Tag(s)
GC, HI
Admission Requirements
None.
Description
Globalization continues to bring people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds together, to live and to work and to interact communicatively. This has engendered a very diversified global village with multi-cultural and multilingual agents with shifting identities who must interact. In these interactions, the participants bring along their socio-cultural expectations, communicative resources, norms and values. To attain successful communication in such a diversified world, the participants must understand, negotiate and accommodate to each others expectations. In this course we explore how language is used in social interaction, at the individual, institutional, societal and cultural levels. We investigate what is polite, or impolite; the variety of understandings of speech and language ideologies and how these are sites for potential miscommunication andmisunderstanding.
We also address the role of language in various spheres of everyday life of members of various communities of practice in the global village: governance, economy, health and education and examining how language policies and language planning in various nation states lead to the exclusion of the majority of agents in these domains. We will also debate issues concerning the sociolinguistics of globalization such as the discourses about migration and how globalization influences linguistic vitality and diversity.
Course Objectives
After completion of the course students will be able to
understand the complexity of everyday language use
describe the factors that can impede transcultural communication
develop skills for analysing cross-cultural social encounters
debate issues on language policy and language ideologies
understand the complexity of linguistic vitality and diversity
Mode of Instruction
The course will consist of a series of lectures and workshops including debates and observations of social interaction in a public arena negotiated during the first meetings. In general each topic will be introduced with a lecture and a critical discussion of a relevant text. For each topic there will be an assigned reading, students will take turns to provide critical commentary during classes and which may be posted on the course web pages. This will be followed by a workshop in which students carry out a practical exercise related to the topic.
Assessment
Assessment: In-class participation
Percentage: 15%
Deadline: Ongoing
Assessment: 4 Fortnightly assignments on course readings
Percentage: 20%
Deadline: Weeks 2, 4, 6, 7 (Assignments to be handed in by 17.00 on Fridays)
Assessment: A critical review of an article on a sociolinguistic topic (1000 words)
Percentage: 25%
Deadline: For the Friday class, students will choose weeks in which they will lead the critical discussion of a topic based on an article. The students will write up a critical commentary of the article (800-1000 words). The Powerpoint presentation should also be submitted.
Assessment: Final research essay(3000 words)
Percentage: 40%
Deadline: Week 8, October 18, 2013; 18 hours GMT
Literature
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Contact Information
Felix K. Ameka
African Languages and Cultures
Leiden University Centre for Linguistics
P. O. Box 9515
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
e-mail: f.k.ameka@hum.leidenuniv.nl
tel: + 31 (0)71 – 527 – 2243
Weekly Overview
- Using language: Language use in social interaction. Communication.
- Politeness and Impoliteness across cultures
- Talk in social interaction
- Societal and individual multilingualism
- Sociolinguistics of development
- Sociolinguistics of globalization
- Intercultural communication in professional and workplace contexts
Preparation for first session
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