Language and Culture
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1-2:20 pm
David Price, Olivia Archibald, and Irina Gendelman
SOC 103 SOC 395 ENG 317 IDS 301
Syllabus, Fall 2011
David Price
Office: OM 309, phone 438-4295
Office Hours: MWF 1:15-3 pm, and by arrangement.
dprice@stmartin.edu
Olivia Archibald
Office: OM 211, phone 438-4357
Office Hours: T 2:30-5pm; TH 2:30-5pm;; and by arrangement.
oarchibald@stmartin.edu
Irina Gendelman
Office: O’Grady Library Study Room 2, phone: 360-486-8826
Office Hours: T and Th 3-4 pm; and by arrangement.
igendelman@stmartin.edu
Teaching Assistant for the class -- Kayleen Kondrack
Kayleen.Kondrack@stmartin.edu
Course Description
In this class we combine linguistic and anthropological perspectives to examine the intersections of
language, culture and meaning. Human culture is larger than language, yet language and culture are indelibly
linked. For nearly a century and a half anthropologists have recognized that culture is comprised of learned beliefs
and behaviors shared among human groups. Clearly language is key vehicle for the transmission and creation of
culture, yet it is a vehicle that we use (or perhaps occasionally uses us) with little conscious awareness of its power
and limits.
Our study of language in this course is based on the assumption that language has “material,” tangible
effects. As David Bleich has noted, “we are not ‘minds’ relating to other minds, but people relating to one another
and to society.” Language – public language -- is not just abstract sounds that we can tear apart to see where the
tongue is when we say certain vowels or consonants, not just abstract words to discern what grammatical function
they have in the sentence. The effects of language spoken or written affect our “bodies,” our minds….the
material/physical conditions of our lives. One example of this effect is how governing systems have prevented
marginal peoples (slaves, people of color, people isolated geographically, immigrants, people with “substandard”
dialects, women…) from attaining the status of “literacy” via laws that exclude certain groups from learning,
privilege the dialect/language of those in power, and/or even define and privilege what (and who) is “literate” and
what counts for “knowledge.” For this reason, our course emphasizes the ability of language and nonverbal
communication to shape our perceptions and the ways that language is constrained by culture. For this reason, we
examine language around such issues as identity, power, diversity, orality, ethnicity/race, gender, and social class.
We view this academic enterprise as a cooperative venture in the most literal sense of the phrase. We (the
instructors) anticipate learning from each other, and from you the students as we explore language and culture.
Alongside our typical foci on general aspects of language and culture, this semester’s course will spotlight the
language and culture of prisons. We will use diverse readings, fieldwork and writing exercises, lectures, guest
speakers and fieldtrips as part of our exploration of course theme and readings.
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, if you have medical and/or
safety concerns to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please
make an appointment with one of us as-soon-as possible.
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Goals and Objectives
Language and Culture is designed:
1. To critically examine the forces of language and culture, including how language and culture shape our
beliefs about ourselves and others.
2. To enhance an understanding and appreciation of languages and cultures, ours and others.
3. To transfer the abilities and skills learned in this course to other areas of life, both academic and nonacademic.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
1. Define in complex ways the questions “What is culture?” and “What is language?”
2. Explain the relationship of language and culture to power, control, gender, socio-economic class, and
ethnicity/race.
3. Explain the connections of the language and culture of poverty to power, control, gender, socio-economic
class, and ethnicity/race.
4. Demonstrate an awareness of cultural distinctions and dialect, and the role they play in perceptions of
oneself and others.
5. Demonstrate the ability to generate and articulate personal responses to course texts and to explain the
premises and assumptions underlying these personal responses.
6. Demonstrate the ability to synthesize course concepts.
7. Demonstrate the ability to use basic ethnographic fieldwork techniques.
Expectations
1. Class Preparation. You should come to class with assignments carefully read and be prepared to engage
yourself in all class activities.
2. Due Dates. You are expected to honor all due dates.
3. Academic Honesty. All work must be original and, when needed, properly documented. This class abides
with the college’s policy on plagiarism as detailed in the college’s Student Handbook and Price’s
plagiarism FAQ webpage: http://homepages.stmartin.edu/fac_staff/dprice/fall97/plagiarism-FAQ.htm
4. Creative Participation. We expect you to bring your insights and questions to class with you and to help us
make this course a cooperative learning experience for all of us.
Course Texts (all available to rent or buy in the SMU Bookstore)
 Duneier, Mitchell. Sidewalk. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2001.
 Durrow, Heidi. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin, 2010.
 Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. New York: Scribner, 2005.

Optional
Bourgois, Phillippe. In Search of Respect. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge, 2003.
Articles/Essays, typically found in Moodle:
“Serving in Florida,” chapter from Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. 11-49.
Barthes, Roland. Chapter from Mythologies, 1957.
Cameron, Deborah. Chapter from Working with Spoken Discourse. London: SAGE, 2001.
Daniels, Harvey A. “Nine Ideas About Language”
Gendelman, Irina. “The Romantic and Dangerous Stranger”
http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0607/03-gendelman.php
Lakoff, George “The Policy-Speak Disaster for Health Care”
Kephardt, Ron “Reading Creole English Does Not Destroy Your Brain Cells”
Littleton, Greta “Spangorland: A Simulation for Language Policy”
McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil “Scots-Irish Migrations”
Miner, Horace “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” (http://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html)
Roberts, Paul “A Brief History of English”
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Major Projects
 Project One: “I am” Project Due September 13

Project Two: Sidewalk Paper Due Oct 11
SOC 103 students – 5 pages in length; 300 level students – 7-8 pages

Project Three: Field Ethnography Due Oct 25

Project Four: Paper on Glass Castle Due Nov. 22
SOC 103 students – 5 pages in length; 300 level students – 7-8 pages.

Project Five: Synthesis of Course Concepts Paper. Due 1 pm, Tuesday, December 13.
The final paper allows students to synthetically incorporate many of the themes and principles
examined throughout the semester. Papers need to be six pages in length for SOC 103 students and at least
eight pages in length for students taking the class as an upper division course. Among different material
used in the paper, it should include the last book read, Durrow’s The Girl Who Fell From the Sky.
The analytical perspective used in this paper is left to the writer, but the analysis should both
incorporate specific points made in course readings and it should build a focused analysis that sheds critical
light on the intersection of culture, poverty and language. This paper should begin with a clearly stated
thesis. It should discuss some pertinent scholarly writings on this topic (though this is not a research paper,
and this need not be a literature review or thorough discussion), and most importantly, it should build a
critical analysis of a chosen aspect of the language and culture of poverty. This paper will be in lieu of a
final exam.
Grading the Projects
The first project is graded as a pass/fail one. Your other four major projects will be evaluated by using the following
criteria:
“A” projects are projects of impressive quality that demonstrate thorough, thoughtful analysis and assignment
interpretation. The quality of the ideas in the project are truly outstanding and evidence an excellent command of
conventions that the assignment necessitates. You have been successful in meeting all due dates.
“B” projects are projects of impressive quality that demonstrate thorough analysis and good assignment
interpretation. The quality of the ideas in the project will be good. The project evidences at least a good command
of conventions that the assignment necessitates. You have been successful in meeting all due dates.
“C” projects have interpreted the assignment correctly and are of adequate quality. They demonstrate attention to
the assignment but don’t go beyond it in any substantive way. The projects evidence at least an adequate command
of conventions that the assignment necessitates.
“D” and “F” projects evidence inadequate attention to ideas, to specifics of each assignment, and/or to conventions
that the assignment necessitates.
Reading (and viewing and listening) responses Due: When assigned, or immediately afterwards
One of the requirements of the course is to post on Moodle a response/reaction/evaluation of certain class
activities. Activities that require a written response/reaction include guest speakers, field trips, and videos.
Writing a Response to Guest Speakers, Fieldtrips, and Videos. Consider at least ½-page response per event.
These should be posted on Moodle by the next class meeting after the event or by Monday midnight of the
following week.
The intent of these assignments is to assist you in developing material that you can use for class papers. All
class papers require synthesis of course readings and class activities. You are also welcome to post in Moodle
responses to any of the readings, but this is not a requirement Responding in writing prior to discussion of a reading
assignment allows you to deepen your understanding of the reading in preparation for your contribution to class
discussion and gives you yet another way to develop material that you can use and synthesize in your class papers.
Moodle postings of the previous week’s assigned readings/activities must be done by Monday midnight
the following week. (In other words, if you don’t post by the time of the assigned activity, be sure to post your
response by midnight on the Monday of the next week; otherwise, Moodle will not accept your responses.)
Your reading responses will be averaged as part of the Daily Grade when midterm and final grades are given.
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Evaluation
Daily work
25%
Five projects
75%
Project 1
Project 2
Project 3
Project 4
Project 5 (final) 20%
5%
20%
10%
20%
Special Arrangements
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, if you have medical and/or safety
concerns to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please see
me as soon as possible.
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
Emily Dickinson
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Course Syllabus, Fall 2011
DATE
Aug. 30
FOCUS
ASSIGNMENTS DUE
Class introduction
Self portrait
Sept. 1
How am I culture?
Miner, Horace “Body Ritual Among the
Nacirema”
(http://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.
html)
Sept. 6
How am I Language?
Daniels, Harvey A. “Nine Ideas About
Language”
Sept. 8
Representations of poverty
Irina’s “The Romantic and Dangerous
Stranger”
http://journal.mediaculture.org.au/0607/03-gendelman.php
Sept. 13
Project Reports – I am…
Project 1 due
Sept. 15
Poverty – workshop on language
Begin Sidewalk. Have Part One finished.
Social justice
Humanities
Sept 20
Ethnographic observation workshop
Read Part 2 - Sidewalk
Sept. 22
Larry Mosqueda, Evergreen
professor
Read Part 3 - Sidewalk
Sept. 27
Book Seminar
Have first 3 sections of Sidewalk read
5
DATE
Sept. 29
FOCUS
All-day field trip to Seattle to map
neighborhood (scene from Jane
Street)
ASSIGNMENTS DUE
Review ethnographic example (posted in
Moodle)
Continue Sidewalk.
Rather than field trip, you may
volunteer at the Olympia soup
Chapter from P. Bourgeois’ In Search of
kitchen
Respect
(http://www.stmartin.edu/Campus
Ministry/CommServ/CommKitchen
.aspx) or attend the Food Summit
at the Washington Center (see Irina
for details)
Oct. 4
Distribution of ethnographic
example.
Debrief trip
Group Meetings for ethnographic
project
Continue Sidewalk.
Oct. 6
Book Seminar
Finish Sidewalk
Oct. 11
Writing Blog/Flickr workshop –
reserve LL Classroom (Irina)
Project 2 due – the language and culture of
poverty. Sidewalk
Observation of Seattle Trip
Oct. 13
Fall Break
Food Summit at Washington Center
Oct. 18
Discourse Analysis
Discourse Analysis
Workshop -- Take discourse from P.
Bourgeois and use Cameron to
analyze it
Chapter from Cameron’s Working with Spoken
Discourse.
Visual Analysis
Roland Barthes, Mythologies
Oct. 20
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Oct. 25
Project 3 – presentations
Ethnography
Flickr
Start reading Glass Castle
Oct. 27
History of English Language
Roberts, Paul “A Brief History of English”
DATE
Nov. 1
FOCUS
Language dialects
Kephardt, Ron “Reading Creole English
Does Not Destroy Your Brain Cells”
Nov. 3
Who gets to use public spaces?
Nickel and Dimed
http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbustersblog/anonymous-joinsoccupywallstreet.html
Nov. 8
The Wild Wonderful Whites of
West Virginia (2009) (86 min)
McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil “Scots-Irish
Migrations”
POWER (class visitor Monica)
Lakoff, George “The Policy-Speak Disaster
for Health Care”
Nov. 10
ASSIGNMENTS DUE
Nov. 15
Debrief movie and Monica’s visit
Littleton, Greta “Spangorland: A Simulation
for Language Policy”
Nov. 17
Seminar
Seminar on Glass Castle. (300-level students
run the seminar.)
Nov. 22
Paper due – language and culture
in Glass Castle
Start reading The Girl Who Fell From the Sky
Special Guest – race and poverty
Paper due -- How do language and culture
shape the events of glass castle
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Nov. 24
Thanksgiving Holiday
DATE
Nov. 29
Flag Wars (87 min)
Dec. 1
Debrief movie
Dec. 6
Seminar on The Girl Who Fell from
the Sky
Dec. 8
Reports
(Response Sheets completed)
Dec. 13
1 pm
FOCUS
ASSIGNMENTS DUE
Synthesis assignment
Finish -- The Girl Who Fell from the Sky.
Paper Due in lieu of final at 1 pm
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