ANTH 4620 - Language, Culture, and Thought

Can you think without language? Can you talk without thinking? This course delves into these questions, combining linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and digital studies. Students begin with an investigation of semiotic relativity, or how language shapes human cognition, debating the differences between human and non-human communication and cognition, including animal communication and AI. Students then investigate the effects of language in particular on thought-including specific syntactic and semantic forms. Students also examine discursive relativity, or the relationship between cognition and language in use, investigating verbal art, pragmatics and political speech, and changes in writing forms-including literacy, the internet, and interactions with AI. Scholars debate the degree to which these technological developments change, and have changed, thought patterns. Students will investigate these debates and write a final research paper.

Credit Hours: (3)
Pre- or Corequisite(s): One prior linguistics or cultural anthropology course
Cross-listed Course(s): ANTH 5620

Schedule of Classes