The Cultural Nature of Language (FRSEM-UA 496 section 001)
Fall 2013
T 2-4:45pm 12 Waverly Place Room L111
Prof. Bambi B. Schieffelin
25 Waverly Pl (Rufus Smith)
ph: 212 998 8556 bs4@nyu.edu
Dept. of Anthropology
Room 510
off hrs:
Required Books:
*Basso, K. 1979. Portraits of “The Whiteman.” NY: Cambridge University Press.
*Basso, K. 1996. Wisdom Sits in Places. Albuquerque: Univ. New Mexico Press.
*Bauer, L. & Trudgill, P. (eds.) 1998. Language Myths. NY: Penguin.
*Bauman, R. 1983. Let Your Words be Few. NY: Wheatmark
Readings and SQs: on NYU Classes, in Course Documents and Assignments respectively.
I am not using NYU Classes for email, except to send messages to the class.
If you need to email me, please use the address above.
Week 1
Introduction to the class
9/3
short language autobiography
Film: “The Wild Child” 1970 Francois Truffaut
Week 2
Feral Children
9/10
Itard, Jean
1799/printed 1801 The Wild Boy of Aveyron, 'Of the First Developments of the Young Savage of
Aveyron,' pp. 91-140 (SQs)
1806/printed 1807 'Report on the Progress of Victor of Aveyron,' pp. 141-179 (SQs) In L. Malson, Wolf
Children and the Problem of Human Nature. NY: Monthly Review Press, 1972.
Lane, Harlan
1976 The Wild Boy of Aveyron. Cambridge: Bantam. Chapter 7 Interpreting the Legend.
Written Essay (1)
Week 3
Isolated Children
9/17
Curtiss, S.
1977 Genie: A psycholinguistic study of a modern-day "Wild Child.".Pp 3-51. (SQs)
Rymer, R.
1993 Genie. NY: HarperPerennial. Chapters 1-12, 17, 22 (SQs)
Film: “Secrets of a Wild Child” PBS NOVA 1984 60 minutes
Week 4
Language Socialization: Becoming a member of a community
9/24
Sapir, E.
1927 The unconscious patterning of behavior in society. In The Unconscious Patterning of
Behavior, ed. E.S. Dummer. NY: Alfred Knopf, pp. 29-42. (SQs)
Ochs, E. and Schieffelin, B. B.
1984 Language acquisition and socialization: Three developmental stories. In Culture Theory,
ed. R. Shweder and R. Levine. NY: CUP, pp. 276-320. (SQs)
Ochs, E., Pontecorvo, C., and Fasulo, A.
1996 Socializing taste. Ethnos 61:7-46 (SQs)
Week 5
Fashioning communities 1
10/1
Bauman, R.
1983 Let Your Words be Few. Ch 1-5 (SQs)
Trip to 15th Street Quaker Meeting Sunday 10/6
Week 6 Fashioning communities 2
10/8
Bauman, R.
Let your words … Ch 6-9 (SQs)
Basso, K
1970 'To give up on words': Silence in Western Apache culture. Southwestern J. of
Anthropology 26, 3: 213-230.
Written Essay (2)
Week 7
NO CLASS OCTOBER 15
Week 8
Ethnography of Speaking
10/22
Malinowski, B.
1922[1961] Introduction. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Pp 6-25 (SQs)
Geertz, C.
1973 Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In The Interpretation of
Cultures. NY: Basic Books. (edited selection, 2 pages)
Goffman, E.
1967 On face-work. In Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face to Face Behavior. NY: Pantheon.
(SQs)
Basso, K.
1996 Wisdom Sits in Places. (SQs)
Written Essay (3)
Week 9 Verbal Play
10/29
Persistent myths about languages
Language myths
#2 "Some languages are just not good enough"
#7 "Some languages are harder than others"
#10 "Some languages have no grammar"
#19 "Aborigines speak a primitive language"
Basso, K.
1979 Portraits of “The Whiteman.” New York, CUP. (SQs)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7FixvoKBw Key and Peele Substitute Teacher
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/03/18/174639342/six-moments-of-code-switching-inpopular-culture
Week 10 Bilingual identities/social stereotypes
11/5
Woolard, K.
1997 Between Friends: Gender, Peer Group Structure and Bilingualism in Urban Catalonia. Lang
in Soc 26, 4:533-560. (SQs)
2011 Is there Linguistic Life after High School? Lang in Soc 40, 5: 617-648.
Koven, M.
1998 Two languages in the self/The self in two languages. Ethos 26,4:410-455. (SQs)
Film: “Being Myself”
Lippi Green, R.
1994 Accent, standard language ideology, and discriminatory pretext in the courts. Lang in Soc
23, 163-198. (SQs)
Persistent myths about languages and people
Language myths
#9 “In the Appalachians they speak like Shakespeare”
#11 “Italian is beautiful, German is ugly”
#17 “They speak really bad English down South and in New York City”
#20 “Everyone has an accent except me”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dABo_DCIdpM
English in 24 accents
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgpfSp2t6k
21 Accents English
Written Assignment (4): interview a friend about their ideas (stereotypes) re language(s) and
speakers and write up your findings relating them to the readings
Week 11 Style, identity, difference, meaning
11/12
Thurlow, Crispin
2010 Speaking of Difference: Language, Inequality and Interculturality. In The Handbook of
Intercultural Communication, ed. T. Nakayama and R. T. Halualani. Malden: Blackwell, pp 227247. (SQs)
Mendoza-Denton, Norma
1996 ‘Muy Macha’: Gender and Ideology in Gang Girls’ Discourse about Makeup.
Ethnos 61, 1-2:47-63. (SQs)
Jones, Graham and Schieffelin, B. B.
2009 Enquoting Voices, Accomplishing Talk: Uses of be + like in Instant Messaging. Language
and Communication 29:77-113. (SQs)
Shankar, Shalini
2011 Style and Language Use Among Youth of the New Immigration. Identities 18:646-671.
(SQs)
Geoff Nunberg "Using 'like'" on NPR Fresh Air (archives) 3/14/01
Film: “Multilingual Hong Kong” (33 minutes)
Week 12 What we do to language!
11/19
Language changing – talking/reading/writing
Swift, Jonathan
1712 A proposal for correcting, improving and ascertaining the English tongue.
Cameron. Deborah
1994 ‘Words, Words, Words’: The Power of Language. In The War of the Words, ed S. Durant.
London: Virago, pp. 15-34. (SQs)
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003020.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/golf/22610823
http://nyti.ms/16VZ93z Food truck – ethnic slur
Language myths
#1 “The meanings of words should not be allowed to vary or change”
http://www.mysteriesofvernacular.com/
#3 “The media are ruining English”
#8 “Children can't speak or write properly anymore”
#12 “Bad grammar is slovenly”
Jones, G. and Schieffelin, B. B.
2009 Talking Text and Talking Back: My BFF Jill … J. Computer Mediated Communication14,
4:1050-79. (SQs)
Teens, Tech And Language: A Tired Old Tale Retold : NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92406717&sc=emaf
Franglais http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7221918.stm
English in Japanese http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23079067
http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=2101618 Geoff Nunberg
Week 13 Language out of Place
11/26
Aciman, A. (ed.)
1999. Letters of Transit. NY: The New Press.
place(s), memory/memories, language(s).
Written Assignment (5)
THANKSGIVING
Week 14
Research Project
12/3
Week 15
Research Projects
12/10
11/28-29
Class expectations:
1. Come to class on time, do the readings, actively participate. If you have to miss a class due to
illness, please email me in advance of the class.
2. If you have questions about the readings, or any assignment, email me. Please note: I do not read
email before 8am or after 8pm.
3. Late papers will not be accepted without a medical note from NYU.
4. If you see anything interesting/relevant to the class in the newspaper (or on a website, bring it to
the attention of the class, e.g., send me an email.)
5. Assignments:
SQs guide you in reading the materials and help you sort out issues. Type out your responses, they
can be in outline form. They will be used in class discussion, and turned in at the end of class for
me to read and give you feedback. They are required but not graded.
Written Essays/Assignments: These five assignments are designed to help you integrate a set of
ideas, and carry out mini-research projects. They are 6-8 pages double spaced, and are graded
(each 17% of course grade).
The Group Research Project will give you a chance to work collaboratively in small groups. On the
last day of class, Project findings will be orally presented to the class, one report per group will be
turned in, and each group receives a grade for the project (15% of grade). The projects will focus
on aspects of contemporary language use, highlighting changes in writing and speaking, including
new media.
The five written assignments:
Written Essay (1) The Wild Boy of Aveyron
Writing this essay from the perspective of any one of the participants:
What were the main challenges Itard faced in educating Victor and what methods did he use?
What were Itard's social and cultural ideas regarding educability, in particular, what were his
ideas about learning language, and social and emotional development? What dilemmas arose in
terms of rehabilitation and scientific investigation?
Written Essay (2): The meanings of silence
Discuss silence among Western Apache and Quakers comparing the cultural, social and political
meanings of “giving up on words” and “letting your words be few.” Include insights from your
observations at Quaker Meeting to add a contemporary dimension to Bauman's historical
perspective.
Written Essay (3): Doing ethnographic research on language
A. What insights does Basso’s book offer about language, memory, and community? B. Discuss
Goffman’s notions of facework as they apply to the fieldwork experiences of the ethnographer, as
well as for the Western Apache themselves. What connections do you see between A and B?
Written Assignment (4): Language and social stereotypes
Interview a friend about their ideas (stereotypes) about language(s) spoken in the United States
and write up your findings relating them to the readings. (An interview protocol will be
distributed).
Written Assignment (5): Language biography
Carry out an audio recorded interview of a multilingual person and write up his or her language
biography. Note any connections with the essays in Letters of Transit.