Language in a Multicultural World

3 credits · Undergraduate credit

This course focuses on global multilingualism as an issue in language policy, language planning, and language contact in general, with all its social implications for large as well as small language communities. Some language contacts lead to bloody conflicts in which language is ostensibly the major bone of contention; other languages in contact have enjoyed a peaceful coexistence for hundreds or thousands of years. The course offers no tidy prediction about hostile vs. friendly language contacts, but it does provide an extensive comparative view of both national and local interactions between language and society.