righteous, self-important conversational style of writing.

The author frequently inserts snippets about himself (whom he has quite a high opinion of), unbearably awkward similes and off-the-cuff thoughts in an effort to be clever or interesting, and winds up being neither. Perhaps his excuse is that anthropological linguistics is a very personal study, one in which fieldwork cannot be done without factoring in the researcher's temperaments. In either case, this book quickly becomes tiresome due to the author's intrusive, egotistical ramblings.

There are plenty of interesting points that he makes; unfortunately, you will have to wade through plenty of self-indulgent blather to discover them.