ANTH 213D LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

MW 10:00-11:50, HSS 235

Instructor: Doug Smith

Office: HSS 214

Hours: MW 9:00-9:50; TR 2:00-3:00

Phone: 88372, email: smithw@wou.edu

Course Description

This course provides an introduction to the study of language in its relationship with culture and society. We will focus on the nature of language as a faculty that sets humans apart from all other species, and the roles of language and language use in constructing worldviews, cultural values, social relationships, institutional orders, places, and identities. The course will explore the diverse ways in which people employ language in different cultural and social settings, and encourage students to reflect critically about the relations between language, social and cultural practices, and power.

Required Texts

Books: Blum, Susan D. (2009) Making Sense of Language. New York: Oxford University Press

Mendoza-Denton, Norma (2008) Homegirls. Malden, MA: Blackwell

Course Responsibilities

Regular attendance and conscientious participation will make or break your performance in this class. Please come to class having done the reading for that period, and be ready to respond to it in discussion. I highly recommend you take notes on a text as you read it; this will provide you with a reference for discussion and exam preparation.

Discussion

Discussion will be one of the pillars of this class. In keeping with my conviction that students learn better when they assume part of the teaching responsibility, you will lead discussions. That is, on one occasion, each student will serve on a four-member discussion leading team, which will have prepared topics and questions for discussion during a given class period. Refer to class schedule for days on which we will hold student-led discussions.

Exams

There will be an hour-long, in-class midterm involving definitions and short answers to questions, all of them based on material in Blum’s Making Sense of Language. And there will be a take-home final, based on Mendoza-Denton’s book Homegirls, for which you will write two short essays (four pages total). No midterm make-up will be granted unless a documented medical emergency keeps you from the classroom on April 29. And please note: I cannot grant extensions on final papers.

Research-Based Writing Assignment

I will ask you to write one account of a small piece of linguistic anthropological fieldwork that you yourself conduct. The first order of business is to choose a research setting: a restaurant, church, shopping mall, a party, a supermarket, organization, sporting event, whatever (this is a partial list—the possibilities are many). And you will investigate how people use language, action, materials, and the environment to go about social relations in that setting. The idea here is to use the methodologies and the craft of the anthropologist to explore the cultural richness that even a very close-to-home field site has to offer. We will use the Ethnography of Speaking model (you will learn this well) to guide you. By the end of week 6 I will expect you to have determined the basic what, where, and how of your project and ask you to submit a one-paragraph paper précis in class on May 6. And at the end of week 8, you will submit a short transcript of actual conversation upon which you are focusing part or all of your analysis in the paper. Early in the term I will present you with a handout fully guidelining this project.

Note on Plagiarism: WOU’s policy against plagiarism is very rigorous. If you use another person’s words, information, or ideas without acknowledging that source, you have committed plagiarism. Plagiarism is not restricted to simple word-for-word copying; it includes paraphrasing without noting the original source. Plagiarism is subject to one or another penalty, from failing a given assignment to dismissal from the university.

Grading

Midterm: 25%

Fieldwork Paper: 35%

Final: 25%

Participation: 15%

Course Calendar (subject to change)

Module 1: Foundations

Week 1

3/30 Intro to Course and some Linguistics Basics

4/1 Foundational Issues

Blum, Chapters 1, 3, and 4

Exercise: Understanding Holism in Linguistic Anthropology

Week 2

4/6 The Linguistic Relativity Debate

Blum, Chapters 6, 9, and 11

Video: “Let There Be Words”

4/8 Linguistic Relativity contd.

Blum, Chapter 12

Discussion

Module 2: Language, Society, and Identity

Week 3

4/13 Region, Race, and Class

Blum, Chapters 23, 25, 29

Video: “American Tongues”

4/15 Race and Ethnicity

Blum, Chapters 27 and 28

Discussion

Week 4

4/20 Gender

Blum, Chapters 30, 31, 33

Video: “He Said, She Said”

4/22 Gender, Culture, and Power

Cohn, Carol: “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals”

JSTOR

Discussion

Module 3: Words as Instruments and Ideology in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Week 5

4/27 Getting Things Done in Ritual Speech

Blum, Chapters 35, 36, 38

Discussion

4/29 Information Technology as New Frontier for Language Practice

Blum, Chapter 40

Midterm

Week 6

5/4 The Communicative Power of Silence

Blum, Chapters 44 and 45

Discussion

5/6 The Sway of Standard Dialect

Blum, Chapter 42

Submit: Fieldwork Paper Precis

Module 4: Ethnography in Linguistic Anthropology: One Very Good Example

Week 7

5/11 Setting the Scene in Sor Juana: Community and Fieldwork

Mendoza-Denton, pp. 2-3, Chapters 1 and 2

Discussion

5/13 What People Say about Gangs

Mendoza-Denton, Chapter 3

Video: “Mi Vida Loca”

Week 8

5/18 The Politics of Youth, Ethnicity, and Gender in Norte and Sur

Mendoza-Denton, Chapters 4 and 5

Discussion

5/20 The Material Culture of Girl Gangs

Mendoza-Denton, Chapter 6

Transcript Due

Week 9

5/25 No Class: Memorial Day

Mendoza-Denton, Chapters 7 and 8

Discussion

5/27 Teen Speech

Fieldwork Paper Due

Module : Endangered Languages, Language Death, and Revitalization

Week 10

6/1 Histories of Language Extinction

Blum, Chapters 20, 21

Video: Voices of the World

6/3 Language Recovery

Blum, Chapter 22

Discussion

Final take-home exam due Mon., June 8, by 5 p.m..