This course examines the complex relationship between culture and language. Lectures and readings will use ethnographic case studies and linguistic data to explore various theories about how language is shaped by, and in turn shapes, culture and social relations.

You will learn how to analyze the components of languages around the world, using linguistics as the primary means for investigation.

This includes studying:

• the origins of language
• the social uses of language among different cultural groups
• the formal elements of language, such as grammar, morphology, and syntax
• etymologies (histories) of words and language shifts
• language change
• how anthropologists document the dynamic and more formal elements of language
• the role that computers/software play in studying language; changing language
• indigenous and non-indigenous languages