FALL 2009 MEETING TIME AND PLACE
MW 2-3:15, 3519 South Hall
DESCRIPTION
As humanists, social scientists, and education researchers seek to study the everyday worlds of people in a variety of social and cultural contexts, ethnography has emerged as an essential epistemological tool across a wide range of disciplines. This course seeks to demystify the ethnographic process through a hands-on workshop format. Students gain firsthand experience with ethnographic data collection practices by conducting their own fieldwork in a local setting of their choice. (Students who do not already have an actual or potential local field site will identify one in consultation with the instructor.)
Linguistics 230 trains students in key ethnographic techniques, including fieldnotes, visual documentation, interviews, and video recording of interaction. In addition, it addresses issues of research ethics and politics, the relationship between theory and method, and the dialectic of data collection and analysis. The course prepares students to carry out original ethnographic research as the basis for a master's thesis, dissertation, or research publication.
Although the thematic focus of Linguistics 230 is on ethnographic data collection for sociocultural linguistics, it also benefits students whose research does not have a primarily linguistic focus, both by training them in general ethnographic methods and by fostering greater awareness of the central role of language in all ethnography.
Linguistics 230 can serve as either an elective or a methods course for the LISO interdisciplinary Ph.D. emphasis (Language, Interaction, and Social Organization). It also counts toward the interdisciplinary Ph.D. emphasis in Applied Linguistics.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing in humanities, social science, or education.