Introduction
Towards a linguistic anthropology of AI
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15083182 |
|---|---|
| Authors | W Keane (0000-0003-4981-7030, University of Michigan, corresponding author), Constantine V Nakassis (0000-0002-6672-3792, University of Chicago) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 967-982 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-13 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1359-0987 • E-ISSN: 1467-9655 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9655.70131 |
| OpenAlex | W7154028904 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 22 |
This essay introduces the themed cluster of articles, ‘Towards a linguistic anthropology of AI’. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI), especially in large language models capable of producing coherent discourse mimicking conversational interaction, is exerting unprecedented pressure on prevailing concepts of language, personhood, and the human. This provides a challenge and opportunity for reflection, particularly for linguistic anthropology, that sub‐field centred on language as medium/practice of meaning‐making in social life. Moving beyond AI as communicating machine to explore communicative processes that structure AI as ideological imaginary and technological infrastructure, the articles in this cluster draw on linguistic anthropology to examine different facets of AI as people take it up, such as the features that invite users to endow chatbots with personhood (Keane), attempts to use AI to unlock animal communication (Handman), and research seeking linguistic biomarkers predictive of psychopathology (Semel). To contextualize the articles, this introduction offers some basic semiotic distinctions developed within linguistic anthropology needed to parse AI, with a focus on the concept of semiotic ideology. We then situate AI within a set of ideological genealogies – from Enlightenment visions of universal languages to the representationalism of modern linguistics – before turning to themes of transduction and semiosis beyond the human
Anthropological linguistics · Focus (optics) · Ideology · Linguistic anthropology · Linguistic description · Neologism · Semiosis · Semiotics · Vision · Categorization, perception, and language · Language and cultural evolution · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition
Voices of Modernity
Signs of Difference
Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function
Signs of Recognition
Philosophical papers and letters
Language machines
Human tests for machine models
On Semiotic Ideology
Talking Heads
Poetics and Performances as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life
Politics of Translation
Media Ideologies
Is Sybil there? the structure of some American English directives
Semiotics and the social analysis of material things
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |