Language and Popular Culture, LING 057.

Readings will be assigned, with some required texts and a course packet. Viewings of media will either be pre-assigned or viewed in class. Still photographs (advertisements, cartoons, other print stills) will be available on this web page: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/popcult/images. 

Required texts:

1. Various authors: Coursepak (available from copy vendor).
2. Bloom, Colomb and Williams, The Craft of Research , Chicago 1995.
3. Finnegan and Besnier, Language and its Structure. Harcourt, Brace 1994.
4. Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct. Harper 1994.
5. Schiffman, H. Linguistic Culture and Language Policy, Routledge 1996.

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Writing Assignments

This is a WATU course, so students will be expected to do a number of writing projects: 
1. There will be two (2) smaller projects, one involving a print-medium conception of language (such as print advertising or cartoons), and another joint project with another student. These will be 3 to 5 pages in length.
2. There will be one longer project, based on material depicted or represented in electronic visual media such as movies or television. (Science fiction representations of human and non-human language as well as pseudo-scientific representations of animal communication are especially germane here.) This assignment will consist of work in stages, with proposals, outlines, consultation, review, rewriting, rewriting, and rewriting. It will be due in stages, the final product due the last week of class. (To understand the requirements for this writing project, see my home page http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/helphint.html)

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Syllabus

 
1. Week 1: What do we know about language and how do we know it? A quick and dirty introduction to linguistic science. The human vocal apparatus; the structure of sounds and meaning.
1. Readings: F&B Chap. 1.
2. Viewings: tba
2. Week 2: Popular knowledge and `scientific' knowledge. The human capacity for language; language as the vehicle for transmission of knowledge and culture.
1. Readings: Pinker, Chaps. 1-5
2. Viewings: tba
3. Week 3: Language Acquisition. How do humans acquire language? How does this differ from other communication systems?
1. Readings: Pinker, Chap. 3
2. Viewings: tba
4. Week 4: Non-western cultural constructions of language: India, China, the Arab world. Religious texts and language. Magic, mumbo-jumbo, the taboo and hocus-pocus.
1. Readings: Schiffman, LCLP, Chap. 3
2. Viewings: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
5. Week 5: Language in advertising: sex, stereotypes and persuasion.
1. Readings: tba
2. Viewings: tba
6. Week 6: Language in popular science. Language and communication; language and animal communication. Apes and signing; the nature of human sign language. Dolphins, whales, etc.
1. Readings: Salzmann
2. Viewings: Free Willy
7. Week 7: Language in science fiction: StarTrek and Klingon. Star Wars and C3PO. Vocalization vs. other forms of communication.
1. Readings: tba
2. Viewings: Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi; Star Trek: Klingon, Darmok episodes.
8. Week 8-9: In-group and Out-group language: social stereotypes and sociolinguistics.
1. Readings: G. B. Shaw's Pygmalion
2. Viewings: Pygmalion (1938); My Fair Lady; gangster films, gun molls and the New York non-standard dialect.
9. Week 9: In-group and Out-group (continued): Film depictions of African American and Latino speech; other accents, other cultures.
1. Readings: Labov Language in the Inner City;
2. Viewings: Zorro; I Love Lucy; Amos and Andy; The Cosby Show
10. Week 10: Foreigners we like: the French accent; the Italian sex-star. Machismo and seduction in print media (French, Italian, other languages in advertising.)
1. Readings: tba
2. Viewings: I Love Lucy (European episodes)
11. Week 11: Wolf children and other feral types: from Jungle Book to Truffaut.
1. Readings: Kipling, R. Mowgli and his Friends
2. Viewings: The Wild Child (1982); Disney's Jungle Book
12. Week 12: The blind, the mute and the deaf: Language and 'disability'.
1. Readings: Autobiography of Helen Keller
2. Viewings: The Miracle Worker; The Piano; Children of a Lesser God, Rain Man
13. Week 13: The foreign language and its socio-political role. The Lone Ranger, xenophobia and linguo-(xeno)phobia.
1. Readings: Schiffman Linguistic Culture and Language Policy, Chap. 8-9.
2. Viewings: various
14. Week 14: Language Learning: what is language good for?
1. Readings: Schiffman LCLP Chap. 8
2. Viewings: Encino Man; Tarzan; Diabolique
15. Week 15: Summing Up.

Each syllabi the intellectual property of the author.

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