UMass Boston

Course Overview

Description

The course will take a sociolinguistic and anthropological approach to the analysis of discourse and, in so doing, seek to clarify the distinction between "oral style" strategies and "literate style" strategies in communication. It will look at so-called "oral cultures" and cultures influenced by writing, as well as at cross-cultural differences in orientation toward spoken communication and language and literacy socialization practices. A great deal of emphasis in class will be placed on the analysis of "non-literary" texts: e.g., interactions between teachers and young children as the children tell stories during "Show and Tell," interactions between writing instructor and student writers during writing conferences, narratives told by adolescents who speak Black English Vernacular, written texts produced by student writers from various non-mainstream backgrounds.

Prerequisites

APLING-MA