Students are required to take at least 30 credits in course work (the equivalent of ten 3-credit courses). There are thesis and non-thesis options. The program may be completed in two years of full-time study. All requirements for the degree must be completed in five years. The four courses required of all students in the program deal with the diverse factors which condition communicative events, as well as the ways in which cultures are produced and reproduced. In these courses students are introduced extensively to the theoretical basis of the program as well as to ways of meeting varying intercultural situations with flexibility, and to methods of training others to do the same. The courses are:
MLL 601 Intercultural Pragmatics
An examination of the linguistic and semiotic underpinnings of human discourse. We are concerned with the sorts of structuring that communicative codes like language and gesture impose on interaction and with the varied uses that human communities make of these codes. The human context and the social constraints within which all communication takes place are central to our examination of the complexities of discourse. syllabus
MLL 602 The Ethnography of Communication
At the intersection of linguistics and anthropology, the ethnography of communication has as its goal an understanding of the patterning of communicative behavior within culture. The course includes discussions of what it means to "talk" in different cultural contexts, the functions of literacy in the U.S. and elsewhere, the symbolic organization of the world in writing and speaking, language attitudes and social prestige, how languages and cultures are acquired and reproduced. Readings include case studies drawn from work on various cultures.
