Seminar: Linguistic Anthropology

ANTH 5401
Departmental Home: Anthropology
Fall 2017

Meeting Time: W 3:20-6:10

Meeting Location: June Helm Seminar Room, 113B MH
Instructor: Laura Graham, Professor of Anthropology
Office Location: Macbride Hall 223
Office Hours: M 11:00-12:30; T 3:30-5 & by appointment
Phone: 335-0517
Email: laura-graham@uiowa.edu
Anthropology Department DEO: James Enloe (james-enloe@uiowa.edu; 335-0534)

Course Description and Objectives:

This course introduces graduate-level students to anthropological thought concerning
language and1 its relationship to society, subjectivity, and culture. An historical component
situates several theoretical traditions providing a foundation for comprehending principle
areas of current research. The course is integrated theoretically through the adoption of a
(Peircian) semiotic approach to language, wherein language is seen as one among the various
signal systems employed in a culture, but also as a signal system having unique properties that
set it apart from the rest of culture, giving it a "privileged" position.

A primary goal is to understand ways that communication in society contributes to the

constitution of subjects, where subjectivity as a human condition is understood to be
fundamentally about relations. We ask how, in acts of communication, subjects recognize,
produce, negotiate, and contest relations of synchrony, stasis, and structure on the one hand,
and diachrony, change, and history on the other. As goal-directed semiotic activity,
communication operates through channels including speech, media, ritual, and art; its
products include the social organization and stratification of persons and groups from micro to
macro orders.

A running theme is the dialectic between semiotic systems taken as material fields and the
role of human agency in the collective negotiation of values and meanings. Overriding
questions that guide us include: for what purposes is communication engaged in by social
beings, what are universally obligatory properties of its organization, and what are the
ontological possibilities of semiotically mediated life?

Following an overview of foundational historical perspectives and consideration of language

from a semiotic point of view emphasizing the relationship between form and function, we
turn to ways in which anthropology has construed the language culture nexus, then move into
issues in contemporary linguistic anthropology. We transition from perspectives that consider
 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 2

language to be part of or a reflection of culture toward conceptions of language as culture,

where language is understood to be constitutive of social relations and a locus of both
creativity and cultural continuity.

By the end of the course you will be able to recognize, situate, and critique writings in
linguistic anthropology, and you will have identified ways to connect linguistic
anthropological approaches to broad questions in anthropology and social theory. You will be
conversant with the anthropology of language and communication and extend its principles to
other domains of human meaning and action.

Prerequisites: Graduate Standing. No previous knowledge of anthropology or linguistics is

presumed.

Course Policies
1. Students are responsible for completing the reading assignments ahead of class meetings
and preparing themselves to engage actively in discussion of the material. Class discussion
will be held to professional standards, meaning that we agree to engage ideas and respect
difference.

2. Attendance is required. If you must miss a class you are expected to write a 2-3 page essay
on the assigned readings for the week. This paper should identify the principle arguments for
readings, ways readings engage each other and state observations and/or critiques. State
points you would have contributed to the weekly writing and class discussion. If you know of
an absence in advance, others will appreciate your sharing your contributions ahead of time.

3. Be here, be present, be with us. No texting or social media in class, please. Electronics are
permitted for viewing pdfs and notes, and for note taking.

Seminar Format
The seminar will be organized around weekly written responses, meta-responses, and
discussion in the following way:

Weekly writing:
Each week four students will compose a group response to the main themes, arguments, and
issues of the readings for the coming class. The four students will post their response of
between 600 and 800 words (1,000 maximum) to the course discussion site by midnight the
Monday before the next meeting. A different group of 3-4 students will then compose a group
response to the original response and post it to the site by midnight Tuesday. This is the meta-
response and should be half the word count (300-400 words, 500 maximum) of the main
response. Each week, two people will move between the main and meta-response groups in a
cycle; depending on course numbers there may be two meta-response groups. The week of
Transcription, there will be no written responses, however, everyone should bring questions
to class, along with your transcription which we will workshop.

 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 3

Weekly discussion:
Each week two members of the main response group will lead discussion. Each of the two
will be responsible for preparing and presenting a 8-10 minute oral summary of some aspects
of the posted response. This will be timed at a maximum of 10 minutes each. Next, one of the
meta-response group members will lead discussion of the meta-response by preparing a 6
minute oral presentation of the posted meta-response. Students are responsible for organizing
who presents what and when, making sure that the discussion leading is evenly distributed
among students over the semester. These presentations will be followed by 30 minutes of
open discussion, to be followed by a short break. After the break, we will have targeted
discussion which may include continuation of threads or questions from the previous hour,
discussion in small groups, prepared lecture, meta-meta-response to the readings, etc.

Writing assignments:
There will be two writing assignments, in addition to the weekly writing.

Transcription
A transcription and brief analysis of formal features of a two-minute excerpt from a recorded
conversation will be due in class October 25. Transcriptions will be presented and
workshopped in class. You are encouraged to use data that you plan to analyze for your final
project (paper B). Your analysis should mention relevant points/issues from readings.
Further instructions will be given in class closer to the assignment date.

Paper A and Final paper (B):

Each student will prepare an independent paper of approximately 8 pages during the first half
of the semester. The paper is due November 3. The paper should deal with the topics in
linguistic anthropology that make up the main body of the course material, but it should
ideally also connect to your own research interests. Students are required to consult with the
instructor on possible topics and should schedule early. The first paper is meant to be
exploratory, laying the groundwork for the final paper.
After the first paper, students will write a second paper of 15-18 pages due at the end of the
semester on December 11. Students are encouraged to build on the first paper - with
appropriate revisions - in the second paper. Students are required to consult with the instructor
on the development of the final paper’s topic or topics.
The final paper should ideally be a cumulative essay that has undergone thorough revision and
has had the benefit of sustained focus on the chosen topic over a whole semester. If you feel
the need to drop your first topic and compose an entirely new final paper this is your choice.
The final paper is an exercise in writing on important and classic ideas about language and
communication in social science and anthropology from a general perspective, and ideally
using some of your own data. While the result should be a theoretically informed essay,
students are encouraged to avoid common pitfalls of the genre: Linguistic anthropology is
especially jargon-full, and you must face this in your writing about linguistic anthropological
ideas. Instead of attempting to be totally jargon-free, I encourage you to choose your battles
 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 4

and engage, define, and, refine a few specific but crucial terms of art in your final paper
project. If precise reference is a key point of cultural ideologies of language, then it is an
ethical standard as well.
Grades will be computed in the following way:
Attendance & Participation in Class Discussion 25%
Weekly Written Responses 10%
Semi-Weekly Individual Presentations 15%
Transcription 5%
Paper A 15%
Paper B 30%

Due Dates
October 25: Transcription
November 3: Paper A
December 11: Paper B, 5PM

Readings
Book chapters and journal articles are available through the course website or for download
through InfoHawk. Note: The bibliographic reference "DR" indicates reprint source as The
Discourse Reader, Jaworski and Coupland, eds, 1999. LR is Linguistic Anthropology: A
Reader, A. Duranti ed., 2001. JLA is the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology.

Course Schedule
8/23 Introduction

Peters, John. The Problem of Communication. Speaking into the Air: A history of the idea of
communication, 1999, pp. 1-32.

8/30 Formative Period and Concepts: Saussure and Saussurian Legacies/Boas & some
other points of view
Issues: How do different authors conceptualize language as an object of study or expression?
How do they construct relationships between language, speakers/speech, culture? How do
notions of “competence” and “performance” relate to earlier conceptions of relationships.
How does Lévi-Strauss use linguistic concepts in his cultural project? What about language
(or myth) use? Note: Bauman & Briggs Ball 2012 discuss and point to relevant highlights in
Boas’s Introduction to the Handbook of American Indian Languages, so you can glance at
Boas. For Chomsky, get a sense of how he conceptualizes language and what, if any,
relationship he posits to culture/speech.

Saussure, F de. 1915. The Linguistic Sign, Course in General Linguistics. Reprinted in
Semiotics, Innis, ed., pp. 29-46. CONT...
 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 5

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1967[1963]. Structural analysis in linguistics and in anthropology. Ch 2,

Structural Anthropology. New York: Anchor, pp. 29-53, 1967[1963]. Available through
InfoHawk online.

Lévi-Strauss, C. 1975. Overture. The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of
Mythology, pp. 1-32.

*Boas, F. 1911. Introduction to the Handbook of American Indian Languages. 1911 (see note
above).

Bauman, R. and C. Briggs. 2003. The Foundation of all future researches: Franz Boas’s
cosmopolitan charter for anthropology. Voices of Modernity: language ideologies and
the politics of inequality, Pp. 255-298.

Ball, C. 2012. Boasian Legacies in Linguistic Anthropology: A centenary review of 2011.

American Anthropologist 114(2): 203-216, 2012.

Malinowski, B. 1923. On Phatic Communication. Reprinted in DR, pp. 302-305.

Chomsky, N. 1965. Methodological Preliminaries. Aspects of the Theory of Synax, pp. 3-27
only. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Labov, W. Linguistics and Sociolinguistics, in Sociolinguistics: A reader, pp. 23-24.

Agha, A. 2007. The Object called “language” and the subject of linguistics. Journal of
English Linguistics 35(3): 217-235.

Recommended:
Briggs, Charles 2002. Linguistic Magic Bullets in the Making of Modernist Anthropology.
American Anthropologist 104(2): 481-498.

9/6 Form and Meaning: Semiotics (vs. Semiology)

Issues: How Peirce define the “sign”? How does the Peircian sign/semiotics differ from
Saussure’s “sign” and “semiology.” What are the three different Peircian sign types and how
is signification accomplished in this model, as compared with Saussurean ideas? Note:
Silverstein is likely to be a challenging read. Your goal on first exposure to this is to attempt
to understand how he thinks about language as a multifunctional semiotic system. What is the
point he is making? How does Kohn draw upon these concepts? What are “metasemiosis”
and “metapragmatics”?

Urban, Greg Semiotics. 2003. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Vol. 4, William

Bright (ed.), pp. 27-29. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chandler, D. 2007. Models of the Sign. In Making Sense of Language:

 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 6

Readings in culture and Communication, 3rd ed., Blum, ed., pp. 13-29.

Parmentier, Richard. 1987. Peirce Divested for Non-Intimates. RSSI 7:19-39

Mertz, Elizabeth. 1985. "Beyond Symbolic Anthropology: Introducing Semiotic Mediation."

Semiotic Meditiation, ed. Elizabeth Mertz and Richard J. Parmentier, pp. 1-19. New
York: Academic Press, Inc.

Kohn, Eduardo. 2013. “The Open Hole.” How Forests Think. UCalif. Press, 27-68.

Silverstein, Michael. Shifters, Linguistic Categories and Cultural Description. Meaning in

Anthropology, K. Basso and H. Selby, eds., pp. 11-55. Albuquerque: U.
New Mexico Press, 1976.

Chumley, Lily & Nicholas Harkness. 2013. Qualia. Introduction. Anthropological Theory,
2013, Vol.13(1-2):3-11.

Urban, Greg. 2006. “Metasemiosis and metapragmatics.” Encyclopedia of Language and

Linguistics, 2nd Ed. Vol. 8, pp. 88-91.

Manning, Paul. 2012. Introduction, Semiotics of drink and drinking. Continuum, pp. 1-32.

9/13 Relativity, Thought and Cultural Organization: From Sapir-Whorf to

Ethnoscience/Lexical Semantics and Beyond

Issues: How do these authors conceive of the relationship between language, thought and
culture? What is the "Sapir-Whorf" hypothesis? What is ethnoscience (or ethnomethodology)
and how does it align with Whorf? What is the basis of Urban's critique? What methodology
does he suggest as an alternative? What other ways can the language/culture relationship be
conceived? How does Witherspoon’s view of language, thought and culture fit with others’
ideas? Note: Glance at Lounsbury to get a sense of what he is doing. Urban’s critique relates
to this project.

Whorf, B. 1956. "The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language."

Lucy, John. 2005. Through the Window of Language: Assessing the influence of
language diversity on thought. In Making Sense of Language: Readings in culture
and Communication, 3rd ed., Blum, ed., pp. 59-67.

Hunn, Eugene. 2006. Ethnoscience. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd Edition,
Vol 4, pp. 258-260, 2006.

*Lounsbury, Fred. 1969. "The Structural Analysis of Kinship Semantics." In, Tyler, S.
Cognitive Anthropology, pp. 193-211, 1969.
 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 7

Urban, Greg. 1996. "A lock of hair in a ball of wax." Metaphysical Community, pp. 99-133.

Witherspoon, Gary. 1977. Creating the World through Language. Ch 1 in Language and art
in the Navajo universe. Ann Arbor: U. Michigan Press, pp. 13-46.

9/20 Speech Act Theory, Western Philosophy of Language & Critiques

Themes: What are the major tenets of Western Speech Act theory? How does ethnographic
data bear on this? Are there political consequences of Western ideologies of speech? What
revisions might be made to a theory of speech acts?

Austin, John. 1960. Lectures 1-2, How to Do Things with Words, 2nd Edition, pp. 1-24.

Searle, J. 1965. What is a Speech Act? In, Giglioli, P., ed., Language and Social Context, pp.
136-154.

Rosaldo, M. 1982. "The Things We do with Words: Ilongot speech acts and speech act theory
in Philosophy." Language in Society 11: 203-37.

Graham, L. 1993. A Public Sphere in Amazonia: The depersonalized, collaborative

construction of discourse in Xavante. American Ethnologist 20(4):717-741.

Keane, Webb. 1991. Delegated voice: ritual speech, risk, and the making of marriage
alliances in Anakalang. American Ethnologist (18):2:311-330.

Blum, Susan. 1997. Naming practices and the power of words in China. LIS 26(3):227-379.

9/27 Poetics, Heteroglossia, Intertextuality

Themes: What language functions does Jakobson identify? How do these map onto the discourse
“factors” he identifies? Why are “poetics” important to attend to? What is “performance” for
linguistic anthropologists and how is it different from Chomsky’s notion? How are notions of
text, genre and context intertwined? What is an “intertextual gap”? What social work do various
forms of intertextuality do?

Jakobson, Roman. 1960. Linguistics and Poetics. Excerpt from "Closing Statement:
Linguistics and Poetics." Style in Language, T. Sebeok, ed. In DR, pp. 54-62.

Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981[1934-5]. Discourse in the novel. Dialogic Imagination, excerpts in

Making Sense of Language: Readings in culture and Communication, 3rd ed., Blum,
ed., pp, 219-226

Chávez, Alex. 2017[2015]. So you got screwed? Humor, U.S.-Mexico Migration, and the
Embodied Poetics of Transgression. In Making Sense of Language: Readings in
culture and Communication, 3rd ed., Blum, ed., pp, 321-331.

Irvine, J. 1970. Formality and Informality in Communicative Events. American

 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 8

Anthropologist.

Hanks, William. 1989. Text and textuality. Annual Review of Anthropology 18:95-127.

Bauman, R. and C. Briggs. 1990. Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on

Language and Social Life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19:59-88.

Briggs, Charles and Richard Bauman. 1992. Genre, Intertextuality and Social Power. JLA
2(2):131-172.

Bauman, R. and Feaster, P. 2004. Oratorical Footing in a New Medium: Recordings of

presidential campaign speeches 1896-1912. Texas Linguistics Forum 47:1-19.

10/4 Practice & Performativity: The Production of Power and Difference

Bourdieu, P. 1991[1977-1984] Part I. The Economy of Linguistic Exchanges. Language and
Symbolic Power, pp. 37-89.

Fanon, Franz. 1952. The negro and language. Black Skin And White Masks, pp 17-40.

Labov, William. 1972. The social stratification of (r) in New York City department stores.
Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 43-
54.

Bucholtz, Mary. 1999. Why Be Normal? Language and identity practices in a community of
nerd girls. Language in Society 28(2):203-223, 1999.

Brice Heath. Shirley. 1982. What no bedtime story means. Language in Society 11(1):49-76.

Agha, Asif. 2004. Registers of language. A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology,

Alessandro Duranti, ed, pp. 23-45.

Hill, J. 2008. Covert Racist Discourse: Metaphors, Mocking, and the Racialization of
Historically Spanish-Speaking Populations in the United States, Ch 5, The Everyday
Language of White Racism, pp. 119-157.

Urciuoli, Bonnie. 2009. Talking/Not Talking about Race: The Enregisterments of Culture in
Higher Education Discourses. JLA 19(1):21-29.


10/11 Language Ideologies
Woolard K. 1998. Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In Language Ideologies,
Schieffelin, Wooldard, Kroskrity, eds, pp. 3-47.

Irvine, Judith and Susan Gal. Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. Kroskrity,
 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 9

ed., Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. Santa Fe: School of
American Research Press, pp. 35-84, 2001.

Gal, Susan. Language, Gender, and Power: A review. Linguistic Anthropology Reader, A.
Duranti, ed., 1991. CONT…
Ehrlich, Susan. 1998. The Discursive Reconstruction of Sexual Consent. Reprinted in
Cameron and Kulick Reader, pp. 196-214.

Gershon, Ilana. Breaking up is hard to do: Media switching and media ideologies. JLA
20(2):389-405.

Silverstein, M. 2001. The Limits of Awareness. LAR, pp. 382-401.

Hill, Jane. 2008. Covert Racist Discourse: Metaphors, Mocking, and the Racialization of
Historically Spanish-Speaking Populations in the United States, Ch 5, The Everyday
Language of White Racism, pp. 119-157.

*** Collect data for transcription & do an initial pass.

10/18 Mediation, Mediatization & Intersubjectivity

Eisenlohr, Patrick. 2011. Media authenticity and authority in Mauritius: On the mediality
of language in religion. Language and Communication, 266-273.

Graham, Laura. 2011. Quoting Mario Juruna: Linguistic imagery and the transformation of
indigenous voice in the Brazilian print press. American Ethnologist 38(1):164-182,
2011.

Urla, Jacqueline. 1995. Outlaw language: Creating alternative public spheres in Basque free
radio. Pragmatics 5(2):245-261.

Agha, Asif. Meet Mediatization. Language and Communication 31: 163-170, 2011.

Jones, G & B. cheiffelin. 2009. Talking text and talking back: “My bff Jill?” from boob tube
to YouTube. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 14(4):1050-1079.

Street, B and N. Besnier. 1994 Aspects of Literacy. Companion Encyclopedia of

Anthropology, Tim Ingold, ed, Routledge, pp. 527-562, Reprinted in S. Blum ed.
2009, pp. 52-68.

10/25 Transcription and Politics of Representation

Themes: What is the relationship between transcription and analysis? How do you determine
what to transcribe? How do you begin to analyze contextually situated speech from an
anthropological perspective?
 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 10

Sacks, H., E. Schegloff, & G. Jefferson. 1974. A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of
Turn-Taking for Conversation. Language 50:696-735.

Ochs, Elinor. 1979. Transcription as Theory. In Developmental Pragmatics. Elinor Ochs and
Bambi B. Schieffelin, eds., pp. 43-72.

Urban, Greg. 1996. Entextualization, Replication, and Power. Natural Histories of Discourse,
Silverstein and Urban, eds., pp. 21-44.

Haviland, John. 1996. Text from Talk in Tzotzil. Natural Histories of Discourse,
Silverstein and Urban, eds., pp. 45-78.

Bucholtz, Mary. 2000. The Politics of Transcription. Journal of Pragmatics 32:1439-1465.

Gee, James P. 1999. Ch. 7, An Example of Discourse Analysis. An Introduction to

Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. Routledge, 2nd ed. pp. 119-148.

DUE Transcription. Be prepared to present and workshop in class.

11/1 Method

*Hymes, Dell. The Ethnography of Speaking, in LCS, pp. 248-282.

Briggs, C. 1984. Learning How to Ask: Native metacommunicative competence and the
incompetence of fieldworkers. Language in Society.

Graham, L. 1995. Introduction, Performing Dreams, pp. 1-18.

Urban, G. 1991. Introduction. A Discourse-Centered Approach to Culture.

Farnell, B. and L. Graham. 2014. Discourse-Centered Methods. Russell Bernard and Lance
Gravlee eds., Handbook of Method in Cultural Anthropology, 2014.

Cameron, D. et al. 1997[1993] Ethics, Advocacy, and Empowerment in Researching

Language. Coupland, N. and A. Jaworski, eds., Sociolinguistics: A reader and
coursebook, pp. 145-162.

Verschueren, Jef. 2013. Ethnography of Communication and History: A case study of

diplomatic intertextuality and ideology. JLA 23(3): 142-159.

11/8 Voice
Peters, John. 1999. Machines, Animals and Aliens: Horizons of incommunicability, Ch 6.
 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 11

The Problem of Communication. Speaking into the Air: A history of the idea of
communication, pp. 227-263.

Keane, Webb. Voice. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9(1): 271-273, 1999.

Graham, L. 1993. A Public Sphere in Amazonia: The depersonalized, collaborative construction

of discourse in Xavante. American Ethnologist 20(4):717-741.

Arndt, Grant. 2015. Voices and Votes in the Fields of Settler Society: American Indian Media
and Electoral Politics in 1930s Wisconsin. CSSH 57(3): 780-805.

Nakassis, Constantine. 2016. Ch 5. Bringing the Distant Voice Close. Doing Style: Youth and
mass mediation in S. India. UChicago, pp. 124-155.

Urban, G. 1989 The “I” of Discourse. Semiotics, Self and Society, Urban and Lee, eds., pp. 27-
51.

Graham, L. with H. Top’tiro. In Press. Xavante Represent: Native Language Signage on Brazil’s
Federal Highways. in Language and Social Justice: Case Studies on Communication and
the Creation of Just Societies. Editors: Netta Avineri, Laura R. Graham, Eric J. Johnson,
Robin Riner, Jonathan D. Rosa. New York: Routledge.

Harkness, Nicholas. 2017. The Open Throat: Deceptive sounds, facts of firstness, and the
interactional emergence of voice. Signs and Society 5(S1):S21-S52.

11/15 Student Presentations

11/22 Thanksgiving break

11/29 AAA Meetings

Boellstorff, Tom. Submitting and Getting an Article Published in a Journal, pp. 38-48 AND

Bucholtz, Mary, Linguistic Anthropology, pp. 95-102. In Miller, Jason E and Oona Schmidt,
How to Get Published in Anthropology: A guide for students and young professionals.
Altamira, 2012.

12/6 Student Presentations (either Paper A or B)

12/ 11 Final Paper Due, 5 PM

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 12

Administrative Home
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the administrative home of this course and
governs matters such as the add/drop deadlines, the second-grade-only option, and other
related issues. Different colleges may have different policies. Questions may be addressed to
120 Schaeffer Hall, or see the CLAS Academic Policies Handbook.

Electronic Communication
University policy specifies that students are responsible for all official correspondences sent
to their University of Iowa e-mail address (@uiowa.edu). Faculty and students should use this
account for correspondences. (Operations Manual, III.15.2. Scroll down to k.11.)

Accommodations for Disabilities

A student seeking academic accommodations should first register with Student Disability
Services and then meet privately with the course instructor to make particular arrangements.
See www.uiowa.edu/~sds/ for more information.

Academic Honesty
All CLAS students have, in essence, agreed to the College's Code of Academic Honesty: "I
pledge to do my own academic work and to excel to the best of my abilities, upholding the
IOWA Challenge. I promise not to lie about my academic work, to cheat, or to steal the words
or ideas of others; nor will I help fellow students to violate the Code of Academic Honesty."
Any student committing academic misconduct is reported to the College and placed on
disciplinary probation or may be suspended or expelled (CLAS Academic Policies
Handbook).

CLAS Final Examination Policies

The date and time of every final examination is announced during the fifth week of the
semester; each CLAS student will receive an email from the Registrar stating the dates and
times of the student's final exams. Final exams are offered only during the official final
examination period. No exams of any kind are allowed during the last week of classes. All
students should plan on being at the UI through the final examination period.

Making a Suggestion or a Complaint

Students with a suggestion or complaint should first visit with the instructor (and the course
supervisor), and then with the departmental DEO. Complaints must be made within six
months of the incident (CLAS Academic Policies Handbook).

Understanding Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment subverts the mission of the University and threatens the well-being of
students, faculty, and staff. All members of the UI community have a responsibility to uphold
this mission and to contribute to a safe environment that enhances learning. Incidents of
sexual harassment should be reported immediately. See the UI Comprehensive Guide on
Sexual Harassment for assistance, definitions, and the full University policy.
 Linguistic Anthropology F2017, 13

Reacting Safely to Severe Weather

In severe weather, class members should seek appropriate shelter immediately, leaving the
classroom if necessary. The class will continue if possible when the event is over. For more
information on Hawk Alert and the siren warning system, visit the Public Safety.