This course explores the
relationship between language and social structures of inequality, discussing
issues including language-based discrimination, language shift, and language
endangerment. We will also consider examples of political and cultural
resistance to language-based inequalities and the institutions that reproduce
them, in the form of language revitalization movements and other activist
efforts. Colonization and conquest in
the Americas brought European colonists and indigenous American populations
into contact with each other, groups who had very different cultural
backgrounds and who spoke a diverse array of languages. These encounters often resulted in the
disruption, transformation or elimination of preexisting cultural practices and
linguistic systems and the imposition of an official language of power. In the course we will survey and discuss past
and present debates regarding multilingualism, the implementation of official
languages and language standardization. Students will learn to define and discuss concepts including: culture, indigeneity, imperialism, language
contact, language ideologies, orthography, and language planning.
Through lectures and course
readings we will investigate how speakers construct relationships between
particular linguistic varieties (languages, dialects, registers, accents) and
particular characteristics of groups of people. We begin with an overview of
pre-colonial American societies to provide the necessary background for
understanding the impact of European conquest and colonization on indigenous
American populations. We then consider
the implications of these historical processes for contemporary American
communities and discuss how linguistic practices interact with social divisions
to produce unequal power relations. The ways that individuals use language, and
the way linguistic practices are perceived and evaluated by others, have social
effects and consequences. These
practices, perceptions, and evaluations can impact one’s social, educational,
economic, and professional opportunities.
Some questions we will consider
throughout the course are: Why does language matter? What makes language such a powerful political
and social tool? How can we use course
concepts to discuss and better understand contemporary social issues like
immigration, indigeneity, identity politics, democracy and the practice of
government? What examples of
language-based discrimination have we observed or experienced in our own
lives? How can these inequalities be
remedied?
- Teacher: Rose Maio