ANTH-L 340 LANGUAGE AND GLOBALIZATION (3 CR.)
Explores globalization through the lens of language. Topics include cultural and linguistic contact and translation, migration and assimilation, transnational media, multilingualism, language loss, the emergence and spread of new forms of English, and global discourses of democracy, diversity, and minority rights.
1 classes found
Spring 2024
Component | Credits | Class | Status | Time | Day | Facility | Instructor |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
LEC | 3 | 30502 | Closed | 1:15 p.m.–2:30 p.m. | TR | SB 138 | Graber K |
Regular Academic Session / In Person
LEC 30502: Total Seats: 25 / Available: 0 / Waitlisted: 0
Lecture (LEC)
- COLL INTENSIVE WRITING SECTION
- Above class COLL Intensive Writing section
Over the past twenty-five years, globalization has become a central topic of discussion in social, economic, and political theory. It has become a touchstone for activists and political pundits, and decision-makers point to it as a reason to reform all kinds of institutions, from schools, militaries, and financial markets to Indiana University. But why did globalization so suddenly come to the fore? What is it specifically, in the 21st century, that people feel to be different about their place in the world? Is the world indeed becoming smaller, more interconnected, and more the same? Or are global processes and flows simply extensions of earlier historical processes? How might increasing cultural contact produce new differences as well as similarities? This course explores globalization through the lens of language. Topics covered include the political economy of cultural and linguistic contact, the concept of a "global village," transnational mediascapes, translation, assimilation, multilingualism and cosmopolitanism, superdiversity, "killer languages," and global discourses of democracy, diversity, and minority rights. We will examine the global spread of hip-hop and the declining use of "small languages" in distant parts of Papua New Guinea, Siberia, and Belize, as well as the rapid growth of new varieties of English and other "big" colonial languages. We will read some foundational texts from social and linguistic theorists, alongside creative fiction and nonfiction accounts of grappling with linguistic and cultural difference and displacement. We will consider the cultural and linguistic consequences of migration, especially concentrated migration to megacities like New York, Moscow, and Beijing. Along the way, we will engage key themes in linguistic and sociocultural anthropology. This course grants Intensive Writing (IW) credit.