ANTH 250 - Language, Culture, and Society

Semester Offered: Spring
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.

May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed. Louis Romer.

Topic for 2021/22b: Language and Power. How can the study of language and its use advance our understanding of power and political action? This course analyzes how language and rhetorical prowess are essential for the distribution and exercise of power through the discussion of readings on political oratory, rumor and scandal, and satire. Readings on mass media and the public sphere illustrate the role of language in political mobilization, the formation of collective identities, and the enforcement of social inequalities and exclusion. Readings on campaigns and electoral politics explore the use of language for the performance of civility and moral virtue, as well as the covert mobilization of class, racial, gender, and ethnic stereotypes. Finally, readings on democracy promotion campaigns in post-colonial settings explore the use of language in the affirmation and contestation of ideals of secularism, liberal democracy, and modernity. Students apply methodological and theoretical tools of linguistic anthropology to analyze the structural features and the political effects of real world examples of political satire, scandal, and oratory. Louis Römer.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS