Course Description
Explores the language of digital communication, ranging from the innovation of new words and expressions in social media to the construction of identities in cyberspace. Students will use modern tools in the analysis of language data to understand the mechanisms that shape language usage in the digital world.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be expected to produce substantial research reports that align with topics and methods in the broader field of CMC studies. Graduate Students will also be expected to produce additional assignments, including the preparation of critical article summaries and the direction of group work.
Athena Title
Digital Life of Language
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in LING 4887E or LING 6887E
Prerequisite
LING 3060 or LING 3150 or LING 3150W or permission of department
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
- Students will be able to recognize patterns of language use and, in a broader sense, communication through Computer/Digitally-Mediated Communication (CMC).
- Students will be able to analyze specific linguistic behaviors--i.e., syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and phonological, displayed by CMC participants.
- Students will be able to understand and contextualize popular claims regarding language use and CMC.
- Students will be able to survey different social media platforms and their representation of different languages (e.g., minority languages).
- Students will be able to evaluate current research focused on patterns of language use in CMC.
- Students will develop basic computational skills working with CMC and social media data.
- Students will produce a research proposal that targets a specific aspect of language use in CMC/Social Media.
- Students will be evaluated using homework and in-class assignments that explore the various facets of human communication in digital media. Students will also be expected to prepare reviews of research articles and produce projects that implement current methods in data gathering and data analysis.
Topical Outline
- 1. Introduction: What is Computer-Mediated Communication?
- 2. Digital Language: Writing, speech, gestures? How should it be analyzed?
- 3. Cross-platform language patterns
- 4. Methodological approaches to analyzing CMC
- 5. The social dynamics of digital language
- 6. Language variation and change in CMC
- 7. Emotion and tone in CMC
- 8. Digital Language as Discourse
- 9. Multilingualism and CMC: Addressing the digital divide
- 10. Semiotic practices in CMC: emoticons, emojis, emotes, and memes
