This course description is provided from Haverford College's Academic Catalog. More information about course offerings and academic programs can be found in the catalog or in the Academics section of the College's website.
ANTH B281 THE POWER IN LANGUAGE: INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY (1.0 Credit)
Amanda Weidman
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This course provides an introduction to the concepts and methods of linguistic anthropology, which can help us understand the role language plays in constructing identities, creating social and political hierarchies, and shaping understandings and experiences of the world. The course considers topics relevant to the everyday life of language in the U.S. context, including the relationship between language and gender, race, and socioeconomic inequality, and uses ethnographic materials from a variety of cultural contexts to explore three perspectives that are central to linguistic anthropology. These are: language, power, and the linguistic market: how different languages and the ways of speaking get associated with particular social groups and become valued or devalued; linguistic ideologies and semiotic processes: how language as a system of signs becomes meaningful, to whom, and in what ways; poetics and performance: how people "do things with words" and how the non-referential (sonic, poetic) aspects of language matter.