This essay will be about the role of international communication in the World Cup (it is going on right now if you are not aware), along with an argument or thesis regarding this topic (please let me know ASAP what your thesis is). You will look at a match between two countries, past or upcoming (please get back to me as soon as possible telling me which countries you will choose). See how people are talking about each team and their countries. Explain how certain factors beyond language impacted language use, looking at social categories (race, gender, class, religion, sexuality, etc.). Look at how ideologies about the nation and its communities from within (think of Prof. Dent’s piece on cellular publics where Brazilians talk about doing things in a ‘Brazilian’ way, I attached it in files) and from without (think about the work on raciolinguistic ideologies, I attached it in files), or even code-switching (do people talk about soccer in ways different from other sports? do they talk about it differently to people within their social groups as opposed to outside their social groups?).
That is the specific prompt. Here are additional instructions:
You should exercise your critical thinking skills, in that you are expected to critically engage with the underlying theoretical concepts put forth in the course (language in culture and society course). Examples of important underlying concepts include but are not limited to things such as frames, performance, race, gender, ideology, mediation, inscripts, parallelism, and codeswitching. Language in its cultural specificity should be at the center of your assignment. This assignment asks you to put these sorts of concepts to work in analyzing a piece of real-life discourse, or creating something that comments on language. Your overarching purpose in this assignment should be to test the concepts in analyzing something. Ask yourself, are the concepts effective in the ways that the authors we have read have defined them, or do they require re-defining? For all these reasons, your assignment will, at some point, make an argument about the way in which your data challenges or supports the theoretical concepts from the course. Make sure your thesis is easily identifiable, plausible, novel, sophisticated, insightful, and absolutely clear.
THE KEY, however, is to make sure you are being explicit about the involvement of course concepts.
Include a bibliography of the course references you used. Understand that more is not always better; Im judging the depth of your engagement (more on depth in a moment).
Please focus especially on engaging with the courses central theme in a way that is identifiable, plausible, novel, sophisticated, and clear. In addition, the texts you are calling on should be clearly pointed out, and it should be shown that you understand the concepts as they are articulated by authors and in class. Lastly, explore course themes and concepts in an unexpected way, using well-executed techniques.
Remember that this is about language how it channels human behavior and what happens to us when we use language. Keep language and its associated course concepts at the very center of what you are thinking about.
Regarding the sources I provided in files, your job is to read and see how these sources incorporate into and impact the topic. Since the sources mention phones a lot, you can also research about phones regarding sports. In addition, you will have to research about sports and such, and citations will be needed for the additional sources (2-3 minimum). These sources should be scholarly and immensely credible! Thank you.
Let me know if you have any further questions.
