Applied Language Studies

Catalogue description

This course is an introduction to the study of language as applied to real world problems in specific situations in which people use and learn languages, e.g., language learning and teaching, language socialization, bilingualism and multilingualism, language policy and planning, computer-mediated communication, stylistics, translation, intercultural communication, language and symbolic power, political and commercial rhetoric. Fieldwork consists of observation and analysis of language-related real world problems.

This course is about language as people use it, learn it, adapt it, and think about it in real-world settings. The overall methological frame we will use to analyze language use will be discourse analysis, which we will study for the first half of the semester. Along the way, and especially in the second half of the semester, we will consider topics such as language learning and teaching, language socialization, bi-/pluri-/multilingualism, language policy and planning, computer-mediated communication, stylistics, translation, intercultural communication, language and symbolic power, political and commercial rhetoric. We will explore such questions such as: How do people do things with words? How does language both reflect and construct contexts, values, beliefs, and ideologies? How is language related to thought? How do people appropriate a new language and how does this affect their social and cultural identity? How can language both create problems and help solve them in the real world of politics, religion, medicine, and academic? The course attempts to build bridges between theory and practice, and will involve fieldwork on the observation and analysis of language use in a variety of social and material contexts.