Course Description

We often think of ourselves as users of language but less often as subjects who construct our identities and experience of the world through language. The languages we speak have a profound influence on how we understand our world but are also used by speakers to express particular subject positions such as class, gender, race, ethnicity and national identity. This course will provide an introduction to linguistic anthropology, one of the four sub-fields of anthropology, through an exploration of the social, cultural, and political dimensions of the use of language in everyday life. In the course, we will explore the role of language in society through readings in linguistic anthropology and ethnography, and through our own observations of the talk that fills our worlds. We will see how language intersects with different media of communication and expression including text, poetry, and anthropology itself. By the end of the course, students will be able to recognize how they and those around them are active subjects who construct their very identities and experience of the world through language.