Postgraduate Course: Belief,Thought and Language (PGSP11174)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The emphasis of this course will be on showing how anthropology and comparative studies have enriched understanding of the dynamic of language, and how engagement with the subject 'language', and with other disciplines concerned with this subject, have historically influenced anthropological thinking. Students will be introduced to a range of different anthropological approaches to the study of language, and to a variety of interests that have led anthropologists to take an interest in language and literary activity. The course demonstrates that in addition to communicating social reality through diverse mediums and strategies (attention is drawn to description, illustration, evocation and performance; to speech and to writing), language plays a role in constituting social reality. Language has therefore relevance for a broad range of general concerns and specialized interest, and this applies for both scholarship and social and political action. Connections that will be explored include the intersections with processes of personhood, statecraft, political resistance, and institutions of justice. |
| Course description |
Saussure and the structure of language
Wittgenstein and meaning as use
Whorf and relativity
Bakhtin and dialogicality
ideology in Language
Language and Gender
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2014/15, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
This course will be assessed by a long essay (word-limit: 4,000). |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
| The course will offer a good theoretical overview of the place of language in everyday social life and critical political innovation, and of ideas derived from linguistics and language philosophy in anthropological theorising. By the end of the course students should have a strong sense of how social and political actors work language, and of the importance, scope and distinctiveness of anthropology's contribution to the cross-cultural analysis of language. It is also expected that students will have acquired valuable research skills to design and carry out empirical studies of language activity. The reading list includes classical material and works relating to current debates so that students will be aware of both when they come across these approaches and debates in the literature and in future field situations.
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Reading List
Bauman, R. and C L Briggs. 1990. "Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives
on Language and Social Life." Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 59-
88.
Borneman, John. 2002. "Reconciliation After Ethnic Cleansing: Listening,
Retribution, Affiliation." Public Culture 14(2).
Cameron, Deborah. 1998. 'Gender, Language, and Discourse: A Review Essay.
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 23(4):945-973.
Cohn, Carol. 1987. "Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals."
Signs: The Journal of Women in Culture and Society 12:687-718.
Culler, Jonathan.1975. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study
of Literature. London: Routledge.
Gellner, E. 1998. Language and Solitude: Malinowski, Wittgenstein, and the
Habsburg Dilemma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goody, J. (ed.) 1968. Literacy in Traditional Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Holquist, Michael. 1990. Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World. Routledge: London.
Hymes, D. 2004. In Vain I Tried to Tell You: essays in Native American
ethnopoetics. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Irvine, Judith. 1989. When Talk Isn't Cheap: language and political economy.
American Ethnologist, Vol.16, No.2: 248-267.
Jakobson, Roman. 1990. Langue and Parole: Code and Message. In On Language.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1955. The Structural Study of Myth. The Journal of American
Folklore, Vol.68, No.270: 428-444.
Saussure, Ferdinand. 1983. Course in General Linguistics. R. Harris, trans. LaSalle,
Il: Open Court.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2001. Philosophical Investigations (3rd edition). G.E.M.
Anscombe, trans. Oxford: Blackwell. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Jon Bialecki
Tel: (0131 6)51 5534
Email: Jon.Bialecki@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Jessica Barton
Tel: (0131 6)51 1659
Email: Jessica.Barton@ed.ac.uk |
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