Talkin' Black: Language, Power & Identity

Catalog description

Soda, pop, or cokes? Buggy or shopping cart? Y'all, Y'alls, y'all'd've, y'all'd've'f'I'd've? Do you talk black, speak Appalachian - maybe both? Is your vernacular spectacular? Does anyone talk 'normal'? What does your accent say about you? We use language every day, but don't always take the time to stop and talk about the language we use. Language can both be a powerful tool for communication, and also a means to mock and disempower the 'other' (such as using the Southern accent to portray stereotypes). It can be used to draw people in (I'm lookin at you, brotha, sista) and dividing (you ain't from around here, are ya?) And, even if we share the exact same language - or think we do - miscommunications still seem to abound. This course will bring a sociolinguistic perspective to language: how we use it, how we speak and write multiple versions of the same language, and how it reflects our identities, particularly with regards to race, class, gender, and regional backgrounds. We will explore deep questions of language as a medium of communication with consequences and impact in political, social, and personal realms. In addition to producing a research paper, we will also explore codeswitching and codemeshing techniques. This course, open to majors and non-majors, will explore language in social interactions, both as a means for humans to inflict power, but also as a site for deploying resistance. Language, at the intersections of power and identity, is not neutral. This sociolinguistic course will apply linguistic principles to literary forms, to explore how Black novelists such as Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Ken Saro-Wiwa, M. NourbeSe Philip, bell hooks, and others, incorporate their voices across the Black diaspora to explore the ways that Black voices are expressed - or silenced - when accounting for agency and power relations