ANTH 250 - Language, Culture, and Society

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

This course draws on a wide range of theoretical perspectives in exploring a particular problem, emphasizing the contribution of linguistics and linguistic anthropology to issues that bear on research in a number of disciplines. At issue in each selected course topic are the complex ways in which cultures, societies, and individuals are interrelated in the act of using language within and across particular speech communities.

Topic for 2013/14a: Language as Social Action. This class offers an advanced introduction the sense in which language usage can serve as a form of social action. After a brief consideration of the basic semiotic properties of human language, we will go on to consider the following theoretical topics: the text-like character of language-mediated social interaction, the way that interaction articulates with systems of social differentiation, and the special utility of ethnographic or “cultural” approaches to language-mediated interaction. We will then explore how these concepts reveal specific sociocultural contexts, drawing on extended case studies of language usage in a Native American context and in the context of globalization. Students will also be trained in distinctive methodology of scholars interested in language as a form of social action: the recording, transcription, and analysis of naturally occurring talk. May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed. Mr. Smith.

Prerequisite(s): ANTH 150 or permission of the instructor.

Two 75-minute periods.