1. Readings: Finnegan Chap. 1.
2. Phonetics: Consonants and Vowels and their articulation.
3. Go to this diagram.
4. Viewings: Searchinger, The Human Language Series, Part I: Colorless Green Ideas
   
   Viewings will depend on time available, availability of equipment, and are not to replace class time, lecture/discussion time, etc.
   
   

1. Handout: Components of a language system.

2. Readings: Pinker, Chaps. 1-5

3. Finegan, Chaps. 1, 2

4. General introductory Handout

5. A recent article about the evolutionary biology of humans and chimps, and the differences in ability to speak.

6. While we're at it, here's a handout about Eskimo ``words" for `snow'. and the misconceptions about that.

7. Here's another interesting website on evolution using evidence from both biology and from language, to investigate what the author calls "Phylogenetic analyses of linguistic evolution".

1. Readings: Pinker, Chap. 3
2. Viewings: Playing the Language Game, Human Language Series, Vol. II.
3. Handout on morphology (grammar)

4. Try the Stroop Test to see if you can disassociate your reading skills from your color recognition skills.

1. Readings: LeClerc, Schmitt and Dube (Blackboard)
   
2. Examples of some different different registers of English.
   
3. Handout on the topic of linguistic register
   
4. Article from the New York Times about self-stereotyping in Italy.
5. Claims and Warrants: Review of the issues of claims, evidence, arguments, and warrants in Booth, Colomb and Williams' book.

Language in popular science. Language and communication; language and animal communication. Apes and signing; the nature of human sign language. Language ability of dolphins, whales, etc.

Readings:
1. Here's a site devoted to "prerequisites to language in animal communication". This group is interested in the features of animal communication that are like (human) language, but also how they differ.
2. Salzmann (Design Features of Language.) Blackboard

3. Schepartz (Language and Modern Human Origins) Blackboard.

4. Handout on Language Use and Authenticity

5. A recent report of a discovery of pheromone receptors in humans. (The role of pheromones in animal communication is better known than in humans.)

6. Last but not least, the notion of science in popular culture, and especially "movie science."

• The importance of anthropomorphism in the character-formation of alien species.

• Visit a site devoted to the famous Buck Rogers. Or visit a page devoted to the equally famous Buster Crabbe, who played the character 'Flash Gordon.'

• Article on the Origin of Alien Species

1. Readings: Metaphors We Live By. Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. University of Chicago Press, 1980. On reserve at Annenberg Library (P 106.L235)
   
   
2. Metaphor and Film Whittock, Trevor, Cambridge U. On reserve at Van Pelt (Rosengarten Reserve Room).

3. Viewings: Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi; Star Trek (Klingon) .
   
   
4. Notes on language use in science fiction.

• Space Cat; The Explorers; Flight of the Navigator

• Independence Day; ET;

• Men in Black
  
  

Readings and other Resources:
1. Chapter 12: "Registers: Language Variation across Situations of Use." Finegan, E. Language, its Structure and Use Harcourt Brace, 1994.
   
   
2. Discussion on dialects and their representation in the media.

3. Page devoted to the "Brooklyn" dialect (or NSNYE) and its association with criminals, floosies, and people of "low" culture and no education.

4. British Library Millennium Memory Bank archive of British dialect samples.

5. A page that shows some charts depicting increase and decrease of variation in non-standard dialects such as New York English.

6. Linguistics Dept. Phonological Atlas page.

7. Filmscripts: C3PO's language and Jabba the Hutt Other filmscripts available at this site

8. On Methodology.

9. An example of mutual passive bilingualism in the Star Wars Cantina scene. Han Solo speaks English to Greedo; Greedo replies in his own language (actually Quechua!) and both understand each other just fine. For a fuller menu of Greedo's "conversation" with Han Solo, go to this site.
   
   

In-group and Out-group language: social stereotypes and sociolinguistics. Film depictions of Native-American, African American and Latino speech; other accents, other cultures. The importance of "voice quality."

• Viewings: Executive Decision and the depiction of terrorists from the Middle East.

• Readings:
  
  
  1. Dillard (on Blackboard)
     
     
  2. A document downloaded from the web that deals with linguistic stereotyping

  3. Readings: Labov The Logic of Non-Standard English (Blackboard)
     
     
  4. Dictionary definition of Caricature.

• Other popular stuff about accents, especially non-standard accents.

• Web documents:
  • A table showing some correlations between "voice quality" and social attributions, especially attribution of 'personality' features, from Addington, D. W. (1968)

  • The relationship between vocal variables and their marking functions.

  • A list of articles resulting from a search on the topic language attitudes and another list resulting from a search on the topic matched guise technique.

  • Bibliographies on language and gender.

  • Phenomenon, a movie about a guy named George (played by John Travolta) who is hit by a blast of light, and suddenly has incredible powers of intelligence. Along with this, he also suddenly displays phenomenal language-learning ability, and sudden high proficiency in Spanish, a language he has struggled to learn for years.

  • A recent article from the New York Times about the uses of 'horror' movies and bioterrorism.

• Viewings:
  • G. B. Shaw's Pygmalion (1938); My Fair Lady;
  • Viewings: Wolf Nation,
  • Spoof of Dances with Wolves,
  • Dances with Wolves
    
    

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  • Week 10: ( Nov. 8-10 ) Class, race, and personality attribution, continued.

    Viewings:

    1. In-class viewing of Wolf Nation.

    2. Scenes and other material from the movie about the Amistad incident Questions about authenticity and history; how are Africans and African-Americans represented in film and in history?

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  • Week 11: ( Nov. 15-17 ) `Orientalism.' `Exoticism,' and the depiction of `foreignness'. The tendency to demonize.
    
    
    1. Readings: Lippi-Green Chapter 6

    2. Images of Orientalism: Various 19th-century (and some 20th-century) images

    3. Viewings: Scenes from:
       • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

       • Executive Decision
         • A weblink on Stereotypes about Muslims and especially Arabs.

         • Another article on being a Muslim in our society after 9/11.

       • Blonde Venus

    4. A `hot new street fashion trend' among African American athletes, hip-hop artists, etc.: Chinese/Japanese kanji characters on clothing, as tattooes, etc. Another page, showing spread of this trend into 'main line' fashion.

    5. An article about the movie The Siege and its tendency to demonize people, especially Arabs, Muslims and people from the Middle East. Or, for that matter, the refusal of the government of Thailand to allow filming of a remake of The King and I claiming that it makes their king (Mongkut) look like a buffoon.

    6. Here's a movie review that claims that American popular culture tends to equate British accents with 'questionable moral stature.'

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  • Week 12: ( Nov. 22. ) Language and Disability

    • A list of films on the general topic of language and `disability'

    • Language and Deafness

    • Viewings:
      • The famous case of Helen Keller: The Miracle Worker

      • Children of a Lesser God

    • Sample Bibliography for your papers. Please don't forget to include a bibliography/filmography or webography for your papers; see this form as a model.

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    Thanksgiving Break Nov. 24th

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  • Week 13: ( Nov. 29--Dec. 1 ) Other kinds of `disability:' the `wild child' and Hollywood's treatment of people `without language'.
    1. Readings: Schiffman LCLP Chap. 8
    2. Viewings:
       • Nell
         
         
       • the Mystery of Kaspar Hauser by Werner Herzog (in German)
         
         
       • Wild Child of Aveyron by François Truffaut (in French).

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  • Week 14: ( Dec. 6-8 ) Summing Up.

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  • Summary of documents, images etc. linked to this page;
  • Links to various images, sound-files, etc.

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  haroldfs@ccat.sas.upenn.edu, last modified Nov. 7, 2005.