Fundamentals of Linguistic Anthropology

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Language is fully embedded in human culture and society. It has both meaning and efficacy; that is, it both means things and does things. Our goal in this course is to become aware of some of the ways language functions in social life, often below the level of awareness of its users. Students will engage in a number of practical exercises that demonstrate some of the more astonishing features of language all around us. Topics include: the nature of language, including language origins, nonverbal communication, and electronic communication; language, culture, and thought (linguistic relativity); speech acts and what we do with words; conversational analysis; language and identity (class, race, gender); and language in the world (multilingualism, language endangerment and revitalization, language and education).