LING 6320 - Linguistic Anthropology:
Professor: Kira Hall
Time: Tuesday 3:30-6:15
Place: Stadium 135
Course description:
Linguistic anthropology, one of the four classic subfields of anthropology,
seeks to explicate culture and society ethnographically as they emerge
through language and discourse. This graduate-level introduction to the
field examines language as a form of action through which social relations
and cultural forms are constituted. The seminar is organized around key
concepts that are of ongoing importance to contemporary linguistic
anthropologists, among them practice, ideology, indexicality, and identity.
Because social subjectivity is produced, challenged, and affirmed through
linguistic practice, the readings required for the course view speakers and
hearers as embedded within complex relations of race, class, gender, and
sexuality. We will explore issues that have been central to research and
discussion in linguistic anthropology, such as language, categorization, and
worldview; language socialization; models of language as action; ritual and
performance; language endangerment and globalization; intertextuality and
dialogism; the co-construction of meaning in conversation; language,
nationalism, and modernity; and literacy practices.
This seminar has several goals: (1) to provide students with a comprehensive
understanding of the historical development of theory and practice in the
field of linguistic anthropology; (2) to equip students with the analytic
tools necessary to understand and evaluate contemporary research in
linguistic anthropology; (3) to explore the potential of ethnography for
sociolinguistic analysis more generally; and (4) to bring students to a
critical awareness of the place of language in the constitution of social,
cultural, and political relations.
Required texts:
Course reader. (Available for purchase during the first week of classes.)
Duranti, Alessandro (2004). A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Malden,
MA: Blackwell.
Basso, Keith (1996). Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language
among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Jacobs-Huey, Lanita (2006). From the Kitchen to the Parlor: Language and
Becoming in African American Women's Hair Care. New York: Oxford.
Inoue, Miyako (2006). Vicarious Language: Gender and Linguistic Modernity in
Japan. Berkeley: UC Press.
Recommended texts:
Duranti, Alessandro (1997). Linguistic Anthropology. New York: Cambridge.
Duranti, Alessandro, ed. (2001). Key Terms in Language and Culture. Malden,
MA: Blackwell.
Foley, William A. (1997). Anthropological Linguistics. Malden, MA:
Blackwell.
EDUC 5615 - Second Language Acquisition Theories:
Professor: Kathy Escamilla
Time: Monday 4:30-7:00
Place: Hellems 141
Course description:
This course will examine the intricate web of variables that interact in the second language leaning process. These variables include linguistic, cognitive, social, cultural, and political factors. Learning a second language is both an individual and social experience. It includes linguistic, cultural, cognitive, social, psychological, and emotional elements. As such, second language learning involves complex interactions between the individual and the contexts in which s/he interacts. The emphasis in the course will be on examining each of these factors in turn and then attempting to understand how they work together to foster or inhibit successful second language learning and acquisition.
SPAN 4450/5450: Introduction to Hispanic Sociolinguistics (Introducción a la
Sociolingüística Hispánica)
Professor: Esther Brown
Time: 2:00-3:15
Place: McKenna 103
Course description:
This is a graduate-level introduction to the study of how language
shapes and is shaped by society. The course will cover various
approaches to sociolinguistic research with particular attention paid to
quantitative methods employed within variationist approaches to
language. Most examples for topics covered in class will be drawn, when
possible, from studies conducted on varieties of Spanish world-wide.
Advanced comprehension of spoken & written Spanish is required.
