Language, Migration, Diaspora

1 Course Unit

Centering on the relation between language, migration, and diaspora, this course uses linguistic anthropological approaches to understand how the 'very big' is reflected in the 'very small.' We will approach language use as a process that unfolds in the microclimate of everyday interaction, but whose effects extend to and shape large-scale social processes. We will ask a number of interrelated questions: How does language use shape global phenomena like transnationalism and diasporic populations? How do globalizing forces impact and shape language structure and use? How are mobility and (im)migration enabled or constrained through everyday communicative interaction? We begin by exploring the ideologies inherent in everyday speech, evaluating how language is linked to social identities like class, race, gender, and sexuality, and to social personae like 'the migrant,' 'the refugee,' 'the foreigner,' or to the 'diasporic subject' more generally. We then explore the cultural politics of languages in and across nation-states, attending to their uses and values in unprecedented global flows of information, goods, and people. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit