LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN US MEDIA

Catalog description

The course analyzes the intersection between languages and reality, i.e., how the coexistence of languages informs our daily experience, self-perception, and perception of others. We will explore the many assumptions and beliefs about the value of different languages and variants within them, and that of their speakers. We will look at examples of how linguistic groups in the US represent themselves and show the complexity and richness of their culture through visual and audio representations of language, through a variety of media-social media, film, music, and written narratives-while investigating when and how linguistic communities have formed and disappeared in the United States and their cultures of origin, thus placing U.S. linguistic diversity in a global context. (Cross-listed with WLL 1000 , FREN 1010 , JAPN 1020 , GERM 1010 ).