# The Total Linguistic Fact ![The Total Linguistic Fact](/sites/g/files/omnuum7036/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/roman-jakobson-symposium/files/rjs2023_poster_mslv_tlf.png?itok=aTLCaoDn) #### THE TOTAL LINGUISTIC FACT: STRUCTURE, PRACTICE, IDEOLOGY ##### Reflections on the Work of [Michael Silverstein](https://news.uchicago.edu/story/michael-silverstein-groundbreaking-anthropologist-and-linguist-1945-2020) March 31 - April 1, 2023 ***The Total Linguistic Fact*** is the first of three linked conferences across three universities celebrating the work and memory of Michael Silverstein (1945-2020). The Harvard conference will focus on Silverstein’s pioneering early work from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, when he began to develop his signature ideas about indexicality and to integrate linguistic structure, practice, and ideology into a comprehensive theory of [language in culture](https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/anthropology/linguistic-anthropology/language-culture-lectures-social-semiotics-language). It was during this formative period that Silverstein trained in linguistics at Harvard with Roman Jakobson, Einar Haugen, Calvert Watkins, and Jerzy Kuryłowicz; immersed himself the linguistic and anthropological materials of Whitney, Boas, Sapir, and Whorf; carried out research among the speakers of Wasco-Wishram Chinookan (known natively as Kiksht) and Worora; and began his professional career as an anthropologist. From this mix, Silverstein made field-changing contributions to syntax, historical linguistics, and sociolinguistics/linguistic anthropology and introduced the now-foundational concepts of metapragmatics and linguistic ideology. **Friday, March 31** 9:00 – 9:30 **OPENING REMARKS** [Nicholas Harkness](https://scholar.harvard.edu/harkness), Harvard University & [Constantine Nakassis](https://anthropology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/constantine-v-nakassis), University of Chicago 9:30 – 12:00 **LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGICAL LEGACIES IN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES** Chair: [Joyhanna Yoo](https://www.joyhannagarza.com/), Harvard University **Chinookan: A Community of Practice and a “Reference Language” for North America** [Robert Moore](https://www.gse.upenn.edu/academics/faculty-directory/moore), University of Pennsylvania **On Revelation and Its Limits in Hopi: A Discursive Approach to Indigenous Knowledge** [Hannah McElgunn](https://www.queensu.ca/llcu/people-search/hannah-mcelgunn), Queens University **Enduring Languages and the Languages of Endurance: Ensuring Indigenous Continuance in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands** [Erin Debenport](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/erin-debenport/), University of California, Los Angeles 1:30 – 4:00 **CATEGORIES, COGNITION, CODE** Chair: [Stanton Wortham](https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/lynch-school/faculty-research/faculty-directory/stanton-wortham.html), Boston College **Antipassive: The Golden Jubilee** [Maria Polinsky](http://www.mariapolinsky.com/), University of Maryland, College Park **Shifters, Linguistic Categories, and Cognitive Development** [John Lucy](https://humdev.uchicago.edu/directory/john-lucy), University of Chicago **Nonreferential Indexes, the Referentialist Bias, and Ideological Mediation: On the “Exceptional Case” of Honorific Pronouns** [Luke Fleming](https://anthropo.umontreal.ca/english/department-directory/professors/professor/in/in18886/sg/Luke%20Fleming/), University of Montreal **Saturday, April 1** 9:00 – 11:30 **INSTITUTIONS, IDEOLOGIES, INDEXICALITIES** Chair: [Graham Jones](https://anthropology.mit.edu/people/faculty/graham-m-jones), Massachusetts Institute of Technology **Exploring Silverstein’s “Culture of Standardization,” with a Glance at IsiZulu** [Judith Irvine](https://lsa.umich.edu/anthro/people/emeritus/jti.html), University of Michigan **Two (and ½) Exercises in Indexical Transduction: Tzotzil Interpreting in Gringolandia** [John Haviland](https://pages.ucsd.edu/~jhaviland/), University of California, San Diego **Sociolinguistic Variation, Creative Indexicality, and Social Change** [Penelope Eckert](https://web.stanford.edu/~eckert/), Stanford University 12:30 – 3:00 **SPEECH, SEMIOSIS, SOCIAL THEORY** Chair: [Janet McIntosh](https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=99b385fb9b50f50302c06002d7a7a5d200379933), Brandeis University **Language and the Culture of Anti-Gender: The Intersection of Structure, Usage, and Ideology** [Susan Gal](https://anthropology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/susan-gal), University of Chicago **Relativism and Relativity in Late Structuralism: Semiotics of an Ontic Politics of Difference** [Christopher Ball](https://anthropology.nd.edu/people/faculty/christopher-ball/), University of Notre Dame **From Perception to Morality** [Asif Agha](https://anthropology.sas.upenn.edu/people/asif-agha), University of Pennsylvania 3:15-4:45 **ROUNDTABLE** Chair: [Steve Caton](https://anthropology.fas.harvard.edu/people/steve-caton), Harvard University - [Christopher Ball](https://anthropology.nd.edu/people/faculty/christopher-ball/), University of Notre Dame - [Judith Irvine](https://lsa.umich.edu/anthro/people/emeritus/jti.html), University of Michigan - [Robert Moore](https://www.gse.upenn.edu/academics/faculty-directory/moore), University of Pennsylvania - [Maria Polinsky](http://www.mariapolinsky.com/), University of Maryland, College Park - [Stanton Wortham](https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/lynch-school/faculty-research/faculty-directory/stanton-wortham.html), Boston College Future Conferences in the Series [***Dynamic Figurations: Context and Culture***](https://javierdomingo9.wixsite.com/dynamic-figurations) University of Montreal, September 8-9, 2023 (organized by [Luke Fleming](https://anthropo.umontreal.ca/english/department-directory/professors/professor/in/in18886/sg/Luke%20Fleming/)) [***Signification, Circulation, Emanations***](https://cscs.uchicago.edu/sce_program/) University of Chicago, Spring 2024 (organized by [Constantine Nakassis](https://anthropology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/constantine-v-nakassis))