Language and Globalization

Catalog description

The objective of this course is to explore globalization and its effects on language use in society and culture. The societies we live in are fundamentally defined by processes of globalization that permeate all aspects of human life and culture. To observers of modernity, globalization centrally involves not only unprecedented flows of people, goods, and money, but also discourses, images, all kinds of symbols, and profound changes in communication technologies. For this reason, metaphors of movement and flow are becoming prevailing frames to understand these new realities. These changes and developments have been the object of close scrutiny by linguists, sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists in the past decade. Sociocultural approaches to language need to take into consideration these new dimensions of social life in late modernity to produce adequate understandings of language in use. In this course, we will explore topics including the economic importance of languages in our current globalized world; the paths that languages such as English have taken to reach a global dominance; the marginalization of certain languages in these globalizing processes; and the analysis of certain linguistic situations in which countries hosting a global language might or might not change their “official” languages to become more globalized. Besides sharpening their critical thinking on these important issues, students will have a better understanding of the way globalization has widened and/or restrained languages around the world. Pre-requisite: ANTH 170 or similar intro course on Language and Culture. Offered every two years.