KSCA605 Anthropology of China

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2025
Extent and Intensity
1/1/0. 5 credit(s) (plus 1 credit for an exam). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
In-person direct teaching
Teacher(s)
doc. Wei-lun Lu, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
doc. Wei-lun Lu, Ph.D.
Department of Chinese Studies – Asia Studies Centre – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: doc. Wei-lun Lu, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Chinese Studies – Asia Studies Centre – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Mon 8:00–9:40 B2.32, except Mon 21. 4. to Sun 27. 4.
  • Timetable of Seminar Groups:
KSCA605/01: No timetable has been entered into IS.
KSCA605/02: No timetable has been entered into IS.
KSCA605/03: No timetable has been entered into IS.
Prerequisites
The student needs a proficiency level of CEFR B2 for English and B1 for Chinese to take the course.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
This course introduces two main approaches to the linguistic anthropology of Chinese-speaking societies: (I) ethnography of communication and (II) discourse analysis, along with three key notions in linguistic anthropology: (a) identity, (b) ideology and (c) dialogism.
Learning outcomes
At the end of the course, the student should be able to understand the complexities of Chinese-speaking societies from the perspective of linguistic anthropology. S/he will be able to recognize and describe various phenomena where language shapes or reflects elements in social life and will be able to analyze how cultural forms, social relations and societal activities are maintained, constantly negotiated and reproduced through language.
Syllabus
  • 1. Course overview
  • 2. Linguistic anthropology as a linguistic science of humanities (E, 2019)
  • 3. Rhythm: a key formal feature in daily communication (Link, 2013, Ch. 1; Meisterernst, 2019)
  • 4. Chinese literary products: obsession with parallelism in 順口溜 shukouliu and 對聯 duilian (Link, 2013, Ch. 1)
  • 5. Language and politics (I): characteristics of post-Mao officialese, language game and political correctness (Link, 2013, Ch. 3)
  • 6. Language and politics (II): FAMILY, BUILDING, WAR and PLANT as basic domains in political communication (Kou & Farkas, 2014; Lu & Ahrens, 2008, submitted; Lams & Lu, 2018)
  • 7. Language in rituals: weddings, funerals and religious practices (Lu, 2017a, 2017b, 2020a, 2020b; Lu & Shurma, 2023)
  • 8. The language of food: The language of Chinese menus and foods (Yao & Su, 2019; Depner, 2019)
  • 9. Language and gender (Chan & Lin, 2019)
  • 10. Variation in world Chineses and Chinese diaspora (Lin et al., 2019)
  • 11. Linguistic creativity in Chinese semiotics: puns, visual arts and neologisms (Huang et al., 2019; Jing-Schmidt & Hsieh, 2019)
  • 12. Final presentation
Teaching methods
!! ONLY STUDENTS ENROLLED IN A SEMINAR GROUP BY THE SEMINAR TUTOR (TO TAKE PLACE JUST IN THE FIRST CLASS MEETING) CAN TAKE THE COURSE !!
For each week, there are assigned readings. The student is expected to finish the reading PRIOR TO class. For each assigned reading, the student needs to write a critique (0.5-1 page A4) and upload it to the Homework Vault of the course by noon 13:00 the day before the class.
The critique should contain the following points:
1. What are the author’s main ideas? Give one short sentence for each thesis.
2. Are there any fallacies in reasoning?
3. What evidence is given in support of each thesis? How adequate is the evidence?
4. What additional linguistic or non-linguistic evidence can you bring to bear on this issue?
5. Can the main idea be extended to other linguistic or non-linguistic phenomena of Chinese? If so, are there limitations? If not, why not?
6. What questions remain?
The in-class discussion of each assigned reading is chaired by two student discussants (one primary and the other secondary), who went through the critiques PRIOR TO the class meeting, ready for managing the discussion. In addition, there will be two student recorders, who take notes of the discussion. The primary recorder organizes the notes after the class meeting and sends the recording to the seminar tutor.
Assessment methods
Active discussion and punctual attendance is expected. Each student will act as the discussant two times (1 x primary, 1 x secondary) and the recorder two times (1 x primary, 1 x secondary). One unexcused absence is tolerated; unpreparedness for the in-class discussion is judged as absence.
Grading of the course is based on the following components:
- In-term requirement 1: submission of ALL critiques to the Homework Vault in time.
- In-term requirement 2: when acting as the primary recorder, the student submits the recording of the in-class discussion to the seminar tutor by Wednesday noon 13:00 after the class.
- Final assessment: Identify a topic of your academic interest from those weekly topics and give a presentation. Choose an article (should be an academic journal article or a chapter from a professional book) related to your topic upon the seminar tutor’s approval, then summarize it and present your critique on it to the class. If your academic interest falls outside of those weekly topics, discuss with the seminar tutor.
When uploading the critique, use a doc. or rtf. format. Name the file as “SURNAME_ASSN_No.” so it may look like “Lu_ASSN_1”, for instance. Be noted that all assignments in the Homework Vault will be visible to all the students of the course to facilitate in-class discussion.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught annually.
General note: Posluchači Kulturních studií Číny povinně zapisují v 1. semestru studia.
Information on course enrolment limitations: Zápis mimo Čínská studia je podmíněn souhlasem vyučujících.
Teacher's information
https://is.muni.cz/auth/predmety/sylaby
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2015, Autumn 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Autumn 2021, Autumn 2022, Autumn 2023.
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