| Linguistic Anthropology Sarah Lawrence College (ANTH-3205-R) Fall 2003 Instructor: David Valentine Class location:Sheffield 01 Office: Sheffield 05 Class dates: Monday and Thursday, 9/8/03 -12/18/03 Phone: 914.395.2363 email: [email protected] Course Description: The "English Only" movement in the United States has been attempting for years to have English recognized as the nation's official language.... On a daily basis, people with non-standard accents are asked where they come from.... In New Guinea, languages which have thrived for centuries are dying out... People claim that they can "tell" if someone is gay or straight by the way they speak. While language is a universal feature of human culture, and a vital resource for humans' ability to describe and relate to the world around them, language is also deeply political in nature. This course aims to consider, from an anthropological perspective, how language as a social phenomenon is enmeshed in relations of social power. The complex relationship between language and culture 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? What are the politics of using one variety of language over another? 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, the major themes of this class revolve around the politics of language and language ideologies. Course Requirements: Three 5-6 page papers are due in class on dates to be determined. There will also be two short research projects. Course Requirements Class work for the semester will consist of the following formal projects: 1. Three 4-5 page papers, due in class on days noted in syllabus below. 2. Two mini-research projects, to be discussed in class. Note that conference papers are due on December 12 Class work is due in class on the days noted in the syllabus below. I do not grant extensions other than for exceptional circumstances. If you believe you are embroiled in such a circumstance, I expect you to request an extension at least a day before the paper is due; DO NOT come to class without completed work unless I have granted you an extension. I am always willing to look at drafts of your work up until two days before the due date, which you may email me. I will not, however, accept emailed versions of your papers. Conferences I am very serious about conference work, and assume that you will be too. I expect that you will complete the tasks we have agreed on for your conference work prior to your conference. Please: always bring hard copy of your bibliographies or other assignments to your conferences. Policy on Lateness and Attendance Please pay particular attention to the following: you are, naturally, expected to attend all classes and conferences associated with this class. It is expected that if you have to miss a class for a valid reason (such as illness or family emergency), you will inform me prior to the class, or as soon thereafter as is possible. Since this is a seminar, your attendance and participation in class discussions is a central part of the course. I will take attendance in the first ten minutes of class. If you arrive late for class, you will not have the opportunity to sign the attendance sheet, and this will be noted as an absence. Please note the attendance policy: more than two unexcused absences will result in reduced credit for this course. Assigned Texts: The following books are required for the course and are available at the university bookstore. Ahearn, Laura M. 2001 Invitations to love: literacy, love letters, and social change in Nepal. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press. Basso, Keith 1996 Wisdom sits in places: landscape and language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press Duranti, Alessandro (ed.) 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 in the reserve library, or as a packet from me. Course Outline Part 1: Language as an Object of Anthropological Investigation 1. Introduction to the course (9/8/03) 2. Language as an Object of Anthropological Investigation I (9/11/03) Readings: Duranti, Alessandro 2001 Linguistic anthropology: history, ideas, issues. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 1-38. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Boas, Franz 1889 On alternating sounds. American Anthropologist 2 (3): 47-53. Saussure, Ferdinand de 1985 [ ] The linguistic sign. In Semiotics: an introductory anthology. Robert E. Innis (ed.) pp28-46. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 3. Language as an Object of Anthropological Investigation II (9/15/03) 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 1968[1933] Communication. In Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality. David G. Mandelbaum, ed. 104-109. Berkeley: University of California Press. Part 2: Language and World View 4. The "Whorfian Hypothesis" and "Habitual Thought" I (9/18/03) Readings: 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. 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. 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. 5. The "Whorfian Hypothesis" and "Habitual Thought" II (9/22/03) Readings: **PROJECT 1 DUE IN CLASS** Orwell, George 1983 [1949] Appendix: the principles of Newspeak. In Nineteen Eighty Four. Pp. 257-268. New York: Penguin. 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. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 6. Metaphors, Models, and Modes I (9/25/03) Film: Darmok Readings: 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. 7. Metaphors, Models, and Modes II (9/29/03) 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. Collins, John and Ross Glover (eds.) 2002 Collateral language: a user's guide to America's new war. New York: New York University Press (read introduction and two of the following chapters: Evil, Terrorism, Unity, The War on_____). 8. Social Stereotypes (10/2/03) 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. Young, Linda Wai Ling 1982 Inscrutability revisited. In Language and social identity. John J. Gumperz (ed.) Pp 72-84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Part 3: Speech Acts, Speech Communities 9. Communicative Competence (10/6/03) ** Darmok Paper Due in Class ** Readings: Hymes, Dell 2001 On Communicative competence. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 53-73. 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. 10. Speech Acts and Speech Events (10/9/03) Readings: Bailey, Benjamin 2001 Communication of respect in interethnic service encounters. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). Pp. 119-146. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. 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. 11. Speech Communities I (10/13/03) Readings: Gumperz, John 2001 The speech community. In Linguistic anthropology: a reader. Alessandro Duranti (ed). pp. 43-52. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. 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. 12. Speech Communities II (10/16/03) Readings: Jackson, Jean 1974 Language identity of the Vaup�s Indians. in Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer (eds). London ; New York: Cambridge University Press. Gal, Susan 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. October Study Days: 10/20/03 & 10/21/03 Part 4: Language and Identity 13. Language and Landscape I (10/23/03) Readings: Basso, Keith 1996 Wisdom sits in places: landscape and language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 14. Language and Landscape II (10/27/03) ** Transcription Project Due in Class ** Readings: Basso, Keith 1996 Wisdom sits in places: landscape and language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 15. Language and Landscape III (10/30/03) Readings: Basso, Keith 1996 Wisdom sits in places: landscape and language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 16. Language and Gender: Is There a "Woman's Language?" (11/3/03) Readings: Tannen, Deborah 1990 You just don't understand: women and men in conversation. New York: Morrow.(selections) 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. 17. Language and Gender as Performance (11/6/03) 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. Part 5: Socialization, Literacy, and Social Change 18. Literacy and Love I (11/10/03) ** Paper 2 Due in Class ** Readings: Ahearn, Laura M. 2001 Invitations to love: literacy, love letters, and social change in Nepal. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press. 19. Literacy and Love II (11/13/03) Readings: Ahearn, Laura M. 2001 Invitations to love: literacy, love letters, and social change in Nepal. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press. 20. Literacy and Love III (11/17/03) Readings: Ahearn, Laura M. 2001 Invitations to love: literacy, love letters, and social change in Nepal. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press. 21. Language Socialization (11/20/03) 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. 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. 22. Conference Presentations and Course Review (11/24/03) Thanksgiving Break: 11/27/03 23. Language Socialization and Language Shift I (12/1/03) **Paper 3 Due in Class ** Readings: Kulick, Don 1992 Language shift and cultural reproduction: socialization, self, and syncretism in a Papua New Guinean village. Cambridge: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 24. Language Socialization and Language Shift II (12/4/03) Readings: Kulick, Don 1992 Language shift and cultural reproduction: socialization, self, and syncretism in a Papua New Guinean village. Cambridge: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Part 7: Conclusion: Language and Social Power 25. Verbal Hygiene (12/8/03) Cameron, Deborah 1995 Dr. Syntax and Mrs. Grundy. In Verbal hygiene. New York: Routledge. 26. Course Review and Conference Presentations (12/11/03) |