In the context of the Western tradition, language has been considered as belonging exclusively to the human domain. As the linguist Max Müller famously put it in 1862: ‘Language is our Rubicon, and no brute will dare to cross it’. Recently, scholars informed by a posthumanist approach have raised serious concerns about the anthropocentric approach to language (and languages). In their opinion, animals and even objects may possess language. Leonie Cornips (2019) speaks of the ‘animal turn’ in sociolinguistics and has called for putting animals “on the linguistic research agenda”. In turn, Alastair Pennycook (2018) has claimed that thinking about language in non-anthropocentric terms will help us understand better what it means to be human. The posthumanist turn in the humanities is a political movement characterized by an activist agenda. The goal is the decentering of humans, among other things by rethinking the nature of language (and languages). The decentering of an anthropocentric conception of language is at the same time the attempt to decenter the Western intellectual tradition: its views on the universe, our planet, human culture, knowledge, rationality, science, religion and art. It is also an attempt to produce a decolonial linguistics. Scholars from the so-called ‘Global South’ are questioning the idea of a ‘science’ of linguistics as developed in Western linguistic thought (Hauck & Heurich 2018, Pennycook & Makoni 2019). What, they ask, if language had different ontologies in different cultural spheres? The anthropocentric position of language would then be merely a cultural phenomenon. In this senior colloquium we will be discussing a selection of topics relevant to this new paradigm in the language sciences. The range of topics is broad and encompasses such questions as: if extraterrestrials exist, would they have language (and languages)? What do we gain from broadening the concept of ‘language’? Is anthropomorphism inevitable? What would the decolonial project in linguistics look like? Does the way we think and talk about language and communication impact our attitudes towards sustainability, climate change, indigenous peoples’ rights, animal rights, etc.?
To produce a special issue for an imagined journal on the topic of ‘The posthumanist turn in linguistics’. The journal issue will be made available online for both the academic community and the public.
100% coursework
- in-class presentation of a topic and leading the colloquium: 30%
- collaborative and individual effort in devising and producing a special issue: 20%
- individual research paper written as an article for the special issue: 50%
Readings and texts will be made available through Moodle throughout the course. Please contact the instructor (apable@hku.hk) for more specific information.