LANGUAGE AND CULTURE (APLN 532)
Professor Susana M. Sotillo
Meeting Times: Online via Blackboard
Location: Virtual Space
Office Hours: Fridays via Elluminate 4:00 – 5:00 PM (Copy this to your
browser: http://tinyurl.com/sotillos-students). We will be able to interact
using the microphone and web-cam via Elluminate. I will be able to answer
questions and clarify assignments or project requirements.
Students are required to monitor their Blackboard accounts.
Please send me a text message if you need to get in touch with me. My cell
phone number is 201-341-0319. This is my preferred mode of communication.
Course Description: In this course, we will explore the relationship between
language and culture as it manifests itself in language use in a variety of speech
communities in the United States and throughout the world. The purpose of the
course is to examine the multifaceted and complex relationship between
language and culture and to show how language use simultaneously exemplifies
cultural values and serves to reinforce these values. We will consider a variety of
topics that are part of culture such as class, which is socially constructed and
maintained through speech. Other factors to be investigated that affect the
intersection of language and culture include race, gender, geographic region,
age, ethnicity, and occupation. All these factors demonstrate implicit cultural
differences and attitudes as manifested through language use. Consider the
following general questions: In any given community, (1) what determines
who among speakers can say what to which other speakers? (2) What is
the linguistic form and the cultural function of what speakers say or write?
And (3) How are mobile technologies or techno-cultural artifacts utilized by
individuals from a variety of cultures and for what purposes?
Course Requirements: In order to engage in meaningful online discussions,
reading assignments from a required textbook and various journals must be
completed. Students will be asked to interview individuals from other cultures
and prepare short reports to be posted to the Blackboard Discussion Boards.
Students will be asked to analyze and evaluate scholarly articles to be assigned
or that they select from a variety of journals. Students working in small groups
(two to three students per group) will be asked to initiate a discussion thread on a
specific week during the semester. Their analysis and summary of readings or
assignments must be posted to the Language and Culture Discussion Forum on
BlackBoard .prior to leading a F2F discussion.
Assessment and Evaluation: Your grade will depend on the successful
completion of the following: Multiple choice and true/false quizzes (20 points);
three assignments (30 points); informed participation via Blackboard Discussion
Boards where you can upload PP slides or links to YouTube video clips or to
your own video presentations (30 points); and a final research project (20 points).
Small Group Assignments: Students will do field research depending on the
nature of their project. References must include scholarly articles and, whenever
possible, primary sources. Field notes should be accompanied by either audiorecorded or video-recorded interviews.
Required Textbooks:
Bonvillain, N. (2011). Language, Culture, and Communication (6th Edition).
Prentice Hall-Pearson.
Articles to be assigned from various scholarly journals.
Academic Honesty Policies:
Cheating means getting others to give you answers or help during an exam or quiz. You
are cheating if you seek unauthorized help on an assignment or research project. Unless
your instructor has announced that an “open book” examination has been scheduled, you
may not refer to any textbook, Power Point slides, or notes while taking the exam. You
must not try to obtain quiz or exam questions from classmates who have already
completed an online quiz or exam.
Plagiarism means submitting work as your own that was completed by someone else.
For example, if you copy paragraphs or sections from a book, the Internet, or other
sources without acknowledging the source this constitutes plagiarism. You must use
quotation marks if you copy an author’s exact words. Remember to supply the
appropriate citation. If you purchase a term paper or pay a professional writer or another
student to write a research paper for you, you are guilty of plagiarism. (Source: Tools for
Teaching by Barbara Gross Davis; Jossey-Bass Publishers: San Francisco, 1993.)
TOPIC 1: Introduction and Basic Concepts – September
Week of September 7th-9th
Introduction – Basic Concepts
1.1. The nature of Language,
Culture, and Communication
across Cultures
Take the following quizzes:
 Culture in Health Care environments
 American Culture Awareness
Week of September 12th16th
Chapter 3: Language and Cultural Meaning
Week of September 19th23rd
1.2 Language and Cultural
Meaning
1.3 Linguistic Relativity
Readings on Sapir (on Blackboard)
 Whorf’s article, A Linguistic Consideration of
Thinking in Primitive Communities, in Hymes’
edited collection (also on Blackboard), pp.
129-141.
 Review PP slides.
Principle – Thought,
Language and Culture
Assignment #1: Create a survey/questionnaire
to measure the degree of semantic convergence
on specific concepts or physical attributes
among individuals from culturally different
backgrounds and languages. Interview at least
10 subjects. For example, probe how different
cultures relate to the statement: “You are very
thin,” or “what do you do for a living?” Also,
investigate how different cultures insult
individuals by comparing them to a specific
animal: “You are a pig!” or “He is a rat!” (10
points)
Submit your findings to the Assignments Folder.
Do not send your work via Email. First
Assignment is due September 19.
Discussion Board Posting #1: Norms about
hair in Western and non-Western cultures (5
points). Post by September 23rd.
TOPIC 2: Ethnography, speech communities, and Communicative
competence – Communicative Interactions
September 26th-30th
2.1. The Ethnography of
Speaking - Communicative
Competence and Speech
Communities
2,2 Speaking and Narratives
from Other Cultures
Chapter 4: Outline of an Ethnography of
Communication



Week of October 3rd-7th
2.3 Cultural Assumptions,
Stereotypes, and Conflict
2.4 Communicative
Interactions – Politeness
Week of October 10th-14th

Hymes’ Ethnography of Speaking (PP slides)
Seal and Her Younger Brother Lived There
(Analysis of poem).
Discussion Board Posting #2: Post your
analysis of the meaning of Seal and her
Younger Brother Lived There by September
30th.
Communicative behavior and conflict
between African-American customers and
Korean immigrant retailers in Los Angeles
(Bailey article on Blackboard).
Read Chapter 5 – PP Slides
Assignment #2: Prepare and share with your
instructor and classmates an illustrated manual,
personal narrative, Web site, or PP slides that teach
young people (under the age of 18) a lesson about
one of the following topics:
 How to identify and denounce school bullying
or cyberbullying.
 How to encourage youngsters to initiate a
campaign to protect the environment and
maintain open spaces in your town.
 How to establish and maintain intercultural
friendships and engage in civic projects that
promote tolerance and group harmony.
 How to deal with sensitive issues of sexual
orientation. Assignment #2 due October
21st.
Video Presentation: Middle Sexes – Redefining
he and she.
Midterm Evaluation: October 14th (Complete multiple
choice, true/false, and essay questions online.)
TOPICS 3 and 4:
Digital Communication – Language and Gender
Week of October 17th-21st
3.1 Digital Communication
and Discursive Practices
Chapter 6: Digital Communication and Signed
Languages
Read the following articles available via
Blackboard:



Week of October 24th-28th

4.1 Language, Culture, and
Gender
Lloyd & Gillard. Discursive Practices and the
Creation of Identity Using Mobile Phones.
Sotillo, S. SMS Text Messaging Practices
and Communicative Intention.
Kaul & Kulkarni. Gender and Politeness in
Indian Emails.
Akande & Akinwale. Spelling Practices in
Text Messaging.
Chapter 10: Language and Gender
Assignment #3: Identify different types of speech
acts in SMS text messages from teenagers from
different socio-economic backgrounds. (SMS data
will be assigned to small groups by instructor.)
Assignment #3 due November 4th.
Video Presentation: Dancing Girls of Lahore
(documentary)
TOPIC 5: Social Segmentation and Linguistic Variation
Week of October 31stNovember 4th
5.1 Class and Race in
Linguistic Variation
Topic 6:
Chapter 9: Social Segmentation and Linguistic
Variation: Class and Race
Multiple choice and true/false quizzes, and a shortanswer essay to be completed by November 4th.
Bilingualism and Multilingualism
Week of November 7th-11th
6.1 Bilingual and Multilingual
Nations
6.2 Attitudes Toward
Languages and Speakers
6.3 Bilingual Education in
the United States
Chapter 11: Multilingual Nations
 Film: Mississippi Masala
Week of November 14th-21st
6.4 Language use in
Bilingual Communities
6.5 Bilingual Conversational
Strategies (pp. 332-343).
Chapter 12: Bilingual Communities
TOPIC 7: Language and Institutional Encounters
Week of November 28thDecember 2nd
7.1 Language Ideologies
7.2 Language and Status
7.3 Institutional Contexts
Chapter 13: Language and Institutional
Encounters
Daniel Tammet’s Embracing the Wide Sky
http://www.ldresources.org/2009/01/12/embracingthe-wide-sky-daniel-tammet/comment-page1/#comment-313566
Finals Week – Exam Friday, December 16th Online
Additional References:
Whorf, Benjamin L. 1941 (1956) ‘Languages and logic.’ In John B. Carroll (ed.),
Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf .
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp.233-245.