American Voices: Exploring Language and Identity (FNDS 3403)

Is American English a kind of Pirate English? Is it what your teachers told you to write in school? Is it a linguistic melting pot or a word salad?

How do movies and other kinds of culture use these differences to create characters? How do language differences express different identities?

In this course you will learn how to analyze the social meanings of different kinds of English. You will develop practical skills through researching and presenting ideas about American English.

This course covers topics in the disciplines of Linguistics, Communication, English.

Who should take this course?

Take this course if you want to understand how English became American, and if you want to explore how language differences can express identities.

More about this course

Course number: FNDS 3403

Number of Credits: 3

Search UM-Dearborn Class Schedule to find out more.

Dearborn Discovery Core requirements met: Intersections, Social and Behavioral Analysis

Meet your faculty member: Daniel Davis, Professor of Linguistics

One of the benefits of taking a Foundations course is gaining a faculty mentor that can support you throughout your college career. Get to know Daniel Davis, faculty member for American Voices: Exploring Language and Identity.

Daniel Davis likes learning languages and seeing how language changes when people adapt it for their own purposes. This led him to study Celtic languages at Harvard and Oxford universities, then to Hong Kong, where he became interested in world Englishes: How English developed into different varieties as it spread throughout the world.

Related interests include hiking, castles, karate, and coffee.

Have questions about this course? Email Dr. Davis at [email protected].