If the content you are seeing is presented as unstyled HTML your browser is an older version that cannot support cascading style sheets. If you wish to upgrade your browser you may download Mozilla or Internet Explorer for Windows.

Anthropology 354: Language and Culture has several objectives. By the time you have completed the course, you should be able to

  1. describe how linguistic anthropologists conduct research into language.
  2. explain the place of linguistic anthropology within the discipline of anthropology.
  3. delineate and describe the following levels of linguistic analysis:
    • phonology,
    • phonetics,
    • morphology,
    • syntax, and
    • semantics.
  4. discuss the application of the above levels of analysis to topics such as language origins, language acquisition, language classification, language history, language change, ethnolinguistics, and sociolinguistics.
  5. describe and explain the linguistic distinctions between diachronic/synchronic, descriptive/prescriptive language/parole, deep structure/surface structure, competence/performance, and phonetic/phonemic.
  6. define a number of linguistic terms and provide examples of each from a language that you know or have read about.
  7. classify linguistic phenomena according to the principles of classification presented in this course, and describe those principles.
  8. critically discuss topics such as the relation of language and world view, language as a uniquely human phenomenon, and how languages vary in the way they categorize cultural experience.
  9. solve problems based on the linguistic techniques presented in this course.
  10. discuss the special place of language and linguistics in a Canadian context and in the context of other plural societies.
  11. outline the various theories that have been proposed to account for the origins of language, the role that language has played in human evolution, and the ways in which language changes and evolves.
  12. explain the ways in which the patterns of language—sounds, words, meanings, sentences, and writing—can be described and analyzed, and define and apply the terms linguists use for these tasks.
  13. describe the complexities of the relationship between speech and the social context in which it is generated, and between language and the culture it reflects.
  14. explain the principles of description and cultural relativity as they apply to language and culture.
Top