Linguistic Anthropology of the Visual

This chapter explores fusions of linguistic anthropological research and method with visual anthropology. Visual anthropology, broadly defined, includes both the ethnographic study of visual representations and visual materials as well as the use of multimodal media in generating and sharing the results of anthropological research. The chapter provides a discussion of a particular use of ethnographic film that has been used to encompass all three roles—academic, applied, and activist visual anthropological work in the linguistic anthropology of education. In the anthropology of education, there is a particular use of ethnographic film-making known as the Video-Cued Multivocal Ethnographic method (VCME). The VCME method arose out of a cross-cultural study led by anthropologist Joseph Tobin and colleagues in early childhood development. VCME facilitates drawing critical cross-cultural and intra-cultural comparisons of educational systems across time and place, and need not be restricted to early childhood education.