Our relationship to language is like a fish’s relationship to water: It is everywhere. It is our world. And for that exact reason, we are basically unaware of its role in making our world, both our mental world and our social world. This course addresses this typical unawareness of our language, both how it works as a system and how it shapes our lived experience. One of the basic ways we will raise our awareness is by comparing two languages: English and Chinese. Through this effort of comparison and contrast, we will discover something about ourselves. We will come to realize the amazing complexity of our own mastery of our mother tongue and how it differs from another language.

Readings to be provided by instructor