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The University of Chicago Anthropology 272; Linguistics
215. Winter, 1997. Language in Culture and
Society
Syllabus and Readings
The following four books have been
ordered for this course at the Seminary Cooperative Bookstore, and, together
with the other items cited below, are on 4-hour Reserve at Harper Library:
Blount, Ben. Language, culture, and
society: A book of readings. 2nd edition. [=Blount]
Brenneis, Donald & Macaulay, Ronald.
The matrix of language: Contemporary linguistic anthropology. [=MLg]
Giglioli, Pier Paolo. Language and
social context: Selected readings. [=LaSC]
Whorf, Benjamin Lee. Language, thought,
and reality: Selected writings, ed. J. B. Carroll.
Requirements
[1] Keep up with scheduled readings;
[2] Bring to each Thursday's class
a written discussion question (for handing in) that demonstrates that you
have read and thought about the material it interrogates or develops, and
be prepared to respond to others' questions in class;
[3] Prepare two essay responses of
ca. 6-7 standard pages to two of the questions of the take-home final assignment.
| Week of |
Conceptual themes and readings |
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| Jan 7 9 14 |
Outline of concerns. Sequential event
organization and contextualization as dimensions of language use. Appropriateness
and effectiveness of "speech acts."
Readings:
Blount: Goffman, 222-47; Hymes, 248-82;
Turner, 367-85
(LaSC: Hymes, 21-44; Goffman, 61-66;
Searle, 136-54)
Ervin-Tripp, Susan. Is Sybil there?
The structure of American English directives
Language in Society [=LiS] 5.25-66(1976)
Hancher, Michael. The classification
of cooperative illocutionary acts. LiS 8.1-14 (1979)
LaSC: Brown & Gilman, 252-82
Levinson, Stephen. Pragmatics: ch.
6 (optional, ch. 5) |
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| Jan 16 21 23 |
Ritual crystallizations of cotextuality
as
contextualization; the notion of ritual
figuration and its consequences for "ordinary" contingent talk.
Readings:
Caton, Steven C. 'Salaam TaHiiya':
Greetings from the highlands of Yemen. American
Ethnologist 13.290-308 (1986)
Irvine, Judith T. Strategies of status
manipulation in the Wolof greeting. In R.
Bauman & J. Sherzer, Explorations
in the ethnography of speaking [=Expl], 167-91, 458-60
Tambiah, Stanley J. Culture, thought,
and social action: An anthropological perspective [CTaSA]: ch. 2, ch. 4
MLg: Brenneis, 209-33; Myers, 234-57
Silverstein, Michael. The improvisational
performance of 'culture' in realtime
discursive interaction. ms. |
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| Jan 28 30 |
Language and "cultural" concepts:
I. Forms of cultural knowledge; systematicity and denotational explicitness;
inhabitance of categories in tacit knowledge
Readings:
Blount: (opt., Boas, 9-28;) Sapir,
29-42;
Frake, 125-42; (opt., Berlin, 152-86;)
Hunn, 439-55
LaSC, Schegloff, 95-135
Murphy, G. L. Personal reference in
English.
LiS 17.317-49 (1988)
Frake, C. O. Notes on queries in ethnography.
In S.A.Tyler, Cognitive anthropology,
123-37.
Tambiah, Stanley J. CTaSA, ch. 5 |
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| Feb 4 6 |
Language and "cultural" concepts:
II. Categories in grammatical and lexical structure; the ideological consciousness
of them intersecting analogy and textuality.
Readings:
Whorf, 57-101, (102-24,) 134-59, 207-45
Blount: Lucy, 415-38
LaSC: Bernstein, 157-78
MLg: Feld & Schieffelin, 56-73 |
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|
| Feb 11 13 |
Language and "cultural" concepts:
III. Universal vs. culture-specific ideas cued by language; 'color' from
sensorium to symbolism
Readings:
Dixon, R.M.W. Where have all the adjectivesgone?
ch. 5 (opt., ch. 6)
Gleitman, Henry. Psychology, 188-213
Kay, Paul & McDaniel, Chad. The
linguistic significance of the meanings of basic color terms. Language
54.610-46 (1978)
Conklin, Harold C. Hanunoo color categories.
In Dell Hymes, ed. Language in culture
and society, 189-92
Turton, David. There’s no such beast:
Cattle and colour naming among the Mursi. Man 15.320-38 (1980)
Blount: Kay, et al., 456-69 |
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| Feb 18 20 |
"Communities" of people defined by
norms of language use and denotational form; uni- vs.
plurilingual communities, and the
social distribution of language variation
Readings:
LaSC: Gumperz, 219-31; Ferguson, 232-51
Mlg: Heath, 12-38; Keenan, 99-115;
Irvine, 258-83 |
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| Feb 25 27 |
"Superposed" variability, registers,
and language "standards"; consequences of standardization as a "hegemonic"
process
Readings:
LaSC: Labov, 179-215; Labov, 283-98
Shopen, Timothy & Williams, Joseph,
ed. Standards and dialects in English: Heath, 3-32 (opt., Shaklee, 33-62)
Mlg: Eckert, 116-37; Silverstein,
284-306
Blount: Silverstein, 513-50
Huspek, Michael R. Linguistic variation,
context, and meaning: A case of -ing/in’ variation in North American
workers’ speech. LiS 15.149-64 (1986)
Trudgill, Peter. On dialect: Social
and geographical perspectives, ch. 11, 12 |
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| Mar 4 6 11 |
Dynamics of contemporary language
and speech communities; the politics of language as a sociolinguistic
cultural problem
Readings:
Eckert, Penelope. Adolescent social
structure and the spread of linguistic change. LiS 17.183-207
Mlg: Limón, 182-203; Hill,
307-23 [= Blount, 398-414]
Blount: Briggs & Bauman, 567-608
(opt., Ochs & Schieffelin, 470-512)
LaSC: Inglehart & Woodward, 358-77
Woolard, Kathryn A. Sentences in the
language prison. American Ethnologist 16.268-78 (1989) |
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Each syllabi the intellectual
property of the author. |
