Anthropology of Language (V14.0017)
NYU Department of Anthropology
Spring 2001
Prof. David Valentine
M/W 12:30-1:45, Main 207
January 17 - April 30, 2001
Office Hours: M/W 2:15-3:15
Phone: 212/998-8559
email: [email protected]
TAs:
Amy Paugh email: [email protected]
Steve Albert email: [email protected]
Course Description:
Language is a universal feature of human culture, and a vital resource for humans' ability to describe and relate to the world around them. At the same time, the relationship between language and culture is complex that raises important questions: how does language shape our view of the world? What relations of power are encoded in language use and beliefs about language? How is language used creatively to produce social worlds? This course seeks to explore these and other questions from a variety of perspectives, including language and world view, the use of metaphors in everyday speech, language socialization, language shift, and language and identity. Above all, we will be concerned with the relationships of power that are deeply enmeshed in everyday language use, and consequently, major themes of this class revolve around the politics of language and language ideologies.
Course Requirements:
You grade will be assessed according to the following formula
1. Reading journal (20%). You will be expected to submit at least one (double-spaced, typed) page of notes on issues that arise from the readings in every week that an assignment is not due.
2. Star Trek project (20%) 3. Midterm exam (30%) 4. Final exam (30%)
Grading and attendance:
Reading journal notes will not be assessed a letter grade, but they should demonstrate a progress in your thinking -- this will be assessed and assigned a letter grade at the end of the semester. These assignments are due in class on Wednesday. No late assignments will be accepted - if you fail to hand in an journal entry on time in class it will not be graded. You are expected to attend 90% of classes or your final grade will be marked down.
Assigned Texts:
The following books are required for the course and are available at the university bookstore.
Cameron, Deborah 1995 Verbal hygiene. New York: Routledge.
Duranti, Alessandro 2001 Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Cambridge, MA: Blackwells.
Kulick, Don 1992 Language shift and cultural reproduction: socialization, self, and syncretism in a Papua New Guinean village. Cambridge: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
In addition, assigned books and course readings are available at the Bobst reserve library. You can purchase a reading packet from New University Copy, 11 Waverly Place.
Course Outline
January 17: Introduction to the course
January 22: Language as an Object of Anthropological Investigation I
Readings:
Duranti, Alessandro 2001 Linguistic anthropology: history, ideas, issues. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 1-38. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
January 24: Language as an Object of Anthropological Investigation II
Readings:
Boas, Franz [1911] Introduction to the handbook of American Indian languages. in Language, culture and society: a book of readings. Ben G. Blount (ed). p. 12-31. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop.
Sapir, Edward 1933 Communication. In Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality. David G. Mandelbaum, ed. 1968. 104-109. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sapir, Edward 1974 [1927]The unconscious patterning of behavior in society. In Language, culture and society: a book of readings. Ben G. Blount (ed.). Pp.32-44. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop.
Part 2: Language and World View
January 29: The Whorfian Hypothesis
Readings:
Whorf, Benjamin Lee 2001[1939] The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 363-381. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Bulmer, R. 1973 Why the cassowary is not a bird. In Rules and meanings: the anthropology of everyday life. Mary Douglas (ed.) pp. 167-193.
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Mary Louise Pratt 1980 The Whorfian hypothesis. In Linguistics for students of literature. pp. 106-110. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Orwell, George 1983 [1949] Appendix: the principles of Newspeak. In Nineteen Eighty Four. Pp. 257-268. New York: Penguin.
January 31: Metaphors and Models
Readings:
Cohn, Carol 1996 Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals. In Gender and scientific authority. Barbara Laslett et al (eds). Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Reddy, Michael J. 1979 The conduit metaphor: a case of frame conflict in our language about language. In Metaphor and thought. Andrew Ortony (ed.) pp.284-324. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
February 5: Social Stereotypes Film: American Tongues
Readings:
Lippi-Green, R. 1994 Accent, standard language, language ideology, and the discriminatory pretext in the courts. Language in Society 23:163-198.
Haarman, H. 1984 The role of ethnocultural stereotypes and foreign languages in Japanese commercials. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 50:101-120.
February 7: Language and World View: conclusion
Readings:
Preston, Dennis R. 1982 'Ritin 'Fowklower Daun 'Rong: Folklorists' failure in phonology. Journal of American Folklore 95(377):304-326.
Preston, Dennis R. 1985 The Li'l Abner syndrome: written representations of speech. American Speech 60(4):328-336.
Part 3: Speech Acts, Speech Communities
February 12: Speech Acts and Speech Events
Readings:
Mitchell-Kernan, C. 2001 Signifying and Marking: Two Afro-American Speech Acts. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp.151-164. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Basso, Keith 1972 "To give up on words:" silence in Western Apache culture. in Language and social context. Pier Paolo Giglioli (ed). New York: Penguin.
February 14: Competence and Communities
Readings:
Gumperz, John 2001 The speech community. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 43-52. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Hymes, Dell 2001 On Communicative competence. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 53-73. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
February 19 NO CLASS - PRESIDENT'S DAY HOLIDAY
February 21: Speech Communities **Star Trek Project Due**
Readings:
Morgan, Marcyliena M. 2001 The African-American Speech Community: Reality and Sociolinguistics. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 74-94. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Jackson, Jean 1974 Language identity of the Vaupés Indians. in Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer (eds). London ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bailey, Benjamin 2001 Communication of respect in interethnic service encounters. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). Pp. 119-146. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Part 4: Language and Identity
February 26: Is There a "Women's Language?"
Readings:
Gal, Susan 2001 Language, gender, and power: an anthropological review. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 420-430. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
O'Barr, William M. and Bowman K. Atkins 1980 "Women's language" or "powerless language"? in Women and language in literature and society. Sally McConnell-Ginet et al (eds). pp 93-110. New York: Praeger.
February 28: Gender, Sexuality, and Age
Readings:
Cameron, Deborah 1997 Performing gender identity: young men's talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity. In Language and masculinity. Sally Johnson and Ulrike Hanna Meinhof (eds). pp.47-64. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnnell-Ginet 1995 Constructing meaning, constructing selves: snapshots of language, gender, and class from Belten High. in Gender articulated: language and the socially constructed self. Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds). New York: Routledge.
March 5: Ethnicity, Race, and Nationalism
Readings:
Gal, S. 1984 Peasant men can't get wives: language change and sex roles in a bilingual community. in Language in Use: Readings in Sociolinguistics. J. Baugh and J. Sherzer, eds. pp.292-304. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hill, Jane 2001 Language, race, and white public space. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 450-464. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
March 7: MIDTERM EXAM
March 12 and March 14: NO CLASS - SPRING BREAK!
Part 5: Language Socialization and Literacy
March 19: Language Socialization
Readings:
Ochs, Elinor and Bambi Schieffelin 2001 Language Acquisition and socialization: three developmental stories and their implications. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 263-301. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Schieffelin, Bambi B. 1981 A sociolinguistic analysis of a relationship. Discourse processes 4:189-196.
March 21: Home and School
Readings:
Heath, Shirley Brice 2001 What no bedtime story means: narrative skills at home and school. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 318-342. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Philips, Susan U. 2001 Participant structures and communicative competence: Warm Springs children in community and classroom. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 302-317. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
March 26: Literacy
Readings:
Guss, David M. 1986 Keeping it oral: a Yekuana ethnology. American Ethnologist 13(3):413-29.
Duranti, Alessandro and Eleanor Ochs 1986 Literacy Instruction in a Samoan Village. In The Acquisition of Literacy; ethnographic Perspectives. B.B. Schieffelin and P. Gilmore, eds. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp.
Part 6: Language shift and language death
March 28:
Readings:
Kulick - introduction, chapters 1 and 2
April 2:
Readings:
Kulick - chapters 3 and 4
April 4:
Readings:
Kulick - chapters 5 and 6
April 9:
Readings:
Kulick - 7 and conclusion
Part 7: Language, Ideology, and Social Power
April 11:
Readings:
Cameron - Preface, Chapter 1
April 16:
Readings:
Cameron - Chapters 2 and 3
April 18:
Readings:
Cameron - Chapters 4 and 5
April 23:
Readings:
Cameron - Chapter 6
Irvine, Judith T. 1989 When talk isn't cheap: language and political economy. American Ethnologist 16(2):248-26.
April 25: Course Review
April 30: FINAL PAPER DUE