Course abstract

Language is central to our existence. It is hard to think of ourselves, our societies, and culture without language. Language is a primary means of socialization. It interacts with the social, political and economic power structures. It is the primary medium for the construction and transmission of knowledge and for the articulation of ideas. In short, language constitutes humans and their identities. All people either utilize varieties of a language or use two or more languages to respond to a whole range of affective and interpersonal demands; language by definition must be defined as multilingualism. The primary objective of this course is to examine relationship between language and society with respect to the nature of language.