Course info

ANTH 212/A (Winter 2025): LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY

This course is an introduction to formative debates and major contemporary topics in linguistic anthropology, in which students investigate the many-sided relationship between language, culture, and society. The first half of the course introduces students to foundational disciplinary concepts and concerns, including the role that language plays in influencing thought and perception; the role that cultural ideas about language and communication play in shaping how people use and understand language; the multifunctional quality of language and its importance as a medium of communication, identification, and action; and the ways media technologies shapes a language’s use, circulation, and reception. The second part of the course covers major areas of concern in contemporary linguistic anthropology, including language contact and creolization; language learning, socialization, and (non)-acquisition; language, gender, and sexuality; monolingualism and multilingualism; language activism and social justice; and language and cognition beyond human contexts.

 

By the end of the course, students will be able to recognize and deploy major terms and concepts in linguistic anthropology, as well as to identify and describe important debates in the field. Students will develop a basic familiarity with disciplinary research methodologies. Additionally, students will acquire intellectual tools to critically discuss and analyze commonplace assumptions and ideas about language, to recognize the influence of powerful institutions like schools, states, and markets in shaping these ideas, and to better understand language’s role in meaning-making and social agency.