Subject Area: Linguistics

This course is designed for students with an interest in intercultural interaction, including communication among people from different languages and cultures in varying contexts. The course is of relevance to many fields of study, owing to the increasing phenomenon of globalisation in all aspects of our political, economic, professional and social lives. The course content includes the basic concepts of linguistic and non-linguistic realisations of culture, as well as an understanding of how these play out in the case of social, political, and religious contexts, intra-culturally and interculturally. Issues of power, distance and difference are seen as crucial notions in contexts of linguistic interaction. Interaction is viewed as management of communication, including negotiation, conflict and power relations. Students with a diverse range of interests, including but not limited to, languages, linguistics, media and communication and international relations are eligible to take the course. It is recommended that students who take this course have experience of more than one language. Much of the content of the course involves students in interactive scenarios, reflective activities, and working towards analytic conclusions.