Language as Social
Action
ANTH 070:514
Fall 2008
Professor Laura Ahearn
Office: 308 RAB
Phone: 732-932-5298
E-mail: [email protected]
Office hours: Tues. and Fri., 2:00-3:00 in my
office, and Fri., 11:30 – 12:30, at Au Bon Pain
on College Ave.; (or by appt.)
Class time: Thursday, 12:35-3:35
Sakai website: http://sakai.rutgers.edu
Faculty website: http://anthro.rutgers.edu/faculty
“Linguistics without anthropology is sterile; anthropology without linguistics is blind.”
--Charles Hockett (1916 – 2000), Professor of Linguistics and Anthropology, Cornell University
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COURSE DESCRIPTION
Linguists often study language as a closed, formal system, relatively autonomous from culture, social relations,
and vectors of power. The purpose of this course is to explore a very different framework, one that places
language within a social, cultural, and political matrix of relations. Linguistic anthropologists view language
as a form of action through which social relations, cultural forms, ideologies, hierarchies, and identities
are constituted.
EXPECTATIONS
The reading load – I’m warning you right off – will be quite heavy. Please complete at least the required
readings, if not the recommended readings, before the class for which they are assigned. Let me know if the
reading load seems too heavy, but since this is a graduate seminar, I am assuming you all are willing and able to
get through (whether by meticulous word-for-word analysis or quick skimming) copious amounts of material.
There will be times when we will split the readings among class members in order to reduce the reading load,
and I always list the readings in order of importance so that you can prioritize them accordingly.
The readings are organized around key topics, any one of which could be the subject of a course in itself. Many
of the topics have spawned enormous literatures of their own but are represented only minimally in the reading
assignments. Other equally interesting and important topics (e.g., translation, metalanguage, semiotics) are
virtually absent here because of time constraints. I would be happy, however, to guide you toward
supplementary reading materials on topics that interest you.
The backgrounds of the students in this class will be extremely varied, which will present us as a class with both
a resource and a challenge. Don’t assume that you don’t belong in the class just because you have never heard
of a theorist other students or I mention. By the same token, when you do mention a theorist not assigned for
the course, do more than just name-drop; be generous with your knowledge and clarify who the person is, what
relevance s/he has for our discussion, etc. In this way, we can all learn from one another.
REQUIREMENTS
(1) Every week you will be required either to post a one- to two-page commentary on the readings or respond
to other students’ commentaries before our class meets. The class will be split in half, and each group
will alternate writing commentaries and responses. Commentaries should be posted by Wednesday at 5:00
p.m. each week, and responses should be posted by 10:00 a.m. on Thursday (but ideally even earlier) each
week on Sakai’s Discussion Board (http://sakai.rutgers.edu). The benefits of this are multiple. First, you
will have read the assignment and will have digested it enough to generate some questions and reactions.
Second, you will be able to read and/or respond to your classmates’ commentaries before you come to class
each week, thereby jump-starting discussion. Third, you will have your commentaries and responses (and
everyone else’s) to look back on as you work on your papers. A good commentary summarizes the main
points of the reading, compares and contrasts it to other works the class has read, and then offers the
reader’s own assessment, reactions, and questions. These are not formal papers, so feel free to write them in
an informal, first-person register. Each of you will find a comfortable “voice” in which to write your
commentaries; don’t worry if there is significant variation in tone and content among the commentaries –
that’s a good thing!
(2) In pairs, you will facilitate two class discussions. I mean ‘facilitate’ in its most basic sense, ‘to make easy.’
Thus, I expect the facilitators to prepare discussion questions and activities that will engage and instruct the
other class participants. I do not expect or desire mini-lectures. You will also be expected to contribute to
discussions in class on a weekly basis. As this is an advanced seminar, a large part of the responsibility for
making it work will fall on each of your shoulders. Make sure, therefore, that you come to class having
done the reading carefully. This does not mean, however, that you need to understand the readings fully
before class starts; I urge you to ask (or start new discussion threads on Sakai’s Discussion Board) about any
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uncertainties you may have. Also feel free to bring up any relevant readings or observations from outside
the class assignments, as long as you explain these fully. Because this class explores language in its social
contexts, you all will have plenty of opportunities to enrich the class by observing and commenting upon
linguistic interactions in your everyday lives.
I hope we will all work toward creating an atmosphere in which everyone will feel comfortable contributing
their thoughts and questions, but if you are the type of person who rarely speaks up during discussions,
please come to see me early on in the term, and we can devise some other way(s) of allowing you to
participate, either in writing, or by meeting with me individually.
(3) An exercise in conversation analysis will involve tape recording a naturally occurring conversation or
interview (with the permission of the participants, of course), then transcribing a thirty-minute segment of it.
The transcript of this exercise is due October 27th. No written analysis of the transcript will be required, but
some of you may choose to analyze a larger portion of the conversation for your final paper.
(4) Your final paper will require an extended analysis of a body of linguistic data – your own from previous
fieldwork, the conversation recorded for the initial class exercise, or data from another linguistic
anthropologist. Further information about the paper will be provided early in the semester. A two-page
prospectus for a final paper, along with a bibliography, will be due on November 6h. I urge you all to
come in to talk to me about your final papers well before then, however. The earlier you start on the project,
the better. A first draft of the final paper will be due November 21st. You will make a fifteen-minute
presentation on your topic at a special class session sometime during the week of November 27th, and the
final draft will be due in my box by 4:00 p.m. on Friday, December 15th.
Your grade will be determined as follows:
Conversation transcription
Oral presentation of final paper topic
Class participation, including
discussion facilitation,
commentaries, and responses
Final paper (including prospectus and draft)
15%
20%
25%
40%
(Penalties will be applied to all assignments that are handed in late.)
Due dates to put on your calendar right now:
Weekly commentary or response
Transcript due
Prospectus due
Draft of final paper due
Oral presentation on paper topic
Final paper due
Post commentary every Wednesday by 5:00 p.m. and
response by Thursday, 10:00 a.m.
Monday, October 27th, 4:00 p.m.
Monday, November 10th, 4:00 p.m.
Monday, December 1st, 4:00 p.m.
Thursday, December 11th, 12:35 - ??, my house in HP
Friday, December 19th, 4:00 p.m.
Required Texts
Duranti, Alessandro. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Abbreviated
below as LA.)
Duranti, Alessandro. 1994. From Grammar to Politics: Linguistic Anthropology in a Western Samoan
Village. University of California Press. (Abbreviated below as FGP.)
Bakhtin, M.M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press. (Abbreviated below as
DI.)
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Ahearn, Laura M. 2001. Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, and Social Change in Nepal. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Urciuoli, Bonnie. 1996. Exposing Prejudice: Puerto Rican Experiences of Language, Race, and Class.
Boulder: Westview.
Recommended Texts
Jaffe, Alexandra. 1999. Ideologies in Action: Language Politics on Corsica. NY: Mouton de Gruyter.
Duranti, Alessandro (ed.). 2001. Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell. [Required
articles from this volume will be scanned and posted in case you choose not to buy the whole book.]
Course texts are available for purchase at the Co-op Bookstore (1-800-929-2667) on the Douglass campus and
are also on reserve at the Douglass Library. All readings not in these books are available on Sakai. If you have
any problems gaining access to the readings, please let me know. You will be expected to have read the
assignment listed for each class period before class begins. Be prepared to discuss the reading assignment,
ask questions about it, or debate the issues raised in it.
READING ASSIGNMENTS
*Asterisks denote readings not in any of the course texts but available on Sakai.
Week 1 (September 4) – INTRODUCTION
Week 2 (September 11) – SOME APPROACHES THAT TREAT LANGUAGE AS SOCIAL ACTION
Required reading:
Duranti, LA, Preface, Acknowledgments, Ch. 1, “The scope of linguistic anthropology,” Ch.7,
“Speaking as social action,” and Ch. 10, “Conclusions”
*Ahearn, Laura M. “The Socially Charged Life of Language,” draft of Chapter One from
Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, forthcoming from
Blackwell.
*Duranti, Alessandro. 2003. “Language as culture in U.S. anthropology.” Current
Anthropology 44(3):323-347.
*Ohio State University. 1998. “What do you know when you know a language?” In Ohio State
University Department of Linguistics, Language Files, pp.8-11.
*Austin, J.L. 1961. “Performative utterances.” In Philosophical papers, Oxford: University
Press, 233-52.
*Searle, John. 1976. “A classification of illocutionary acts.” Language in Society 5: 1-23.
*Rosaldo, Michelle Z. 1982. “The things we do with words: Ilongot speech acts and speech act
theory in philosophy.” Language in Society 11: 203-37.
Recommended reading:
Butler, Judith. 1997. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York:
Routledge.
*Du Bois, John W. 2001. “Grammar.” In Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), Key Terms in Language
and Culture. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, pp. 87-90.
*Duranti, Alessandro. 2001. “Linguistic anthropology: history, ideas, and issues.” In A. Duranti
(ed.), Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp.1-38.
* Goodwin, Marjorie H. 1990. “Talk as social action.” In He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social
Organization among Black Children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1-26.
*Martin [Ahern], Emily. 1979. “The problem of efficacy: strong and weak illocutionary acts.”
Man 14: 1-17.
*Urban, Greg. 1991. “An approach to culture and language.” In A Discourse-Centered
Approach to Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1-28.
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Week 3 (September 18) – LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY; THE SO-CALLED “SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS”
Required reading:
Duranti, LA, “Language in culture: the Boasian tradition” and “Linguistic relativity,” pp. 52-69.
*Ahearn, Laura M. “Language, Thought, and Culture,” draft of Chapter Four from Living
Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, forthcoming from Blackwell.
*Whorf, Benjamin. 1956[1939]. “The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language.”
In J.B. Carroll (ed.), Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of
Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge: MIT Press. 134-159.
*Sapir, Edward. 1985[1933. “Editor’s preface” and “Language.” In D.G. Mandelbaum (ed.),
Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 3-6, 7-32.
*Sapir, Edward. 1985[1929]. “The status of linguistics as a science.” In D.G. Mandelbaum
(ed.), Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 160-166.
*Sapir, Edward. 1985[1924]. “The grammarian and his language.” In D.G. Mandelbaum (ed.),
Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 150-159.
*Cohn, Carol. 1987. “Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals.” Signs
12(4):687-718.
Recommended reading:
*Hill, Jane H. and Bruce Mannheim. 1992. “Language and world view.” Annual Review of
Anthropology 21:381-406.
*Boroditsky, Lera. 2001. “Does language shape thought?: Mandarin and English speakers’
conceptions of time.” Cognitive Psychology 43:1-22.
*Lucy, John A. 1996. “The scope of linguistic relativity: an analysis and review of empirical
research.” In J.J. Gumperz and S.C. Levinson (eds.), Rethinking Linguistic
Relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 37-69.
*Cameron, Deborah. 1999. “Linguistic relativity: Benjamin Lee Whorf and the return of the
repressed.” Critical Quarterly 41(2):153-156.
*Martin, Laura. 1986. “‘Eskimo words for snow’: a case study in the genesis and decay of an
anthropological example.” American Anthropologist 88:418-23.
Lucy, John A. 1992. Language Diversity and Thought: A Reformulation of the Linguistic
Relativity Hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Week 4 (September 25) – METHODS, INCLUDING CONVERSATION ANALYSIS
Required reading:
Duranti, LA, Ch. 8, “Conversational exchanges” and Ch. 9, “Units of participation”; also skim
Ch. 5, “Transcription: from writing to digitized images,” and Appendix, “Practical tips
on recording interaction”
*Ahearn, Laura M. “The Research Process in Linguistic Anthropology,” draft of Chapter Two
from Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, forthcoming from
Blackwell.
*Goffman, Erving. 1981. “Footing.” In E. Goffman, Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 124-157.
*McDermott, R.P. and H. Tylbor. 1995. “On the necessity of collusion in conversation.” In
Tedlock, Dennis and Bruce Mannheim, eds. The Dialogic Emergence of Culture.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 218-236.
*Koven, Michèle. 2007. “Introduction.” In Michèle Koven, Selves in Two Languages:
Bilinguals’ Verbal Enactments of Identity in French and Portugese. Philadelphia:
John Benjamins, pp.1-9.
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*Sheldon, Amy. 1990. “Pickle fights: gendered talk in preschool disputes. Discourse
Processes 13(1):5-31. (Skim – just notice transcription format.)
*Eckert, Penelope. 1993. “Cooperative competition in adolescent ‘girl talk,’ ” pp.32-61. In
Tannen, Deborah (ed.), Gender and Conversational Interaction. New York: Oxford
University Press. (Skim – just notice transcription format.)
Recommended reading:
*Jakobson, Roman. 1960. “Linguistics and poetics.” In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Style in
language, Cambridge: MIT Press, 350-77.
*Goodwin, Marjorie H., “Emotion within situated activity.” In A. Duranti (ed.), Linguistic
Anthropology: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp.239-257.
*Irvine, Judith T., “Formality and informality in communicative events.” In A. Duranti (ed.),
Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 189-207.
Week 5 (October 2) – LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND SOCIALIZATION
Required reading:
*Ahearn, Laura M. “Language Acquisition and Socialization,” draft of Chapter Three from
Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, forthcoming from
Blackwell.
*Elinor Ochs and Bambi B. Schieffelin. 2001 [1984]. “Language acquisition and socialization:
three developmental stories and their implications.” In A. Duranti, Linguistic
Anthropology: A Reader, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 263-301.
AND EITHER:
*Jacobs-Huey, Lanita. 2006. “ ‘We are like doctors’: socializing cosmetologists into the
discourse of science.” In L. Jacobs-Huey, From the Kitchen to the Parlor: Language
and Becoming in African American Women’s Hair Care, 29-46.
OR:
*Mertz, Elizabeth. 2007. The Language of Law School: Learning to “Think Like a
Lawyer”. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.1-39.
Recommended reading:
*MacWhinney, Brian. 1998. “Models of the emergence of language.” Annual Review of
Psychology 49:199-227.
*Ochs, Elinor and Bambi Schieffelin. n.d. “Language socialization: an historical overview.” To
appear in Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Vol. 8: Language
Socialization, ed. by Patricia Duff and Nancy Hornberger. Kluwer Academic
Publishers.
*Ochs, Elinor and Bambi Schieffelin. 1995. “The impact of language socialization on
grammatical development.” In Paul Fletcher and Brian MacWhinney (eds.), The
Handbook of Child Language. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 73-94.
*Tomasello, Michael. 2002. “Things are what they do: Katherine Nelson’s functional approach
to language and cognition.” Journal of Cognition and Development 3(1):5-19.
Week 6 (October 16) – LITERACY PRACTICES
Required reading:
*Barton, David and Mary Hamilton. 1998. “Understanding literacy as social practice.” In
Barton, David and Mary Hamilton (eds.), Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in
One Community. New York: Routledge, pp. 3-22.
Ahearn, IL, Ch. 1, “Invitations to love,” Ch. 3, “Key concepts and their application,” Ch. 7,
“Developing love: sources of development discourse in Nepali love letters,” Ch. 8,
“The practices of reading and writing,” and Ch. 9, “Wearing the flower one likes: Sarita
and Bir Bahadur’s courtship”
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Papen, Uta. 2008. “Pregnancy starts with a literacy event: pregnancy and antenatal care as
textually mediated practices.” Ethnography 9(3):377-402.
AND EITHER:
*Susan U. Philips, “Participant Structures and Communicative Competence: Warm Springs
Children in Community and Classroom,” in A. Duranti, Linguistic Anthropology: A
Reader, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001, pp. 302-317.
OR:
*Shirley Brice Heath, “What No Bedtime Story Means: Narrative Skills at Home and School,”
in A. Duranti, Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001, pp.
318-342.
Recommended reading:
*Rampton, Ben. 2006. “Introduction: late modern language, interaction and schooling.” In Ben
Rampton, Language in Late Modernity: Interaction in an Urban School.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.1-38.
Besnier, Niko. 1995. Literacy, Emotion, and Authority: Reading and Writing on a
Polynesian Atoll. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Boyarin, Jonathan. 1993. The Ethnography of Reading. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Barton, David, Mary Hamilton, and Roz Ivanič. 2000. Situated Literacies: Reading and
Writing in Context. New York: Routledge.
Week 7 (October 23) – LANGUAGE AND POWER I: BAKHTIN
Required reading:
Bakhtin, DI, 259-422. [Read 259-331 with care, skim rest.]
And either:
*Wilce, James M., Jr. 1998. “The kalimah in the kaleidophone: ranges of multivocality in
Bangladeshi Muslim's discourses.” Ethos 26(2):229-257.
or:
*Hill, Jane H. 1995. “The voices of Don Gabriel: responsibility and self in a modern Mexicano
narrative.” In Tedlock, Dennis and Bruce Mannheim, eds. The Dialogic Emergence
of Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 97-147.
Recommended reading:
*Steinglass, Matt. 1998. “International man of mystery: the battle over Mikhail Bakhtin.”
Lingua Franca, April 1998, 33-41.
*Wilce, James M. 2000. “The poetics of ‘madness’: shifting codes and styles in the linguistic
construction of identity in Matlab, Bangladesh.” Cultural Anthropology 15(1):3-34.
*Stewart, Susan. 1983. “Shouts on the street: Bakhtin’s anti-linguistics.” Critical Inquiry 10:
265-82.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 27TH – TRANSCRIPTS DUE IN MY BOX BY 4:00 P.M.
Week 8 (October 30) – LANGUAGE AND POWER II: BOURDIEU
Required reading:
* Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, US: Harvard
University Press. Editor’s “Introduction,” “General Introduction,” Ch. 1, “The
production and reproduction of legitimate language,” and Ch. 7, “On symbolic power,”
1-65; 163-170.
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*Thompson, John B. 1984. “Symbolic violence: language and power in the writings of Pierre
Bourdieu.” In Studies in the Theory of Ideology. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 42-72.
Recommended reading:
*Gramsci, Antonio. 1971 [1929-1935]. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. (Quintin
Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, ed. and tr.) New York: International, pp. 324-5,
348-51, 419-25, 242-46, 52-60, 5-23.
*Gramsci, Antonio. 1985 [1929-1935]. Selections from Cultural Writings. (David Forgacs
and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, ed., William Boelhower, tr.) Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, pp. 25-31, 122-3, 164-95, especially the portions from notebook 29.
Williams, Raymond. 1977. Marxism and Literature. London: Oxford University Press.
Week 9 (November 6) – LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES
VIDEO IN CLASS: “AMERICAN TONGUES”
Required reading:
*Woolard, Kathryn A. 1998. “Introduction: language ideology as a field of inquiry.” In
Schieffelin, Bambi, et al. (eds.), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, pp. 3-47.
*Kroskrity, Paul V. 2000. “Regimenting languages: language ideological perspectives.” In Paul
V. Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. Santa
Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, pp. 1-34.
*Kulick, Don. 1998. “Anger, gender, language shift, and the politics of revelation in a Papua
New Guinean village.” In Schieffelin, Bambi, et al. (eds.), Language Ideologies:
Practice and Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 87-102.
Recommended reading:
*Silverstein, Michael. 1979. Language structure and linguistic ideology. In Paul R. Clyne,
William F. Hanks, and Carol Hofbauer (eds.), The Elements: A Parasession on
Linguistic Units and Levels. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 193-247.
*Friedrich, Paul. 1989. “Language, ideology, and political economy.” American
Anthropologist 91:295-312.
Jaffe, Alexandra. 1999. Ideologies in Action: Language Politics on Corsica. NY: Mouton de
Gruyter.
Schieffelin, Bambi, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul Kroskrity (eds.). 1998. Language
Ideologies: Practice and Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Paul V. Kroskrity (ed.). 2000. Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities.
Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.
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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10TH – PROSPECTUS FOR FINAL PAPER DUE IN MY BOX BY 4:00 P.M.
Week 10 (November 13) – LANGUAGE, RACE, AND ETHNICITY
Required reading:
*Bonvillain, Nancy. 2000. “African American English in the United States.” In N. Bonvillain,
Language, Culture, and Communication: The Meaning of Messages. Third Edition.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., pp. 153-158.
*Cutler, Cecilia. 2003. “ ‘Keepin’ It Real’: White Hip-Hoppers’ Discourses of Language, Race,
and Authenticity.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 13(2):211-233.
*Jane H. Hill. 1998. “Language, Race, and White Public Space.” American Anthropologist
100(3):680-689.
Urciuoli, Bonnie. 1996. Exposing Prejudice: Puerto Rican Experiences of Language, Race,
and Class. Boulder: Westview.
Recommended reading:
*Smitherman, Geneva. 1998 [1977]. “ ‘It bees dat way sometime’: sounds and structure of
present-day Black English.” In V. Clark, et al., eds., Language: Readings in
Language and Culture. New York: St. Martin’s Press, pp.328-343.
Eisenlohr, Patrick. 2006. Little India: Diaspora, Time, and Ethnolinguistic Belonging in
Hindu Mauritius. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Mitchell-Kernan, Claudia. 2001. “Signifying and marking: two Afro-American speech acts.”
In A. Duranti (ed.), Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell,
pp.151-164.
Morgan, Marcyliena. 2002. Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Baugh, John. 2000. Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic Pride and Racial Prejudice. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Mufwene, Salikoko S. et al. (eds.). 1998. African American English: Structure, History
and Use. New York: Routledge.
Week 11 (November 20) – LANGUAGE, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY
Required reading:
*Maltz, Daniel N. and Ruth A. Borker. 1982. “A cultural approach to male-female
miscommunication.” In John J. Gumperz (ed.), Language and Social Identity,
Cambridge: University Press, 196-216.
*Cameron, Deborah. 1998. “Performing gender identity: young men’s talk and the construction
of heterosexual masculinity.” In J. Coates (ed.), Language and Gender: A Reader.
Malden, MA: Blackwell.
*Ahearn, Laura M. 1998. “‘A Twisted Rope Binds My Waist’: Locating Constraints on
Meaning in a Tij Songfest.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Volume 8(1), 1998,
60-86.
AND EITHER:
*Freed, Alice. 2003. “Epilogue: reflections on language and gender research.” In Janet Holmes
and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The Handbook of Language and Gender. Malden,
MA: Blackwell, 699-721.
*Cameron, Deborah and Don Kulick. 2003. “Preface” and “Chapter 1: Making connections.” In
D. Cameron and D. Kulick, Language and Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. ix-xvi; 1-14.
*Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall. 2004. “Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research.”
Language in Society 33, pp.469-515.
OR:
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Cameron, Deborah. 2007. The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak
Different Languages? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Recommended reading:
Inoue, Miyako. 2006. Vicarious Language: Gender and Linguistic Modernity in Japan.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cameron, Deborah and Don Kulick. 2006. The Language and Sexuality Reader. New York:
Routledge.
Holmes, Janet and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.). 2003. The Handbook of Language and Gender.
Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Benor, Sarah, et al. (eds.). 2002. Gendered Practices in Language. Palo Alto: Center for the
Study of Language and Information, Stanford University.
Livia, Anna and Kira Hall (eds.). 1997. Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bergvall, Victoria L., et al. (eds.). 1996. Rethinking Language and Gender Research:
Theory and Practice. New York: Longman.
Hall, Kira and Mary Bucholtz (eds.). 1995. Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially
Constructed Self. New York: Routledge.
Leap, William. 1995. Beyond the Lavender Lexicon. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 1ST – DRAFTS OF FINAL PAPER DUE IN MY BOX BY 4:00 P.M.
Week 12 (December 4) – AGENCY, RESISTANCE, AND ACCOMMODATION IN LANGUAGE
Required reading:
*Ahearn, Laura M. 2001“Language and Agency.” Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume
30. October 2001, 109-137.
Duranti, Alessandro. 1994. FGP. Read Chapters 1, 2, 5, 6, and 7 closely; skim 3 and 4.
Recommended reading:
*Duranti, Alessandro. 2006. “The social ontology of intentions.” Discourse Studies 8(1):3140.
*Duranti, Alessandro. 2004. “Agency in language.” In Duranti, A. (ed.), A Companion to
Linguistic Anthropology. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp.451-473.
*Kockelman, Paul. 2007. “Agency: the relation between meaning, power, and knowledge.”
Current Anthropology 48(3):375-401.
*Gal, Susan. 1995. “Language and the ‘arts of resistance.’” Cultural Anthropology
10(3):407-424.
Week 13 (December 11) – ORAL PRESENTATIONS OF FINAL PAPER TOPICS – We’ll meet at my house in
Highland Park.
**FINAL PAPER DUE IN MY BOX BY 4:00 P.M., FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19TH**
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