Course Details

The key questions this course addresses are How do people talk to each other in different languages? Does the language we speak determine who we are? What is the relationship between language and thought, culture, national identity? We consider crosslinguistic differences and similarities with respect to conceptualizations of Moral Concepts, Friendship and Love, Freedom, Homeland, Politeness and Rudeness and Gender. Students are required to write 2 commentaries and a final term paper. Honors students are expected to write a longer, more in-depth final paper and do one additional commentary in which they reflect on universal vs. culture-specific aspects of language and how their understanding has changed during the course.