ANTH 231
Survey of Linguistic Diversity: Meaning, Context and Communication Spring 2014
Division II
Cross-listed JAPN 231
This is not the current course catalog

This course explores ways in which human experiences, including vision, space, emotion and interpersonal awareness are encoded similarly or differently between Western and Asian languages. The course centers around two core areas of linguistics, semantics (study of meaning) and pragmatics (study of meaning in context and use), which are discussed from cognitive, cultural and social perspectives. Discussion topics include: grammar and cognition, lexicon and culture, conceptual metaphor, honorific systems, communicative strategies, and theories of politeness. Lectures and in-class activities will primarily focus on two typologically distant languages, English and Japanese, for comparison. Reading materials may include data from other languages as well, and students may work on languages of their interest for selected assignments.