Language and Social Identity - OPDX1O114B
Title: Jazyk a sociální identita
Form of teaching: seminar
Guaranteed by: Katedra občanské výchovy a filosofie (41-KOVF)
Faculty: Faculty of Education
Actual: from 2025
Duration in semesters: 1
Semester: both
E-Credits: 0
Hours per week, examination: 0/0, other [HT]
Extent per academic year: 8 [hours]
Capacity: winter:unknown / unknown (unknown)
summer:unknown / unknown (unknown)
Maximum number of enrolled students: unlimited
Min. number of students: unlimited
4EU+: no
Virtual mobility / capacity: no
State of the course: taught
Language: English
Teaching methods: combined
Repeated enrollment: 2 / 2 / 3 / 2
Note: course is intended for doctoral students only
enabled for web enrollment
can be fulfilled in the future
you can enroll for the course in winter and in summer semester
Guarantor: Mgr. Tomáš Samek, M.A., Ph.D.
Interchangeability : OPDX1O114F
Is interchangeable with: OPDX1O114F
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Annotation -
In this course, students will become acquainted with the philosophical and semiotic aspects of human identity, which are shaped and reflected daily by our (mostly unconscious) speech practices and language behavior. The main emphasis is logically put on indexicality. It fixes language in body and at the same time brings body into language, and is therefore one of the basic manifestations and constituents of the dynamic tension between the uniqueness and sociality of each of us. After the theoretical introduction, specific semiotic, philosophical and anthropological phenomena will be analyzed, which can serve as indicators of social imagination and collective identities in public space. It is precisely these identities and feelings of collective belonging that, in their changing nature, show and co-create one of the problems of today's world- the threat of a lack of social cohesion and often accentuated group particularism, which hinders cooperation between different societal segments.
Last update: Samek Tomáš, Mgr., M.A., Ph.D. (21.04.2021)
Descriptors -
Course completion requirements -
Exam in a form of discussion about student's essay that relates language or communnication to the topic of his or her thesis.
Last update: Samek Tomáš, Mgr., M.A., Ph.D. (21.04.2021)
Literature -

Obligatory literature:

 

BOURDIEU, P. Language and Social Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1999.

BROWN, P. - LEVINSON, S. C.: Politeness: some universals in language usage. In: Jaworski, A. - Coupland, N. (eds).  The Discourse Reader. London, New York 1999: Routledge, pp. 321-335.

GAL, S. - WOOLARD, K. A. (eds.)Constructing Languages and Publics. Pragmatics 5(2) (special isssue).

KOHN, E. How forests think: Toward an anthropology beyond the human. Los Angeles: University of California Press 2013.

KWAN, Tze-wan. Towards a Phenomenology of Pronouns. (Konferenční příspěvěk.) Dostupné z:http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/rih/phs/events/200405_PEACE/papers/KWANTzeWan.PDF. 2004.

MANNIN, G. - PAUL, H. 2001.On social deixis. Anthropological Linguistics 2001: 43(1), pp. 54-100.

MAUSS, M.: A category of the human mind: the notion of person; the notion of self. In: Carrithers, M. - Collins, S. - Lukes, S. (eds): The Category of the Person: anthropology, philosophy, history. Cambridge 1985: Cambridge University Press.

PATOČKA, J. Tělo, společenství, jazyk, svět. Praha: Oikoymenh 1995.

SAMEK, T. „Elementy deiktické dimenze.“ In Týž: Tahle země je naše: Český a německý veřejný prostor v deiktické perspektivě. Pardubice: Univerzita Pardubice 2016, s. 41-77.

SILVERSTEIN, M. The Poetics of Politics: “Theirs” and “Ours.” Journal of Anthropological Research 2005: 61(1):1-24.

SOKOL, J. Filosofická antropologie: člověk jako osoba. Praha: Portál 2002.

 

Recommended literature:

 

DURANTI, A. (ed.). Language Matters in Anthropology: A Lexicon for the Millenium. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Vol. 9, 1-2, June/December 1999.

FOLEY, W. A. Anthropological Linguistics: an Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. 1997.

GAL, S. - KLIGMAN, G. Dilemmas of public and private. In: Gal, S. - Kligman, G., The Politics of Gender after Socialism: A Comparative-Historical Essay. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2000, pp. 37-62.

HANKS, W. F. Explorations in the Deictic Field.  Current Anthropology 2005: 46 (2), pp. 191-220.

MARVAN, T. - HVORECKÝ, J. (eds). Základní pojmy filosofie jazyka a mysli. Nymburk: O.P.S 2007.

SILVERSTEIN, M. Indexical order and the dialectis of sociolinguist life. Language and Communication 2003: 23, pp. 193-229.

Last update: Samek Tomáš, Mgr., M.A., Ph.D. (21.04.2021)
Teaching methods -

Seminars

Last update: Samek Tomáš, Mgr., M.A., Ph.D. (21.04.2021)
Course assessment methods and requirements for successful completion, grading scheme -

Mandatory participation in working meetings.  Discussion about student's essay that relates language or communnication to the topic of his or her thesis.

Last update: Samek Tomáš, Mgr., M.A., Ph.D. (21.04.2021)
Syllabus -
  • Intersubjectivity. The phenomenology of pronouns: you as a me of the Other. Person as a grammatical and social category. A person who is able to speak and use grammar.
  • Social semiotics: language as a sign system - the classification of signs: icons, symbol, index. Biosemiotics: indexicality as corporeality. The point of view of reference linguistics - deictic as the opposite of symbolic.
  • Language constructions of people and social distance. Language and the social function of politeness.
  • Language and social position: personal, social and gender deixis.
  • The poetics of politics: genre, intertextuality and framing.
  • Public space as an arena of identity: the construction of social identities and mediated communication.
  • The philosophical aspects of identity: body, language, community and the world.
Last update: Samek Tomáš, Mgr., M.A., Ph.D. (21.04.2021)