Deze informatie is alleen in het Engels beschikbaar.
Topics: Language, Identity, Nationalism, Ethnicity, Migration, Globalization
Disciplines: Sociolinguistics, Linguistic Anthropology
Admission requirements:
This course is an (extracurricular) Honours Class: an elective course within the Honours College programme. Third year students who don’t participate in the Honours College, have the opportunity to apply for a Bachelor Honours Class. Students will be selected based on i.a. their motivation and average grade.
Description:
Is there a difference between a language and a dialect, and who decides? Should every nation have its own unique language? Why do certain forms of language play a central role in the ways we think about ourselves and identify others?
This course examines the complex relationship between language and social life. Through the use of sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological methodologies and concepts, students will explore the linkages between language, dialects, identity and society, with special attention to the question: do national projects require that all citizens speak the same language? We will consider the interplay of language, power and identity from a variety of different contexts, including minority languages, postcolonialism, migration, globalization, and invented languages. Class sessions will each be primarily discussions about a different case study from around the world.
Course objectives:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Understand basic concepts in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology;
- Analyze the ideological work people do through using and talking about language;
- Apply linguistic and anthropological concepts to analyze their own experiences or academic interests related to the intersection of language and society.
Programme and timetable:
The sessions (the topics are subject to change) of this class will take place on the following Tuesdays from 15.15 - 17:00:
Session 1: February 3, 2026
Session 2: February 10, 2026
Session 3 February 17, 2026
Session 4: February 24, 2026
Session 5 March 3, 2026
Session 6 March 10, 2026
Session 7 March 31, 2026
Session 8 April 7, 2026
Session 9 April 14, 2026
Deadline final assignment April 30, 2026
Location:
Lipsius builiding, room 0.01
Reading list:
Anderson, Benedict. 2006 [1983]. Imagined Communities. London: Verso.
Schieffelin, Bambi B. and Rachelle Charlier Doucet. 1994. “The ‘Real’ Haitian Creole: Ideology, Metalinguistics, and Orthographic Choice.” American Ethnologist 21(1): 176–200.
Alim, H. Samy, Quentin E. Williams, Adam Haupt, Emile Jansen. 2021. “‘Kom Khoi San, kry trug jou land’: Disrupting White Settler Colonial Logics of Language, Race, and Land with Afrikaaps.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 31(2):194–217.
Ingebretson, Britta. 2022. “‘Living Fossils’: The Politics of Language Preservation in Huangshan, China.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 32(1):116–138.
Evers, Cecile. 2018. “Not Citizens of a Classical Mediterranean: Muslim Youth from Marseille Elude a Linguistic Gentrification by the French State.” Signs & Society 6(2):435–474.
Slotta, James. 2015. Phatic Rituals of the Liberal Democratic Polity: Hearing Voices in the Hearings of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Comparative Studies in Society and History 20(1): 130-160.
Blommaert, Jan. 2009. “A market of accents.” Language policy 8(3):243–259.
Okrent, Arika. 2009. In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language. New York: Random House.
Subject to change. A final reading list will be announced via Brightspace before the first class.
Course load and teaching method:
This course load is 5 EC (140 hours):
Seminars: 9 seminars of 2 hours (participation is mandatory)
Literature reading: 6 hours/week
Assignments & final essay: 68 hours
Assessment methods:
15% Participation assessed continually through participation in seminars
30% (10% each) Three reaction papers to a session’s reading of 500 words each
5% Podcast proposal (due March 24, 2026)
50% Final assignment: A 10-minute podcast applying course concepts to a case study of student’s choice (due April 30, 2026)
Students can only pass this course after successful completion of all partial exams.
Brightspace and uSis:
Brightspace will be used in this course. Upon admission students will be enrolled in Brightspace by the teaching administration.
Please note: students are not required to register through uSis for the Bachelor Honours Classes. Your registration will be done centrally.
Application process:
Submitting an application for this course is possible from Monday 27 October up to and including Sunday 16 November 2026 23:59 through the link on the Honours Academy student website.
Note: students don’t have to register for the Bachelor Honours Classes in uSis. The registration is done centrally before the start of the class.
Contact:
Janet Connor: j.e.connor@hum.leidenuniv.nl