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Anthropology 430Language and Culture Fall Semester, 2014

Yukti Mukdawijitramukdawijitra@wisc.edu5462 Social Sciences Building, Observatory DriveOffice Hours: Friday 1:00-4:00 pm. or by appointment.

Course DescriptionThis course surveys concepts and theories in linguistic anthropology. It approaches language as social, cultural and political phenomena in comparative perspectives. This course explores how language corresponds to thought, how language represents so-cial stratification and conflicts, language and state formation, orality and literacy, and issues of language policy and language rights.

Assessments1) Class participation 30%Participation in class discussion is very important. To facilitate discussion, before at-tending the class, students must take notes and prepare questions relating to the readings. Students may choose to team up with one of your classmates to summarize the main ideas and interesting points of the weekly readings. Prepare questions re-garding what is unclear or comments relating to the weekly readings. Turn in the notes in the class. The notes will not be returned, so please make a copy for yourself prior to attending the class.

2) Two critical book reviews 40% (=20+20) (Students who enrolled for 4 credits are required to write an additional book review)

Undergraduate students write two (or three) 5-7-page (double-spaced) critical book review essays. Choose two books from the following list to review: - Basso, Keith. 1996. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the

Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of. New Mexico Press.- Bambi B. Schieffelin. 1990. The Give and Take of Everyday Life: Language Socializa-

tion of Kaluli Children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.- Cameron, Deborah and Don Kuklic. 2003. Language and Sexuality. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.- Kroskrity, Paul V. and Margaret C. Field. 2009. Native American Language Ideologies:

Beliefs, Practices, and Struggles in Indian Country. Arizona: University of Arizona Press.

- Messick, B. 1993. The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.

The book review essays must present the book’s main arguments or issues as well as the reviewer’s (the student’s) critical and academic discussion about the author’s con-tent, argument, and data. Students are encouraged to bring issues discussed in this class or the class materials into the book reviews.

Graduate students write two 8-10 page (double spaced) book reviews comparing and contrasting two books. Choose books from the list above or consult with the instructor to find other books that are relevant to students’ interests.

The book reviews are due in WEEK V and VI of the course. For 4-credit students, turn in an additional book review in WEEK XIV

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3) One research paper 30%Write a linguistic anthropology research paper based on field experiences, documents, course materials, interview, participant observation, and other necessary information. Topics of the paper are various. Use theories, concepts and information taken from the assigned readings as a starting point.

A research paper is 12-15-page (double-spaced) for undergraduate students and 17-20-page (double-spaced) for graduate students.

Turn in a one-page research topic and propose theory and methodology appro-priated for the topic in WEEK VII. Students must consult the instructor while gather-ing data and report briefly to the class periodically. The research paper is due on December 15.

Class SchedulePART ONE: OVERVIEW

WEEK I (September 5): overviewWatch in the class: “The Class” (Entre les murs (2008) by Laurent Cantet) in the class.

PART TWO: SCOPE AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY

WEEK II (September 12): history, scopes and new directions of linguistic anthropologyRead:- Hymes, Dell. 1970. “Linguistic Method in Ethnography: Its Development in the United

States.” In Method and Theory in Linguistics. Paul L. Garvin ed. Pp. 249-325. The Hague: Mouton.

- Black, Steven P. 2012. “Linguistic Anthropology in 2012: Language Matter(s)” Ameri-can Anthropologist 115(2): 273-285.

WEEK III (September 19): language forms and historyRead:- Duranti, Alessandro. 2007. “The Word as a Unit of Analysis (read topic 5.2),” “Mean-

ing In Linguistic Forms (read topic 6.1-6.5).” In Linguistic Anthropology. New York: Cambridge University Press.

- Enfield, Nick J. 2005. “Areal Linguistics and Mainland Southeast Asia,” Annual Re-views in Anthropology 34,1:181-206.

Watch in the class: “History of English in Ten Minutes” (2011, by The Open University, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3r9bOkYW9s)

PART THREE: LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT

WEEK IV (September 26): linguistic relativismRead:- Boas, Franz. 1964. [1911] “Linguistics and Ethnology (excerpted)” In Language in So-

ciety and Culture: A Reader in Linguistics and Anthropology. Pp. 17-22. Hymes, Dell, eds. New York: Harper and Row.

- Boas, Franz. 1964. [1934] “On Geographic Names of the Kwakiutl” In Language in Society and Culture: A Reader in Linguistics and Anthropology. Pp. 171-176. Hymes, Dell, eds. New York: Harper and Row.

- Sapir, Edward and Swadesh, Morris. 1964. [1946] “American Indian Grammatical Cat-egories.” In Language in Culture and Society: a reader in linguistics and anthropolo-gy. Dell Hymes ed. Pp. 101-111. New York: Harper and Row.

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- Whorf, Benjamin Lee. 1959. [1939] “The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language” In Benjamin L. Whorf. Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writing of Benjamin Lee Whorf. John B. Carroll, ed. Pp. 134-159. New York: the Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and John Wiley and Son, Inc.

WEEK V (October 3): language we live by- Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press. Chapters 1-11 (pp. 3-55).- Basso, Keith H. 1967. “Semantic Aspects of Linguistic Acculturation” American An-

thropologist. 69(5): 471-477.

WEEK VI (October 10): new directions in linguistic relativismRead:- Gumperz, John and Levinson, Stephen. 1997. [1996] “Introduction to Part I.” In Re-

thinking Linguistic Relativity. Gumperz, John and Levinson, Stephen eds. Pp. 21-36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

- Slobin, Dan I. 1997. [1996] “From ‘Thought and Language’ to ‘Thinking for Speaking’” In Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Gumperz, John and Levinson, Stephen eds. Pp. 70-96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

- Kay, Paul. 1997. [1996] “Intra-Speaking Relativity.” In Rethinking Linguistic Relativi-ty. Gumperz, John and Levinson, Stephen eds. Pp. 97-114. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

PART FOUR: STRUCTURALISM

WEEK VII (October 17): structure of languageRead:- Saussure, Ferdinand de. 2000. [1916] “The Nature of the Linguistic Sign,” “Language

and Linguistics,” “Linguistic Value” In The Routledge Language and Cultural Theory Reader. Burke, Lucy, Tony Crowley, and Alan Girvin. eds. Pp. 21-32, 53-63, 105-113. London: Routledge.

- Leach, Edmund. Leach, E. 1964. “Anthropological aspects of language: animal cate-gories and verbal abuse” In New Directions in the study of Language. E. Lenneberg ed. Pp. 23-63. Cambridge, MA: the MIT Press.

PART FIVE: LANGUAGE, SOCIETY AND CULTURE

WEEK VIII (October 24): speaking is actingRead:- Malinowski, B. 1923. “The problem of meaning in primitive languages” In C. K. Og-

den and I.A.  Richards. 1923. The Meaning of Meaning. London: Kegan Paul (In-ternational Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method). Supplement 1.

- Austin, John. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. (Lecture I, pp. 1-11; Lecture VIII-IX, pp. 94-119).

- Irvine, Judith. 1993. “Insult and Responsibility: Verbal Abuse in a Wolof Village” In Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse. Jane Hill and Judith Irvine, eds. Pp. 105-134. New York: Cambridge University Press.

WEEK IX (October 31): ethnicity, code-switching and ways of speakingRead:- Basso, Keith. 1979. Portraits of 'the Whiteman': Linguistic Play and Cultural Symbols

Among the Western Apache. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

WEEK X (November 7): ethnography of speaking

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Read:- Hymes, Dell. 1974. “Studying the Interaction of Language and Social Life” and “Social

Anthropology, Sociolinguistics and the Ethnography of Speaking” In Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. Pp. 23-66, 83-117. Philadelphia: Uni-versity of Pennsylvania Press.

- Bauman, Richard. 2004. [2001] “‘What Shall We Give You?’: Calibrations of Genre in a Mexican Market” In A World of Others‘ Words. Pp. 58-81. Malden, MA.: Blackwell Publishing.

- Miller, Laura. 2004. “Those Naughty Teenage Girls: Japanese Kogals, Slang, and Me-dia Assessments” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14(2):225–247.

- Cavanaugh, Jillian R. et al. 2014. “What Words Bring to the Table: The Linguistic An-thropological Toolkit as Applied to the Study of Food” Journal of Linguistic Anthro-pology 24(1): 84–97.

PART SIX: LANGUAGE AND POLITICS

WEEK XI (November 14): politics of languageRead:- Voloshinov, V. N. 1993. [1973 in English and 1929 in Russian] “Part I: Philosophy of

Language and Its Significant for Marxism (Chapters 1 and 2)” and Part II: Toward a Marxist Philosophy of Language (Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4)” In Marxism and the Phi-losophy of Language. Pp. 7-24, 43-106. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Univer-sity Press.

- Kulick, Don. 1998. “Anger, Gender, Language Shift, and the Politics of Revelation in a Papua New Guinean Village.” In Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. B. B. Schi-effelin, K. A. Woolard, and P. V. Kroskrity, eds. Pp.87-102. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

WEEK XII (November 21): language and powerRead:- Smith-Hefner, Nancy J. 2009. “Language Shift, Gender, and Ideologies of Modernity

in Central Java, Indonesia” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 19(1): 57–77.- Bourdieu, Pierre. 1983. [1977] “The Production and Reproduction of Legitimate Lan-

guage” In Language and Symbolic Power. Pp. 37-65. Oxford: Polity Press.Watch in the class: “The American Tongues” (1987)

WEEK XIII (November 28) 2014 HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY!

WEEK XIV (December 5): literacyRead:- Goody, Jack. 1968. “Introduction” In Literacy in Traditional Society. J. Goody ed. Pp.

1-26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.- Street, Brian. “The new literacy studies” In Cross Cultural Approaches to Literacy. Pp.

1-22. B. Street ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.- Yukti Mukdawijitra. 2011. “Language Ideologies of Ethnic Orthography in a Multilin-

gual State: the case of ethnic Thai orthographies in Vietnam” Journal of Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 4:2 (December 2011): 92-119.

- Tambiah, Stanley. 1968. “Literacy in a Buddhist Village in North-East Thailand” In Literacy in Traditional Societies. J. Goody, ed. Pp. 85-131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Watch in the class: “Grabbing the Tiger: The Past and the Future of Northern Khmer Musical Arts” (2012 by Peter Vail, Majid Bagheri, Cheymonkol Chalermsukjitsri, Haruka Sugimori, David Tan)

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WEEK XV (December 12): linguistic pluralism and language rightsRead:- Harrison, K. David. 2007. “A World of Many (Fewer) Voices.” In K. David Harrison,

When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World’s Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.3-21

- Kolbert, Elizabeth. 2005. “Letter from Alaska: Last Words, A Language Dies.” The New Yorker, 6 June 2005.

- Romaine 2001. “Multilingualism.” In Aronoff, Mark and Janie Rees-Miller (eds.). The Handbook of Linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp 512-532.

Watch in the class: “The Linguists” (2008).