Multilingualism in Society

3 units

Although this is an introductory course, students who have taken Linguistics 170D "Introduction to Linguistics" will benefit from familiarity with phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. The primary content of this course explores the relationship between (multilingual) linguistic practices and other social and cultural processes. Anthropological linguistics, including alternative approaches to fieldwork and date collection are introduced, along with various studies of language usage in social and cultural contexts that consider language and thought, language and identity, language and gender, as well as multilingualism and other forms of language contact. The ethnography of speaking and communication are central to this course, as are conversation analyses. We will also consider a combination of qualitative and quantitative linguistic research methods. While this course will have important historical orientations, your own experiences with language usage within the culture (s) you know best will also be great interest. The linguistic evolution of human language usage is at the core of our foci, including ways that technology has influenced "language," "culture," and the "societies" that embraced alternative forms of communicative technology at different stages in history. The creation of writing systems and the invention of the printing press are illustrative. So too is the invention of the telegraph and morse code, as well as the invention and modernization of telephone usage. Other examples abound and will illustrate how human evolution intersects with alternative forms of human communication under different circumstances.