Course Description and Syllabus
Dr. Kimberly Porter Martin
E-mail: k, Web Site: http://kimberlymartin.com
HB 105, Office Hours: MW 10:00-10:40, 2:45-3:30, T 1:30-2:30
To sign up for an office hours appointment,
go to http://www.signupgenius.com/FindASignup and enter my email address.
Course Description
This course is an exploration of the meaning and use of language cross-culturally, and of how the study of language and communication styles can contribute to the understanding of a wide variety of social, psychological and cultural issues. By the end of the course you will have learned about how languages are constructed and performed, how language is learned by children, how language is related to cultural beliefs and values, the impact of multilingualism on complex societies, how language usage changes from one social context to another, and the significance of these changes in how social groups communicate and function. You will participate in lecture, readings, class exercises, discussion, exams and a writing project over the course of the semester.
Required Texts
Salzmann, Z., Stanlaw, J, and Adachi, N.
2013 Language, Culture and Society. Westview Press.
Tannen, Deborah
1999 The Argument Culture: Stopping America’s War of Words. Ballantine Books.
Course Expectations
If you want to do well in this course, you need to attend class. Your participation in the form of discussion, questions, comments and presentations is one of the most important parts of the course. You are responsible for ALL information and materials dispensed during class time. Please turn off your cell phone and take care of personal needs before or after class. If you are using your cell phone in class you will be asked to leave that class session. Your attention needs to be on what is going on in class, not in what is going on elsewhere. At the end of the course, you are required to evaluate the course online. The evaluation receipt (you can print it out after you complete the evaluation) is due at the time of the final exam.
Workload. This course has been planned according to university policy. Undergraduate courses require the assignment of two hours of work outside class for each hour spent in class. Because this is a four-unit class, it requires 60 hours of in-class time. The homework assigned for this class is, in keeping with nation-wide university standards, intended to fill a total of 120 hours outside of class over the fifteen-week semester. You should, therefore, be prepared to spend approximately eight (8) hours outside of class reading, participating in assigned activities, writing assignments and doing library research during each week of the term. Because only one third of our course time is spent together in the classroom, I will not be able to cover all the material in the readings during class. You must be able to assimilate readings on your own, and/or to come to me if you do not understand material in the readings that is not being covered in class. I am more than willing to help if you let me know what material is difficult for or confusing to you. We will be doing in class exercises with each of the assigned books to help you understand how to study readings.
Grades.
Attending class, working hard and doing your best are, of course, crucial to your success in this class; however the final measure of your success is what you have learned, and what you can show you have learned in written and oral assignments. Grades in this course will not be assigned according to whether you try or whether you are present in class, but on your mastery of the material and your ability to demonstrate your new knowledge.
The final grade for the course will include the following components weighted as follows:
Two midterm exams @ 20% 40%
Participation 10%
Final Exam 20%
Term paper 30%
100%
Exam grades and the final grade for the course will be calculated using the following grading scale:
87% and above = A 75-77% = B- 58-59% =D+
85-86% = A- 73-74% = C+ 52-57% = D
83-84% = B+ 62-72% = C 50-51% = D-
77-82% = B 60-61% = C- less than 50% = F
Exams. Each exam will contain a mixture of question types that may include true-false, multiple choice, matching, short answer definitions and essays. Approximately two-thirds of the exams will in essay format. Exams will cover all assigned readings, exercises, lecture, videos and class activities assigned for that part of the course. The final exam will be comprehensive. Grades will not be curved. Exam dates are firm and not negotiable. Make up exams will only be allowed for extreme circumstances, with permission of the instructor and must be taken between 7:30 am and 4:30 pm Monday - Friday.
Term Paper. A minimum 4000 word paper is required as a major component of this course. Students who do not do this assignment will receive no credit for the course. The assignment is to write a library research paper on a topic of interest to you that is directly related to the material covered in this course. The project will be delivered in two stages: a written paper, and a brief (5 minute) oral presentation of the highlights of your paper in class. Papers must be submitted in hard copy and are due by the beginning of class on the date listed in the syllabus.
A completed term project should be a 4000 to 4500 word double-spaced paper using 10 or 12 point font. Spelling, grammar and formatting count. Your term paper should include a title page (NOT counted in the word count), citations from at least 5 ACADEMIC references, a reference page (not counted in the word count) and formatting using American Anthropological Association format. Academic references include articles published in peer-reviewed journals, edited academic volumes. academic books, theses, dissertations and government documents. Newspaper articles, textbooks, magazine articles, and webpage sources that are not .gov or .edu are NOT academic references. All information in the paper must be cited. The basics of AAA format are attached at the end of the syllabus.
Ideas, facts, examples and reasoning taken from the writings of others must be cited regardless of whether you quote the source or use your own words to explain the information. Paragraphs, sentences or phrases taken word for word from sources must be put in quotes and cited in the text of the paper using one of the acceptable formats. Use no more than three quotes (a quote is NOT a citation) per 10 page paper. Quotes must be less than 100 words long.
The Learning Enhancement Center in the Student Affairs Building has writing tutors. This term, Bryan Torres is the anthropology tutor. You can make an appointment with him regarding not only the term paper, but also studying for exams, etc. You can schedule an appointment with a librarian for help doing the library research. LINK+ on the library web site delivers books within 48 hours from libraries across the state. If you have questions about the paper, its content, its organization or its format, ask them in a timely manner. Do not wait until the last minute.
Academic Honesty. Students are expected to do their own work and to do original work for each class in which they are enrolled. It is unacceptable to copy work from other students. It is unacceptable to copy work directly from books, articles, or other sources including the Internet. It is unacceptable to use work done by another person. It is unacceptable to use the same work to satisfy requirements for two different classes, even if they are not in the same department. Any breach of the academic honesty code will result in an F grade for the course and referral to the Department Chair and the Dean for disciplinary action. Academic dishonesty can be grounds for expulsion from the university. Please read the section on Academic Honesty in the Rights and Responsibilities chapter of the ULV catalog carefully.
Class Participation
Ten percent of the grade for this class is based on participation. Participation means being present not only physically, but actively listening and contributing to what is going on in class. Students who take notes, ask questions, offer comments, and share experiences relevant to the topics of the day will receive high grades. Students who use their laptops for activities not related to class, do work for other classes, monitor cell phones, text, are habitually late, or frequently go in and out of the classroom during class will lose participation credit.
Schedule of Topics and Assignments
DATE TOPIC READINGS
SALZMANN TANNEN
8/26 / Introductions and The Nature of Anthropological Linguistics / Chapter 19/2 / NO CLASS – Labor Day
9/9 / Language and Culture
The Features of Language / Chapters 2
9/16 / Language Research in Non-Human Primates The Biological Genesis of Language / Chapter 6
9/23 / EXAM 1
9/30 / Speech Sounds / Chapter 3
10/7 / Morphology and Syntax / Chapter 4
10/14 / Semantics, Language and Cognition / Chapters 11&12
10/21 / How Children Acquire Language / Chapter 7
10/28 / EXAM 2
11/4 / Historical Linguistics
Written Language & Non-Verbal Communication / Chapters 5 & 8 / Chapters 1-3
11/11 / Language Variation and Contact
Speech Acts and Speech Communities / Chapter 9 / Chapters 4-6
11/25 / Language in Complex and Globalized Society / Chapters 7-9
12/4 / Oral Reports
TERM PAPER DUE 11/4
12/11
8-9:45am / FINAL EXAM
American Anthropological Association (AAA) Style Guide
Manuscript Formating
• Margins should be one inch on all sides. Text should be left justified but NOT right justified.
• All text should be double spaced and in 12 point font.
· Headings are as follows, with the first two left justified, and the third level heading indented and placed at the beginning of a paragraph. First level headings are all caps. Second level headings capitalize all words except articles and prepositions. Third level headings begin with a capital letter, but do not capitalize any other words unless they are proper nouns like names. The first two level headings are bolded. The third level is not.
HEADING STYLE
Heading Style 2
Heading style 3. The paragraph follows this heading.
Quotations
• All published quotations must be cited with year and page number(s) with the sentence end punctuation after the citation.
Eg. As Marshal says, “Poverty is the bane of modern society” (1992:7–8).
• If quote takes more than four manuscript lines, make it a block quote.
• Indent block quotes ½ inch from the left margin.
• Block quotes should be single-spaced if the text of the document is single-spaced and double-spaced if the text of the document is double-spaced.
• Use brackets for citation at the end of a block; put sentence period before citation.
Eg. . . the end of the quote. [Smith 1999: 128]
• If multiple paragraphs occur within a continuous block, the first paragraph should
have no indent, but subsequent paragraphs should be marked by indents.
Citations
• All citations must be in author–date form. Do not cite the same source multiple times in a row if you have not used material from another reference in the meantime.
• Place text citations as near the author’s name as possible, except for placing quotation citations after the quote.
Eg. Smith (1990) eloquently describes the material.
• For multiple authors use commas and the word “and” not the & between author names.
Eg. Ethnic identity is a very fluid phenomenon (Jones and Smith 2008).
• Use “et al.” in text citations of three or more authors every time you cite the reference.
Eg. (Jones et al. 2008) NOT (Jones, Smith and Brown 2008).
• For quotes, use a colon, and no space, between year and page number.
Eg. (Waterman 1990:3–7)
Reference Section
• References should be in a section beginning on a new page and titled References Cited.
• References should be single spaced.
• All references cited in the text must be included in the reference section.
• No references should be included that have not been used as citations.
• References with the same author and date should be placed in alphabetical order, by title.
• List references in alphabetical order by author’s last names.
• Use hanging indention (see examples).
Single-Author Book
Castles, Stephen
1990 Here for Good. London: Pluto Press.
Coauthored Book
Bonacich, Edna, and John Modell
1975 The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small Business in the Japanese American
Community. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Multiple References in the Same Year (alphabetize by title)
Gallimore, Ronald
1983a A Christmas Feast. New York: Oxford University Press.
1983b Holiday Gatherings in the Pacific Northwest. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Work Accepted for Publication
Spindler, George
In press In Pursuit of a Dream: The Experience of Central Americans Recently Arrived in the
United States. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Unpublished Work
Smith, John
N.d. Education and Reproduction among Turkish Families in Sydney. Unpublished MS,
Department of Education, University of Sydney.
Chapter in Book with Editor(s)