Minority Languages and Linguistic Descriptions

Minority Languages and Linguistic Descriptions is a Cognitive Science class taught by Kathryn Potts.

Course Description
One of the major goals of linguistics is to describe languages; doing this allows us to ask which structures are possible and impossible in human language. Intellectually, this is a relatively simple, straightforward goal. Culturally and politically, however, it is extraordinarily complex. What counts as a distinct, independently describable language? Who should decide which languages to investigate? Answers to these questions have far-reaching social, cultural, political, and educational consequences, particularly for minority languages: languages spoken by relatively few people, languages that aren't officially politically recognized, languages which aren't traditionally written down, etc. The course will explore both linguistic descriptions and language issues in educational, political, and cultural contexts. We will explore these ideas through detailed case studies of languages including American Sign Language, African American English, Welsh, and endangered languages of Australia and North America.

Learning Goals

 * Reading
 * Writing