Anthropology 33: Culture and Communication

Texts (all required):

1) Lila Abu-Lughod (1986) Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. [Available in Undergraduate Reserve, College Library, front desk, Powell]

2) Alessandro Duranti (1994) From Grammar to Politics: Linguistic Anthropology in a Western Samoan Village. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. [Available in Undergraduate Reserve, College Library, front desk, Powell]

3) Readings (listed below)

Jan 7

INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE: GOALS, READINGS, REQUIREMENTS, GRADING.
VIDEO: "Crosscultural Encounters, Version 3.1"
An audio-visual introduction to Anthro 33 by former Anthro 33 students.
Introductory lecture: "The spirit of Anthro 33"

Jan 9

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE

Readings:

Duranti, A. (in press) Linguistic anthropology, Cambridge University Press, 1997, Ch. 2 'Theories of culture.'

Jan14 ENTERING THE "FIELD": CULTURE, IDENTITY & EMOTIONS

Readings:

Abu-Lughod, Lila Veiled Sentiments, pp. 1-77 (chapters 1 & 2).

Assignment #1 - due Jan.21 at beginning of class to your T.A.

Jan16

WAYS OF HEARING/WAYS OF MAKING SENSE
LANGUAGE AND MUSIC -- SYSTEMS OF
REPRESENTATION -- TRANSCRIPTION

Readings:

(i) Duranti, A. (in press) Linguistic Anthropology, Cambridge University Press, 1997, Ch. 1, section 1.4 "Theoretical concerns in contemporary linguistic anthropology" (Performance, Indexicality, Participation), pp. 22-35.
(ii) Feld, S. (1982). Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 3-7, 20-37, 144-150 (section on Gono To).
(iii) Tedlock, D. (1983). "On the Translation of Style in Oral Narrative." In The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 31-56.

 

 

Jan21 ETHNOGRAPHERS, LINGUISTS, AND THE COMMUNITY: WHOSE AGENDA?
Readings:
(i) Duranti, A. (1994) From Grammar to Politics , pp. 14-46 (chapter 2).
(ii) Bloomfield, L. (1933) "Speech Communities," Ch. 3 of Language, G. Allen & Unwin, London, pp. 43-66.
(iii) Morgan, M. (1994). The African-American Speech Community: Reality and Sociolinguistics. In M. Morgan (Eds.), Language & the Social Construction of Identity (pp. 121-48). Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies, UCLA.

Jan23

LANGUAGES AS SOCIO-HISTORICAL REALITIES

Readings:

i) Finegan, E. & N. Besnier (1989) "The Historical Development of Languages," pp. 277-294. Language: Its Structure and Use. New York: Harcourt.
(ii) Kroskrity, P. V. (1993). Language, History, and Identity: Ethnolinguistic Studies of the Arizona Tewa. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 33-53 (ch. 2).

Jan28

SPEAKING AS AN OBJECT OF INQUIRY FOR THE SOCIAL
SCIENCES

Readings:

(i) Sacks, H. (1975). Everyone Has to Lie. In M. Sanches & B. G. Blount (Eds.), Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use (only pp. 64-74). New York: Academic Press.
(ii) Youssouf, I. A., A. D. Grimshaw, et al. (1976). "Greetings in the Desert." American Ethnologist 3(4): 797-824.

Jan30

WAYS OF SEEING:
Collective ethnography -- A class exercise in learning to "see"
based on Tim Asch's film The ax fight [film from AVS]

Readings:

Goodwin, C. (1994) Professional vision, (selected portions) American Anthropologist

Feb 4

BODY, SPACE, AND LANGUAGE

Readings:

(i) Duranti, A. (1994) From Grammar to Politics, ch. 3 "Hierarchies in the Making"
(ii) Abu-Lughod, Lila Veiled Sentiments, pp. pp. 78-167.

Assignment #2 (Group Project)--due Monday Feb. 10 in your TA's mailbox by 9am.

Feb 6

FROM STRUCTURES TO ACTIONS: GRAMMAR, POLITICS,
AGENCY

Readings:

Duranti, A. (1994) From Grammar to Politics, ch. 5 & 6: "The Grammar of Agency in Political Discourse" (only pp. 114-29, 138-143) & "From Political Arenas to Everyday Settings: The grammar of Agency Across contexts," pp. 144-166.

Feb11

SELECTED STUDENTS' PROJECTS - Show and Tell

Feb13

REVIEW

Feb18

MIDTERM (do not need blue books)

Feb20

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION

Readings:

(i) Ferguson, C. (1964) "Baby Talk in Six Languages", in J.J. Gumperz & D. Hymes, eds., The Ethnography of Communication, Am. Anthropologist 66, 6, Part 2, pp. 102-114.
(ii) Ochs, E. & B.B.Schieffelin (1984) "Language acquisition and socialization: Three developmental stories" in R. Shweder & R. LeVine (Eds.) Culture Theory, pp.276-320.

Feb25

CROSSTALK -- A BBC Program by linguistic anthropologist John
Gumperz on crosscultural misunderstanding

Readings:

(i) Jupp, T. C.,Roberts, C., & Cook-Gumperz, J. (1982). Language and the Disadvantage: The Hidden Process. In J. J. Gumperz (Eds.), Language and Social Identity (pp. 232-56). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(ii) Gumperz, J. (1992) "Contextualization and understanding", in A. Duranti & C. Goodwin, eds., Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, Cambridge University Press, (only the beginning of the article, pp. 229-233.

Feb27

LITERACY INSTRUCTION ACROSS CONTEXTS

Readings:

(i) Duranti, A. & E. Ochs, "Literacy instruction in Western Samoa," in B. Schieffelin & P.Gilmore (Eds.) The Acquisition of Literacy: Ethnographic Perspectives, Ablex, Norwood, N.J., 1986, pp. 213-233
(ii) Duranti, A, E. Ochs and E. K. Ta'ase. (1995). Change and Tradition in Literacy Instruction in a Samoan American Community. Educational Foundations , 9(4), 57-74.

Mar 4

MULTILINGUALISM AND MULTICULTURALISM

Readings:

(i) Zentella, A.C. (1990) Returned Migration, Language, and Identity: Puerto Rican Bilinguals in Dos Worlds/Two Mundos. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 84: 81-100
(ii) Anzaldua, G. (1990) "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," in R. Ferguson, M. Gever, T. T. Minh-ha, C. West (Eds.) Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures. The New Museum of Contemporary Art, N.Y. & MIT Press, pp. 203-11. (iii) Kroskrity, P. V. (1993). Language, History, and Identity: Ethnolinguistic Studies of the Arizona Tewa, pp. 193-212.

Mar 6

ART IN CONTEXT, ART AS CONTEXT
(Video on verbal performance in its social context, W. Samoa)
(Video of interview with Fred Myers on Aboriginal Paintings)

Topics: (a) Samoan speechmaking; (b) Beduin poetry; (c) Australian aboriginal painting

Readings:

(i) Duranti, A. (1994) ch. 4 "Politics and Verbal Art: Heteroglossia in the Fono"
(ii) Shore, B. (1982) "The Esthetics of Social Context," in Sala`ilua: A Samoan Mystery. Columbia University Press, pp. 256-62 (packet).
(iii) Abu-Lughod, Lila Veiled Sentiments, pp. 171-259 (chapters 5, 6, 7, 8).
(Video of Myers' interview about Aboriginal paintings will be available at the Instructional Media Lab, 270 Powell for those who wish to review it)

Assignment #3 --(Groups of 3) -- due March 13 to your TA at beginning of class.

Mar11

FINAL LECTURE, where everything magically comes together;
(Evaluations)

Mar13

FINAL REVIEW