Language, Gender and Ethnicity

Culture is created by human beings and is shaped by and communicated through social practices and verbal interaction.
AVS2215 focuses on negotiation of meaning related to gender and ethnicity, primarily as it appears in the public sphere.
The course provides an introduction to different ways of understanding ethnicity and gender, with emphasis on social constructionism and discourse theory. It illustrates connections between institutional and interactional aspects of communication, and provides practice in analyzing language in different contexts and genres.The syllabus mainly comprises various types of texts, particularly texts from newspapers and magazines.

KNOWLEDGE
Candidates:
- Have insight into the interdependency between culture, communication and identity, with special reference to social categories of gender, ethnicity and ‘race’.
- Have knowledge about central topics, theories and methods in the field.
- Have an analytical perspective on media discourse that enables them to discuss and reflect on empirical studies in a disciplined manner.
- Have knowledge about the relationship between applied linguistics, media studies and cultural studies.
- Are familiar with strategies for effecting change in communication patterns.

SKILLS
Candidates are able to:
- Perform and present empirical analyses of communication in relation to genre, medium and relevant societal discourses.
- Analyze media discourse as contributions to cultural negotiations on categories like gender, ethnicity and ‘Norwegianness”.
- Use their knowledge to find and assess new contributions to the field.
- Communicate their knowledge in an adequate, logical and coherent manner.
- Contribute to change by communicating empirically grounded knowledge about discourse in contextually relevant and thought-provoking ways, and by acting on that knowledge.

Lectures, seminars and group work. Part of the tuition is compulsory, from the start of the semester and on. Compulsory assignments must be submitted and approved before the student is permitted to take the written examination. To assignments are to be done as group work, and submitted as papers of approximately 3000-7000 words. Such student work will be evaluated and commented upon.
Under special circumstances, the department may consent to a written home examination; an application must be submitted to and approved by the department.