Language and Culture
Linguistics 227

Winter 2004
TTh 12:30-1:45 p.m.
3519 South Hall

Mary Bucholtz
Office: 3509 South Hall
Phone: (805) 893-5415
E-mail: bucholtz@linguistics.ucsb.edu

Office Hours (Winter 2004): TW 2-3 p.m., or by appointment

Resources for sociocultural linguistics
Other information

Course policies
Course syllabus
Other current courses
Course syllabus
Introduction
Week 1: Framing "Language" and "Culture"
Tuesday, Jan. 6 and Thursday, Jan. 8

Foley 1: Introduction
Duranti, "Theories of Culture"

Part 1: The Quest for Cultural Universals in Language
Week 2: Classification Systems and Cultural Meaning
Tuesday, Jan. 6 and Thursday, Jan. 8
  • Foley 5: Cognitive Anthropology
  • Boas, Introduction to Handbook of American Indian Languages, (esp. Parts I and IV and the discussion of Eskimo words for snow on pp. 21-23)
  • Sherzer, "Language and Ecology: The View from the Kuna Indians of Panama"
  • Martin, "Eskimo Words for Snow: A Case Study in the Genesis and Decay of an Anthropological Example"

Recommended:

  • Foley 12: Classifiers
  • G&L 14: Gomez-Imbert
Week 3: Kinship as Structure and Practice
Tuesday, Jan. 20 and Thursday, Jan. 22
  • Foley 6: Kinship
  • Danziger, excerpts from Relatively Speaking: Language, Thought, and Kinship among the Mopan Maya
  • Schieffelin, "Socialization of Appeal and the ade Relationship"
Week 4: Perceiving and Categorizing Color
Tuesday, Jan. 27 and Thursday, Jan. 29
  • Foley 7: Color
  • Levinson, "Yélî Dnye and the Theory of Basic Color Terms"
  • Goodwin, "The Blackness of Black: Color Categories as Situated Practice"
Part 2: Linguistic Relativity and the Function of Culture
Week 5: The Whorfian Hypothesis and Neo-Relativism
Tuesday, Feb. 3 and Thursday, Feb. 5
  • Foley 10: Linguistic Relativity and the Boasian Tradition
  • Sapir, "The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society"
  • Whorf, "The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language"
  • Rumsey, "Wording, Meaning, and Linguistic Ideology"

Recommended:

  • G&L 2: Lucy
Cultural Analysis 1 due
Week 6: The Cultural Construction of Physical Space
Tuesday, Feb. 10 and Thursday, Feb. 12
  • Foley 11: Space
  • G&L 7: Levinson
  • G&L 10: Haviland

Recommended:

  • G&L 9: Hanks
Part 3: Sociocultural Structure and Linguistic Practice
Week 7: The Question of Interactional Universals
Tuesday, Feb. 17 and Thursday, Feb. 19
  • Foley 14: Politeness, Face, and the Linguistic Construction of Personhood
  • Duranti, "Universal and Culture-Specific Properties of Greetings"
  • Sidnell, "Conversational Turn-Taking in a Caribbean English Creole"

Recommended:

  • G&L 12: Gumperz
Week 8: Linguistic Strategies of Social Positioning
Tuesday, Feb. 24 and Thursday, Feb. 26
  • Foley 16: Language and Social Position
  • G&L 13: Ochs
  • Irvine, "Strategies of Status Manipulation in the Wolof Greeting"
Week 9: Literacy and the Political Critique of Cultural Relativism
Tuesday, March 2 and Thursday, March 4
  • Foley 21: Literacy
  • Street, "Orality and Literacy as Ideological Constructions: Some Problems in Cross-Cultural Studies"
  • Schieffelin, "Introducing Kaluli Literacy: A Chronology of Influences"
Week 10: Student Presentations
Tuesday, March 9 and Thursday, March 11

Cultural Analysis 2 due Monday, March 15 by 5 p.m. in my mailbox


University of California, Santa Barbara | College of Letters and Science | Department of Linguistics 

For comments about this page, contact bucholtz@linguistics.ucsb.edu.
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