This module fosters students' ability to identify and articulate the relationship between, and conflation of, language and power. Through a transdisciplinary approach combining the applied study of linguistics and linguistic anthropology, postcolonial critical thought, and cultural analysis, we will encounter different languages around the world, situating language and power relations in historical and geopolitical terms. Focusing mainly on issues of contact and difference in terms of linguistic, social and cultural systems, we will identify and deconstruct pre- and misconceptions surrounding how language is used to exert and react to power, learning to challenge the fetishization of peoples and languages and their sociocultural and linguistic identities. Throughout, we will combine theory with reflective practice to better understand how language and culture are used as a tool for domination, leading students to critically reassess their own position in this transnational process as language users endowed with agency.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module students should be able to:
Compare and contrast the ways in which 'common sense' understandings of language serve to construct difference and convey power relations;
Demonstrate their analytical skills with attention to specific linguistic, historic, socio-political and cultural contexts;
Identify and critique expressions of oppression and resistance in language, culture and context;
Critique and reflect on how language and power structures within languages and cultures have shaped social and cultural histories
Assessment
Assessment Methods & Exceptions
Assessment:
1 x portfolio of evidence of learning (3,500 word-equivalent), in English (100%)