Postgraduate Course: The Anthropology of Language (PGSP11454)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course introduces students to the critical study of language as social practice. The first half of the course engages with theoretical approaches to the social aspects of language drawn from philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology. The second half of the course utilizes these theoretical approaches to explore ethnographically specific case studies in the anthropology of language. |
| Course description |
The emphasis of this course will be on showing how anthropology and comparative studies have enriched our 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 beyond language.
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 literacy, gender, statecraft, political resistance, and institutions of justice. These issues will be taught through a mixture of lectures, class discussions, and tutorials, with the emphasis being on encouraging students to bring to bear analytical concepts taught in the first half of the course upon the ethnographic case studies taught in the second half.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Develop an extensive understanding of the main areas of study linked to language as social practice.
- Engage critically with the work of a variety of scholars across anthropology, philosophy, and linguistics, and evaluate their arguments.
- Assess critically competing claims and make informed judgments about current complex issues in the politics of language.
- Develop their ability to present - in written and verbal form -- coherent, balanced arguments surrounding language as social practice.
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Reading List
Ahearn, Laura. 2012. Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. London: Wiley-Blackwell.
Duranti, Alessandro. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kroskrity, Paul. (ed.) 2000. Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. Oxford: James Currey.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
By the end of the course students should have strengthened their skills in:
- analysing evidence and using this to develop and support a line of argument;
- presenting information visually and orally;
- understanding the role of language in social life. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Magnus Course
Tel: (0131 6)51 3893
Email: magnus.course@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Teri Beveridge
Tel: (0131 6)51 3244
Email: tbeveri2@ed.ac.uk |
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