College of social and Behavioral Sciences
Department of Anthropology
ANT 599 (Permanent Line # 514) Linguistic Anthropology Lab
Fall 2006
1-3 units
4:45-6:45 p.m. ANT 103
Instructor: James M. Wilce, Ph.D.
Office hours: Mon. 3:00-4:00; Tuesdays 1-2; and by appointment (Really, ask me for an appointment outside of the appointed times if they don’t work for you—meeting with you is important.)
Office location: Emerald City, Bldg. 98D, Room 101E
Contacts: Office phone 523-2729, email: jim.wilce@nau.edu
Course prerequisites: None
Course description: Students analyze their own linguistic anthropology data in collaborative seminar environment. Those taking the course for 2 units make an hour long formal presentation.
Expanded Course description: After receiving some foundational exposure to methods and tools (software), students explore and analyze their own data across the full range of linguistic anthropological domains of inquiry to develop conference-like presentations through collaborative process of feedback and interaction along ranges of expertise and stages of presentation development, from works in progress to conference readiness, from upper division undergraduate to late stage graduate level. Along the model of a physics lab, students are socialized to become scholars. Late stage students mentor early stage students in a seminar environment. Students taking the course for 2 units make a one hour presentation during the semester. A “presentation” is an organized paper or PowerPoint; when presented in lab, the presumption is the that experience is designed as a warm-up, to provide feedback before presenting it at professional meetings, for example.
Exploratory analysis, or “workshopping” data, is what most of the lab will focus on. All students at all stages will be encouraged to analyze their data in relation to a full range of linguistic and semiotic dimensions (sound structure, grammatical structure, emergent poetics, pragmatics, embodied dimension, etc.) and linguistic anthropological methods and theories (code switching, conversation analysis, entextualization, etc.), focusing always on the dynamic interaction of linguistic form with small- and large-scale sociocultural processes.
Student Learning Expectations/Outcomes for this Course: 1) Students will be able to form oral and written analyses and arguments that encompass current knowledge of the nature, methods, and leading theories of linguistic anthropology, 2) Students will develop independence in perception of linguistic form/structure/pattern and its relation to social life, 3) Students will achieve independence in producing linguistic anthropological presentations, including handouts and appropriate audiovisuals.
Course structure/approach: The course is structured as a laboratory in which students have responsibility for developing presentations from the rough, early stage to the polished, ready-for-conference, stage.
Textbook and required materials:
Required resource book:
Duranti, Alessandro. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. (LA)
Other readings (Article online on Vista page for this course):
Ochs, Elinor, and Sally Jacoby. 1997 Down to the Wire: The Cultural Clock of Physicists and the Discourse of Consensus. Language in Society 26(4):479-505.
Silverstein, Michael
2004 "Cultural" Concepts and the Language-Culture Nexus. Current Anthropology 45(5):621-652.
Note: Students taking the course for two units will assign to other students other readings beyond the required textbooks, to be completed before their presentations.
Recommended textbook (attach reading list)
Duranti, Alessandro, ed. 2004. Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Course outline:
Weeks 1-4: Analytic Methods 1: Finding systematicity in phonology, intonation, morphology, syntax, and emergent discursive-poetic structure; discursive marking of affect, agency, honorifics, performatives, etc. Ochs and Jacoby 1997, Duranti chapters 1-6
Weeks 5-9: Analytic Methods 2: Finding systematicity in code-switching, registers, sequentiality and timing; conversation-analytic methods. Duranti chapters 7-8
Weeks 10-14: Analytic Methods 3: Linking the micro-analysis of linguistic form to the macro-analysis of sociocultural processes—ritual; space; gender, power in language; language vis-à-vis exemplary centers. Silverstein 2004. Other readings to be announced.
Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes
Methods of Assessment
Participation: The key to the lab is a high level of student participation, and participation is the key method of assessment.
a) Giving feedback to peers (40 %)
The skillful offering of feedback to peers that draws on readings for the course and, generally, on a high knowledge of theory and method in linguistic anthropology, is essential to the success of the course, and learning to give it is essential to the enculturation-socialization of each student as a linguistic anthropologist.
b) Presenting data (60%)
Timeline for Assessment
Students will be able to check with the instructor six weeks and ten weeks into the semester for an assessment interview, to attain knowledge of participation grades to those points in the semester.
Grading System
Students taking course for 2 units
Hour-long presentation in addition to perfect attendance (or perfect with only 1-2 excused absences), engaging in consistent high quality feedback to other presentations—A
Failure to give hour-long presentation, irregular attendance, and lesser quality participation will result in lower grade
Students taking course for 1 unit
Two brief presentations of their work through the semester in addition to perfect attendance (or perfect with only 1-2 excused absences), engaging in consistent, high quality feedback to other presentations—A
Failure to give presentations of work, inconsistent attendance, and lesser quality participation will result in lower grade
Course policy
Attendance in a laboratory or seminar course is crucial to its orderly running, and will be required. If you are to be absent, you should notify the instructor. Unexcused absences will affect your grade.
University policies: Attach the Safe Working and Learning Environment, Students with Disabilities, Institutional Review Board, and Academic Integrity policies or reference them on the syllabus.
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