LING 326 Language and Culture

General

• Analyze interactions between language and culture, including the influence of race and other constructs (e.g., gender, social class). This includes the relationship between colonization, languages and dialects used to privilege and marginalize speakers, and the complex relationships between identity and language.
• Analyze languages in social and cultural contexts, including the influence of race and other constructs (e.g., gender, social class). This includes the relationship between language variations used, their social prestige, and their access to power.
• Examine the anthropological study of language (e.g., phonology, morphology, syntax) and communication, including the influence of race and other constructs (e.g., gender, social class). Such study provides students with linguistic tools for understanding accents, structures of diverse languages, and ways to acquire new languages and dialects within diverse contexts.
• Explore the anthropological origin and development of language within and across human populations, including analysis of more recent developments in language use and extinction, including colonization, race, and power.
• Understand the basics of cross-cultural communication. This includes cultural distinctives related to non-verbal communication (e.g. proxemics, kinesics) leading to communicative competence.
• Understand African-American English, its rules for grammar and pronunciation, and the complex, sociohistorical influences (e.g., slavery, segregation, HBCU's)in its creation
• Understand the present and past racism connected with speakers of African-American English (AAE) at the individual, collective, cultural, political, and institutional levels.
• Understand the structure of American Sign Language (ASL), the past/present marginalization of its users, and the influences of identity and power within the Deaf community, including influences of social class and race.