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

In this course students examine language as a vital part of culture and social structure while discovering how it reflects and shapes our lives. We first tackle assumptions and myths we hold about language. For example, can animals learn to use language? Do Eskimo languages really have 17 separate words for snow? Is English the hardest language to learn? Then we explore the components of language (phonemes, morphemes, words, and sentences) and how each plays a role in what we hear as an “accent” or dialect. Thus, students investigate both the structural and cultural functions of human language.

The course employs a multi-disciplinary approach to investigating language behavior and variation in different cultures. This occurs mainly through the term project, which provides each student with the opportunity to conduct fieldwork as a means to research a culture and its use of language. Participants come to better understand themselves as members of their own cultures and language as a shaper of our self-identities in human society.

In the morning sessions we examine material in a seminar format. Afternoons are devoted to research, analysis of case studies, 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.

Though this course is intended primarily for older students, it is open to highly qualified rising freshmen and sophomores.