This discussion-based course explores language as a medium through which values, identities, and sociopolitical relationships are created and transformed. The course rests on the premise that language, culture, and thought are deeply interwoven. We will begin with key themes in the studies of language and power, and then move through ways that language is implicated in maintaining and changing power relations in social domains (race, class, gender, sexuality) and institutions (education, health, policing and law, immigration). We will consider questions such as: how do differences in language affect how we think and act? How do people do things with language, and how does this vary across cultures, times, and places? What histories and ideologies of language shape our understandings of difference, hierarchy, and inequality? We will draw on media resources and ethnographic analyses from around the world as we explore how language reflects, reinforces, and resists relations of power. The course will be taught in seminar format with student presentation and facilitation of readings and responsibility for certain topics.
Prerequisites: ANSO 103 OR ANSO 105 OR LANG 280