ANT 3620 Language and Culture
Dr. Schwartz
Humans use language to accomplish many of their communicative goals, but the forms and functions of language use vary across cultures. After a crash course in linguistic approaches to phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, students consider anthropological approaches to language in its diverse social and cultural contexts. Topics including silence; kinesics and proxemics; gender and sexuality; race and ethnicity; endangered languages and language policy; and pidgins and creoles. Assignments include exciting problem sets as well as essays on dictionaries and what witnesses should be able to say in court about a speaker’s identity based only on their overheard voice. As part of a take-home final exam, students have the option of participating in an epic finale on constructed languages—think: Esperanto, Tolkien, or any of the movies you’ve seen with invented languages!