VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

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Language Culture and Society

1. INSTRUCTORS:

Name and title Research interests Phone Email

Dr. Hoàng Thị Intracultural communication, 0905598994 hanhhtulis@gmail.com

Hạnh language, culture and society,
English teaching methodology
Dr. Nguyễn Visual studies, cultural studies,
Thanh Hà educational media

2. Course information
Program: MA- Applied Linguistics
Course title: Language Culture and Society
Course credit value: 3
Course code:
Course status:
Course prerequisites:
Class hour:
 Lecture: 30 hours
 Group work and presentation: 15 hours
 Individual/group work project: 90 hours
Faculty: Post graduate Faculty – ULIS - VNU
3. COURSE OBJECTIVES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

- apply basic concepts and processes of language, culture and society in exploring,
understanding and analysing language in use.
- use their informed understanding to empower themselves and others in the process of
language use in their study and practice.
- demonstrate their respect and sensitivity in language practice of themselves and
people around them to enhance understanding, appreciation and empowerment
among people and their varied language use.

4. COURSE DESCRIPTION:
The course examines how language functions; how it shapes and is shaped by thought; how
age, ethnicity, class and gender and other social factors are constructed by language and
influence language variation. It explores how people’s identity is constructed and

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performed through language, and how language in the media, politics and everyday talk
potentially and creatively represent people and their cultures.
The course will offer various opportunities for learners to acquire an informed
understanding and hence an appreciation of complex and dynamic relationship between
language, culture and society through critical analysis of language in use in media, politics
and everyday talk and how such language use gives rise to power. This understanding will
empower learners in the process of working with language in their further study and
practice.
5. Course content:
See section 8
6. TEACHING MATERIALS
Core texts:
Mooney, A., & Evans, B. (2019).  Language, society and power: An introduction.
London and New York: Routledge.
Recommended texts:
Ahearn, L. M. (2012). Living language: An introduction to linguistic anthropology.
West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
Evans, D. (Ed.). (2016). Language and identity: Discourse in the world. Bloomsbury
Publishing.
Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research.
London and New York: Routledge.
Flowerdew, J., & Richardson, J. E. (Eds.). (2017). The Routledge handbook of
critical discourse studies. Taylor & Francis.
Holliday, A., Hyde, M., & Kullman, J. (2010). Intercultural communication: An
advanced resource book for students. Routledge.
Jourdan, C., & Tuite, K. (2006). Language, culture and society: Key topics in
linguistic anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Salzmann, Z., Stanlaw, J., & Adachi, N. (2014). Language, culture, and society: An
introduction to linguistic anthropology. Westview Press.
Journals:
Communication and Medicine
Critical Discourse Studies
Discourse and Society
International Journal of Speech Language and the Law
Journal of Language and Politics
Journal of Sociolinguistics
Language in Society
Language Variation and Change
Text & Talk
7. COURSE STRUCTURE AND LEARNING AND TEACHING METHODS

The course will include both lectures and in-class tutorials. To facilitate learning, the
course employs discussion of readings, students’ discussion and textual analysis.
Flipped learning is applied. Students are expected to read the assigned materials in
advance. In the class, the lecturer will do just-in-time teaching answering the students’
questions from the reading. The rest of the time will be used for discussion and
language analysis. Students are centre of the learning activities and are expected to read
the materials in advance to choose topics for discussion in class, to proactively make
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 their own choice of the extra materials for analysis, to collaboratively work with their
peers, to autonomously work on their own and to actively apply what they have learnt.

The schedule includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:

8. Weekly timetable:
Sessions TOPICS TO BE COVERED READINGS
Introduction Mooney & Evans (2019). Ch1
1
Language functions
Socially charged life of language
Language thought and Mooney & Evans (2019). Ch1,2
2
representation
3 Language and politics Mooney & Evans (2019). Ch3
4 Language and the media Mooney & Evans (2019). Ch4
5 Linguistic landscapes Mooney & Evans (2019). Ch5
6 Language and gender Mooney & Evans (2019). Ch6
7 Language and ethnicity Mooney & Evans (2019). Ch7
8 Language and age Mooney & Evans (2019). Ch8
9 Language class and symbolic capital Mooney & Evans (2019). Ch9
10 Presentation
11 Projects and consultation Mooney & Evans (2019).  Ch11

9. ASSESSMENT

Form Weighting Task Purpose Due date

Active and 10% - Students participate -To assess students’ Sessions

regular in class discussions understanding of the 1-11
participation and/or presentation required texts and their
and attendance topics assigned by ability to critically reflect
+ reflection their lecturer; write on what they have read
writing reflection after the and listened.
class - To assess students’
proactive individual and
group study skills
Mid-term 30% Option 1: - To assess students’ Sessions
Presentation understanding of the 3-11
Students collects topics covered
language data, throughout the course
analyse in group in and their ability to apply
class and present their this understanding to
findings analyse linguistic data to
see the relationship
between language,
culture and society

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 - To assess students’
ability to work in group.
Option 2: Individual Students choose at least 5 Session 15
annotated articles published during
bibliography the last 5 years on a
related topic of research
and write an annotated
bibliography + a
summary essay
synthesising the articles.
End-of-term 60% Option 1: Students To assess students’ 3 weeks
assignment write an essay understanding of the after the
analysing linguistic topics covered in the last
data collected from course and their ability to session –
various sources to apply this understanding 1500-2000
shed light on the to analyse linguistic data words
relationship between to see the relationship
language, culture and between language,
society culture and society
Option 2: Students To assess students’ 3 weeks
write detailed ability to apply their after the
research proposal understanding to higher last
which include: levels to find/create new session -
Rationale; literature knowledge of the field. 2000
review, design, words
preliminary data and
analysis, expected
outcomes.

Other assessment information

Consult your lecturer if you have requests for further information about the assessments
9.1Reflection:
You need to submit at least two reflections on either the whole class sessions or your
classmates’ presentations. Don’t worry about being wrong or too informal. The minimum
length is 200 words, no maximum. It can be quite informal, 1-3 paragraphs. Roughly, it
answers all or some of the following questions:
1. Have you learnt something today?
2. Does it change your perspectives or does it reinforce any current perspectives?
3. How are you going to apply it?
4. Have you got any further comments or suggestions for the next lesson?
Your entries should be submitted BEFORE the next lesson (I encourage you to do it as
soon after the chosen lesson as possible). What lessons to reflect on are up to you, but make
sure you have at least two entries before the end of the course.
9.2Group presentation
Students collects language data, analyse in group in class and present their
findings. Discussion questions in the textbook can guide students’ topic choice.
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 9.3Essay
 The essay should be an academic argument demonstrating your ability to use
concepts and principles from the course to critically look at issues observed in real
life.
 You can use questions from the textbook as the starting point or you can write about
topics of your own interests. In the essay, you need to start from language or
multimodal data and analyse the data to reach certain tentative
understanding/conclusion about the interaction between language, culture, society
and power. If you start from your own opinion and trying to find “evidence” to
“prove” your point, you may risk reinforcing your pre-judgment or prejudice rather
than developing a critical look at the issues.
 The data you collected for the essay writing must be raw data, which have not yet
been analysed by other writers/scholars. Data already analysed from research paper
or already been cited for analysis and instruction from textbook are not accepted.
 You must not use the assignments or parts of assignments from other courses to
submit to this course.
 The topic of your essay must not be the same with the topic of your presentation.
 The referencing should follow APA style. Self-study how to summarise, paraphrase
and quote + do referencing to make sure you know how to cite sources appropriately.
 Plagiarism is strictly prohibited

10. COURSE POLICY:

Students are expected to:
 Attend at least 80% of the total class hours if she/he wants to do the end-of-term
assignment.
 Actively prepare for the class by reading and reflecting on what they have read for
each class meeting
 Actively participate in the class activities
 Work cooperatively and collaboratively with peers.
 Gather information from different sources, and become better informed about
language culture and society through collecting and analysing language in use
 Complete all the assignments by the due dates
 Plagiarism in oral, written or visual presentations is the presentation of the work, idea
or creation of another person, without appropriate referencing, as though it is one’s
own.
 Failure to acknowledge the use of another person’s work or ideas may result in
charges of academic misconduct which carry a range of penalties including
cancellation of results and exclusion from your program
 Works detected plagiarism will be marked down to 0 and reported to the Faculty.

Marking criteria for essay

9 - 10 8 7 5-6 0-4
Concepts 20% Excellent and Very good Good description Satisfactory Limited
thorough description of of chosen description of description of
description of well chosen concepts concepts concepts
well chosen concepts
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 concepts
Materials and Rich and Very good Good examples Satisfactory Limited examples
relevance 20% perceptive links examples of of concepts examples of of concepts
to examples of concepts concepts
concepts presented in the
presented in the materials
materials chosen chosen.
Analysis and Critical analysis There is Analysis is Some critical Only restricted
discussion 40% of the materials evidence of sound, showing interpretation and attempts at
chosen. improved critical some ability to links with other description or
Rich and awareness and assemble and readings and analysis
perceptive links ability to link compare ideas components of
between concepts in a and to evaluate the course
readings, with constructive and their relevance.
the content of the perceptive way.
course and more
widely, rich
discussion about
the relationship
between what is
seen in the
language with
the relationship
culture, society
and power.
References to
other material
and/or perceptive
development of
the implications
of the ideas.
Academic writing Excellently Generally well Acceptable Just acceptable Limited attention
20% presented with presented with overall but some overall, but with paid to the detail
attention to detail attention to detail possible some quite of presentation
of the of the problems in serious problems with many
conventions of conventions of certain sections in certain conventions not
the title page, the title page, of the sections of the followed. More
bibliography, bibliography, presentation. presentation. persistent
page numbers & page numbers & Possible small Possible spelling and
overall layout. overall layout, problems with problems with punctuation
Appropriate with possible appropriate appropriate problems. More
length with minor slips. length length. serious problems
excellent Appropriate with length.
language length with some
accuracy and language
fluency mistakes that do
demonstrated not affect
throughout. communication
of ideas.