LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Anthropology 260 Spring 2002

Professor: Maria Tapias (tapias@grinnell.edu)         Lecture: MW 2:15-4:00

            Goodnow Hall 203                                               Carnegie 314

            Phone: 269-3137

Office Hours: MW 4-5 and Th 11-1 and 2-4. During office hours, please feel free to stop by without an appointment. If you don’t want to have to wait during office hours however, please email me and we’ll set up a definite time to meet.

Course Description: Linguistic anthropologists study the dynamic interaction between language, culture and society. Although there are many theoretical approaches within this sub field of anthropology, most linguistic anthropologists begin with the assumption that an understanding of how people communicate extends beyond just what people “say” and includes what people “do” with language and their bodies to deploy meaning in ways that are contextually and culturally significant. Speaking, gesturing, remaining silent, telling stories, using particular forms of dress are among many of the practices used by people in their interactions with others that communicate their intentions and help construct identity, (de)legitimize power and exert or challenge authority. The class will be divided into five sections in which we will explore: the relationship between language and culture; the politics of language; language in context; non-verbal communication; and language and gender.

Required Texts:

*Rosina Lippi-Green 1997 English With an Accent New York Routledge Press.

*Carol Padden and Tom Humphries 1988 Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture Harvard University Press.

*Keith Basso 1996 Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache University of New Mexico Press.

*Ruth Rubinstein 2000 Dress Codes Westview Press.

RESERVE READINGS (RR) HELD IN THE LIBRARY AND IN THE ANTHROPOLOGY READING ROOM: GOODNOW HALL 3^RD FLOOR.

Course Organization and Requirements:

Organization

The class will be structured as a seminar. Occasionally I will lecture or lead a group activity but for the most part the class will rely heavily on active discussion of the articles, themes and books that we cover. Each student will help lead two of the discussions during the semester. Students responsible for discussion should plan to meet with me briefly before the class that they will lead.

I have very high expectations of your performance and active participation in class. The reading load is heavy and technical terminology or the difficulty of some of the readings should not discourage you. As the semester progresses you will become more familiar with the intellectual issues and arguments.

I would like to encourage students with documented disabilities, including non-visible disabilities such as chronic diseases, learning disabilities, head injury, attention deficit/hyperactive disorder, psychiatric disabilities, to discuss with me, after class or during my office hours, appropriate accommodations. You will need to provide documentation of your disability to the Associate Dean and Director of Academic Advising, Joyce Stern, located in the lower level of the Forum (x3702)

Requirements

1. Class attendance and participation. (15%) You are expected to attend all classes and regularly participate in class. Active participation means keeping up to date on the readings, participating in discussions or debates, as well as contributing to group work. I will take attendance at every class. Each student is allowed 2 absences without suffering penalty. Missing more than 2 classes will be reflected in a significant decrease in the participation grade. Any assignment that is missed because of an UNEXCUSED absence will receive a zero. Excused absences will still count towards your two, but you will be allowed to make up the assignments. An excused absence is given only in the case of medical emergencies or a death in the family. Notice must be provided through academic affairs. You are responsible for viewing missed films and/or obtaining missed notes from one of your peers.

2. Leading Discussion. (15%). You will help lead two discussions during the semester. You shall be leading discussion with at least one other student so you should plan to meet and discuss what your strategy will be for discussion. If pertinent you can bring in examples from popular culture (movies, songs, magazines etc) or other vehicles that allow you to bring the reading to life. In addition, the group should plan to meet with me briefly prior to class to discuss your plan. On the day of the discussion each of you will be expected to hand in a one page summary of your part of the presentation as well as the group of questions you plan to raise in class.

A note on discussions: Discussions provide a forum for a collective reflection of the texts. As we read the texts we will often engage with them and interpret them along our own experiences and personal backgrounds. The reading one makes of a text will naturally vary across the class and that is what makes a discussion exciting! Please come prepared to share your experiences and respect the experiences and readings of others. You are here not only to learn from the professor and the readings but also from each other. Your failure to participate is a loss to all of us!

3. Discourse/Conversation Analysis. (15%). This paper will enable you to utilize one of the methods used by Linguistic anthropologists. It will require that you tape, transcribe and analyze a segment of naturally occurring speech. Due: March 13^th.

4. Three Reaction Papers (10% each for a total of 30%). In each of these papers, you will write a critical analysis of one of the books or groups of papers discussed under a given topic. These papers are not to be a summary of the readings but rather should be an “engagement” with the text. If you wish you may structure your paper as a letter to the author or may write it in standard paper format. In your paper you may try to synthesize the various readings: points where authors agree or disagree, issues left out by the author, questions that remain, the applicability of the theoretical ideas to specific contexts etc.

If you are writing a critique of a particular book you should grapple with what the author is trying to argue. It is not sufficient to say “I don’t agree with X”; rather you should frame your statements as “X’s argument is not persuasive because…” or “X’s argument is limited because it does not take into account…”. If you are making a positive critique you should point out how the author made you think of the topic in a new manner and what you learned from his analysis. Obviously in the same paper you may have positive and negative reactions to the texts. Each paper should be no longer than 4 pages.

5. Final paper and proposal. (20% and 5% respectively). You shall write one 10-12-page research paper for this class on a topic to be approved before hand. You may chose to write a paper on one of the topics explored in class (with at least four more references) or you may write a paper on a topic we did not explore in class. A one-page proposal and bibliography will be due April 8^th . You will present your projects to class during the last class and the final period.

Course Schedule

1. LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

WEEK 1.

Mon., Jan 21 General introductions and Class “business”.

Wed., Jan 23

LANGUAGE AND PERSONAL IDENTITY

RR:      Edith Cunha: Talking in the New World

Maxine Hong Kingston: Finding a Voice

            Nancy Lord: Native Tongues

            Laura Bohannon: Shakespeare in the Bush

All papers in Virginia Clark et al. eds. Language 1998 Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.

WEEK 2.

Mon., Jan 28

LANGUAGE AND ITS STUDY

RR:      Harvey A. Daniels: Nine Ideas About Language

            W.F. Bolton: Language: An Introduction

All papers in Virginia Clark et al. eds. Language 1998 Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.

Wed., Jan 30

LANGUAGE AND THE WORK OF REPRESENTATION

RR:     Stuart Hall: Introduction in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices 1997 Stuart Hall ed. Sage Press.

            Stuart Hall: Chapter 1. The Work of Representation

2. The Politics of Language

WEEK 3.

Mon., Feb 4.

LANGUAGE, ACCENTS AND DESCRIMINATION

FILM: English with an Accent

RR:      John Esling: “Everyone Has an Accent Except Me”

Dennis Preston: “They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City”

Howard Giles and Nancy Niedzielski: “Italian is Beautiful, German is Ugly”

Papers in Language Myths 1998 Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill eds. New York. Penguin Books

Wed., Feb 6.

*Lippi-Green English with an Accent (EWA): Introduction (pp. 3-6), Chapter 2 (41-52)

            Chapter 3 (53-62), Chapter 4 (63-73)

Group presentations are next week! Each group should plan to come see me THURSDAY OR FRIDAY to tell me what they will present in addition to the chapter.

WEEK 4.

Mon., Feb 11.

LANGUAGE SUBORDINATION AT WORK

*Everyone will read: EWA “Introduction: Language Subordination at Work” (77-78), the chapter they were assigned for their group presentations, and one additional chapter of their choice from this section (come with questions for the groups).

Group Presentations

Group 1: Accents in movies and the entertainment industry

Group 2. The educational system

Group 3: The information industry: Selling America to Americans

Group 4. Language ideology in the work place and the judicial system.

Wed., Feb 13

WHAT WE REAP: CONSENT MANUFACTURED

FILM: The Story of English, Part 5.

*EWA: Chapter 9: The Real Trouble with Black English

RR:      Geneva Smitherman: “’It Bees Dat Way Sometime’: Sounds and Structure of Present Day Black English” in Virginia Clark et al. eds. Language 1998 Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.

Prepare for Ebonics panel discussion next Monday!

WEEK 5.

Mon., Feb 18

The Ebonics Debate:

John Rickford: “The Ebonics Controversy in my Backyard: A Sociolinguist’s experiences and reflections”

Found at: http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers/EbonicsInMyBackyard.html

John Rickford: “Suite for Ebony and Phonics”

Found at: http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers/SuiteForEbonyAndPhonics.html

Linguistics Society of America (LSA) Resolution on the Oakland “Ebonics” Issue: http://www.lsadc.org/web2/resolutionsfr.htm

Leila Monaghan: “Can’t teach a dog to be a cat? The Dialogue on Ebonics” Anthropology Newsletter, March 1997, 1,8-9, 44.

Brent Staples: “The last train from Oakland” New York Times, 29 Jan 1997.

Letters responding to Staples editorial. New York Times, 29 Jan 1997.

Rich Frank “The Ebonics Plague: A great Non-Debate” New York Times, 8 Jan 1997.

Wed. Feb 20.

AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE

*Carol Padden and Tom Humphries: Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture (DIA) Introduction, Chapter 1 and 2.

RR       Karen Emmorey: “Sign Language” in Virginia Clark et al. eds. Language 1998 Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.

WEEK 6.

Mon, Feb 25.

AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE CONTINUED

*DIA: Chapters 3,4, and 5.

RR:      Richard Wilkomir 1992 “American Sign Language: It’s not mouth stuff—it’s brain stuff” Smithsonian 23 (2):30-41.

Wed. Feb 27.

BIO-POWER VERSUS THE DEAF CHILD

*DIA:             Chapters 6 and 7.

RR:      Harlan Lane Part 7 “Bio-power versus the deaf child” pp 203-261.

3. Language in Context

WEEK 7.

Mon. March 4.

PRAGMATICS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT

RR:      Charles Goodwin and Alessandro Duranti: “Rethinking context: An introduction”

Lamont Lindstrom: “Context Contests: Debatable Truth Statements on Tanna (Vanuatu)”

Aaron Cicourel: “The Interpenetration of Communicative Contexts: Examples from Medical Encounters.

Wed. March 6.

CONTEXT cont.: The construction of self, society and conceptual worlds

*Keith Basso Wisdom Sits in Places (WSP) : Preface; Chapter 1 and 2

WEEK 8.

Mon. March 11

CONTEXT cont: The use of stories to guide and correct behavior

*WSP  Chapters 3,4 and Epilogue

Wed. March 13

Paper due and presentations of Conversation analysis.

SPRING BREAK! March 15-31

4. Non-verbal Communication

WEEK 9.

Mon., April 1

NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

FILM: A World of Gestures

RR: George Miller: Non-verbal Communication in Virginia Clark et al. eds. Language 1998 Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.

Wed., April 3

LANGUAGES OF ADORNMENT

            RR: Terrence Turner: “The Social Skin”

*Ruth Rubinstein: Dress Codes Part 1 and Part 2.

WEEK 10.

Mon., April 8

SEMIOTICS OF CLOTHING AND MAKE-UP

MEANINGS AND MESSAGES IN U.S. CULTURE

RR       Norma Mendoza-Denton “Muy Macha: Gender and Ideology in Gang Girls’ Discourse About Make-Up”

*Ruth Rubinstein: Dress Codes Part 3

Wed., April 10

DRESS AND MEANING (cont.)

*Ruth Rubinstein: Dress Codes Part 4 and Part 5

WEEK 11.

Mon., April 15

INDIRECT COMMUNICATION

RR :    Nicole Bourque “Eating Your Words: Communicating with Food in the Ecuadorian Andes”

Sarah Pink: “Sunglasses, Suitcases and other symbols: Intentionality, Creativity, and Indirect communication in Festive and Everyday Performances”

Wed., April 17

THE USES OF SILENCE

RR:      Edward Hall: “The Sounds of Silence”

            Keith Basso: “To Give up on Words”

Norma Mendoza-Denton: “Pregnant Pauses: Silence and Authority in the Anita-Hill Clarence Thomas Hearings”

WEEK 12.

Mon., April 22

COMMUNICATING THROUGH HEALTH AND THE BODY: LANGUAGES OF DISTRESS

RR:      Byron Good: “The Heart of What’s the Matter”

            Linda-Anne Rebhun: “Nerves and Emotional Play in Northeast Brazil”

Sam Migliori: “From Illness Narratives to Social Commentary: A Pirandellian Approach to “Nerves””

5. Language and Gender

Wed., April 24

GENDER-BASED LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES

RR:      John Pfeiffer: “Girl Talk—Boy Talk” in Virginia Clark et al. eds. Language 1998 Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.

D. Tannen: “I’ll Explain It to You: Lecturing and Listening” in Virginia Clark et al. eds. Language 1998 Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.

            Janet Holmes: “Women Talk too Much” in Language Myths

WEEK 13.      

Mon., April 29

LANGUAGE, GENDER AND THE CREATION OF KNOWLEDGE

RR:    Barbara Kantrowitz “Men, Women, Computers” in Virginia Clark et al. eds. Language 1998 Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.

Emily Martin: “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles”

Wed., May 1

LANGUAGE, GENDER AND THE CREATION OF KNOWLEDGE (cont)

RR:      Emily Martin: “Medical Metaphors of Women’s Bodies: Menstruation and Menopause” (chapter 3: pp 27-53); “Medical Metaphors of Women’s Bodies: Birth” and “Menstruation, Work and Class” (pp 54-67; 92-112)

FILM: Still killing us softly.

WEEK 14.

Mon., May 6

AGENCY AND RESISTANCE THROUGH LANGUAGE

RR:      Lila Abu-Lughod: “Modesty and the Poetry of Love” in Veiled Sentiments

            Briggs, C.L. “Since I am a Woman, I Will Chastise my Relative”: Gender, reported Speech and the (re)Production of Social relations in a Warao Ritual Wailing” American Ethnologist 1992, 19:337-361.

Wed., May 8

Wrap up and final discussion…