Admission requirements
This course is only available for students in the BA International Studies.
Limited places are also open for exchange students.
Please note: this course takes place in The Hague. Traveling between University Buildings from Leiden to The Hague takes about 45 minutes.
Description
Following on from the first-year courses “Communicating Power” (renamed to "Sociolinguistics" starting September 2017) and “Cultural Studies”, this course takes a micro and a macro approach to interaction between people and cultural groups.
Communication often proceeds on the basis of culturally-formed assumptions about who should speak, when, and for how long, what are appropriate topics for conversation, and linguistic and paralinguistic cues indicating how interlocutors feel about the evolving conversation. However, such assumptions are hardly ever made explicit. To begin to unravel how culture shapes everyday interaction, the first part of this course introduces classic notions in cross-cultural pragmatics and conversation analysis, through weekly readings uploaded on Blackboard. Students must familiarize themselves with this literature prior to coming class.
The second half of the course will examine culture and cultural differences in terms of how they work socio-politically and how they affect people and the interaction between cultural groups. The very term intercultural interaction provokes a pivotal research question: is there one world in which different cultures manifest themselves, or is it the case that cultures shape and embody different worlds? In other words: are different cultural expressions in the end expressions of the same or do they tend towards becoming the same (as a matter of universalism), or are they fundamentally different? If the latter is the case, this connects culture to the political, the realm of disaccord. Students will have to read one article per session and in sessions we deal with concrete cases.
Course objectives
The goal of this course is to provide students with the theoretical background to account for: 1.) the different meanings from which our social worlds are constructed as they arise in everyday conversation; 2.) the ways in which culture is used to shape worlds and world views.
More specifically, students will:
Gain insight into how sociocultural interpretations are constructed through and during interaction;
Learn to reflect on and interrogate the main concepts in pragmatics, sociolinguistics and intercultural communication studies as applied in different cultural contexts;
Learn to apply the theories and methods discussed in the course to analyze communicative, narrative and visual productions from regions of their choice;
Be able to assess the role of culture in the dynamics between politics, economics, and religion, in relation to history and global and local situations.
Timetable
The timetable is available on the BA International Studies website.
Mode of instruction
Lectures
Lectures are held every week, with the exception of the midterm exam week. Weekly lectures will cover issues both inside and outside the readings.
Tutorials
Tutorials are held once every three weeks, with the exception of the midterm exam week. Attending all tutorial sessions is compulsory. If you are unable to attend a session, please inform your tutor in advance, providing a valid reason for your absence. Being absent without notification and valid reason or not being present at half or more of the tutorial sessions will mean your assignments will not be assessed, and result in a 1.0 for the tutorial (30% of the final grade).
Course Load
Total course load for this course is 5 EC (1 EC = 28 hours), this equals 140 hours, broken down by:
Attending lectures: 24 hours
Attending tutorials: 8 hours
Assessment hours (midterm and final exam): 4 hours
Study of compulsory literature: (approximately 7 pages per hour): 64 hours
Time for completing assignments, preparation classes and exams: 40 hours
Assessment method
Assessment
Midterm exam: Written examination with short open questions.
Final exam: Written examination with on short essay question and (at most 50%) closed questions (multiple choice).
Weighing
| Partial grade | Weighing |
|---|---|
| Tutorials | 30% |
| Midterm Exam | 30% |
| Final Exam | 40% |
End grade
To successfully complete the course, please take note of the following:
The end grade of the course is established by determining the weighted average of tutorial, midterm exam and final exam.
The weighted average of the midterm exam and final exam needs to be 5.5 or higher.
Resit
If the end grade is insufficient (lower than a 6), or the weighted average of midterm- and final exams is lower than 5.5, there is a possibility of retaking the full 70% of the exam material, replacing both the earlier midterm and final exam grades. No resit for the tutorial is possible.
Please note that if the resit exam grade is lower than 5.5, you will not pass the course, regardless of the tutorial grade.
Retaking a passing grade
Please consult the Course and Examination Regulations 2017 – 2018.
Exam review
How and when an exam review takes place will be determined by the examiner. This review will be within 30 days after official publication of exam results.
Blackboard
Blackboard will be used for tutorial groups. Students are requested to enroll on Blackboard for this course, but only after correct enrolment in uSis.
Reading list
PART I
Book chapters and journal articles by John Gumperz, Dell Hymes, John Haviland, Steve Levinson, Michael Silverstein, Herbert Clark, Harold Garfinkel, and Erving Goffman. A detailed syllabus will be provided at the start of the semester; readings will be uploaded on Blackboard one week in advance of the relevant lecture.
PART II
Articles by Geert Hofstede, Bruno Latour, Charles Taylor, Saba Mahmood, Emily Apter, and lemmas from the Stanford Encyclopedia. A detailed syllabus will be provided at the start of the semester; readings will be uploaded on Blackboard one week in advance of the relevant lecture.
NB: for the essay part of the final exam, students will have to have watched the movie Biutiful by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Registration
Enrolment through uSis is mandatory.
General information about uSis can be found here.
Registration Studeren à la carte and Contractonderwijs
Not applicable.
Contact
Prof. dr. M. Terkourafi Prof. dr. F.W.A. Korsten
When contacting lecturers or tutors, please include your full name, student number and tutorial group number.