Language and Identity: A Linguistic Exploration of Accents, Dialects, Slang, and Grammar

"The class was composed of well-educated and cooperative students, not to mention the appreciative nature of the instructor."

- KyungDuk (Joseph) Yoon, 2012

Course Description

Students examine language as a vital part of culture and social structure while discovering how it reflects and shapes our lives. The course tackles assumptions and myths we hold about language. For example, do men and women really speak different languages? What exactly is Ebonics? Do Eskimo languages have 17 separate words for snow? What is the best way to start and end a conversation? Students employ a multi-disciplinary approach to investigating language behavior and variation in different cultures.

The term project provides each student with the opportunity to conduct fieldwork as a means to research his or her own culture and its use of language. Students come to better understand themselves as members of their own culture and the use of language as a shaper of our self-identities in human society.

Students work with material in a seminar format in the morning sessions. Afternoons are devoted to fieldwork and other hands-on applications including probing popular culture, literature, and film for evidence of language used as a way to define cultural and social identities.

Students develop the skills of data collection and cross-linguistic and cross-cultural analysis and come away with a perspective of multiple viewpoints related to language correctness and relativity.

Instructor(s)