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Language and Intercultural Relations

Language and Intercultural Relations

  • LIR 100 - Global Models in Intercultural Relations
    Course DescriptionAs technological, social, political and economic developments continue to increase the prevalence of international communications, this course helps students gain a clearer understanding of the worldwide diversity of cultural communication systems compared with their own more familiar cultural habits. In addition to discovering various global patterns that emerge from language and worldview comparisons, students learn how to develop the necessary emotional capacity and intercultural sensitivity needed for brokering complex social relationships between people from diverse backgrounds.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
  • LIR 200 - Critical Practices in Intercultural Relations
    Course DescriptionContemporary multicultural settings require context-sensitive communication practices. These practices are so complex that they cannot be addressed by simple binary models. This course builds on concepts taught in LIR 100. Further developing theoretical perspectives and practical strategies, through applied tasks, the course enables the intercultural learner to become critically adept at brokering the production and interpretation of meaning. Students will learn contemporary, integrative, and multipart approaches that enable more complex awareness of intercultural meaning.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Prerequisites:LIR 100
  • LIR 207 - Translation as a Cultural Bridge
    Course DescriptionThis course is designed for students who are interested in the many dimensions of inter-linguistic communication. It explores the development of scholarly thought linked to translating and translation. While the course provides a broad overview of some of the theoretical tools used to discuss translation, it pays particular attention to the ways in which translation can be conceptualized as a bridge between language and cultural communities.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
  • LIR 300 - Intercultural Negotiations
    Course DescriptionAn intercultural mediator must facilitate the negotiation of contracts, strategies, conflicts and other relations with fluid sensitivity to cross-cultural meanings. This course provides both theoretical training and practical experience in the mediation of potentially conflicting habits, emotions, motivations and contexts between cultures. Students learn specific cultural applications of phase models, computer mediated communication, social justice problems, and conflict resolution strategies, eventually putting these skills into practice using their language other than English.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Prerequisites:LIR 200
  • LIR 400 - Ethnographic Practices
    Course DescriptionThe ethnographer is tasked with engaging in observations, recording discoveries, representing the complexities of findings in a compelling and effective way. The art of writing ethnographies, and all the key processes in writing field notes, is an integral approach to qualitative social research. Students will learn the skills required in ethnographic practices, including field research, interviews, and analysis. At the end of this course, students will produce research that will impact their research skills.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Prerequisites:(ANT 200 and ACS 106) or LIR 300
  • LIR 800 - Topics in Intercultural Relations
    Course DescriptionIn this course, students analyze and discuss key issues in intercultural relations and ethnography, and apply them to a project of their own choosing. Working with a language community and drawing on their knowledge of intercultural relations and negotiations, students produce a well-documented major research paper and a poster presentation, solidly grounded in theory and in empirical ethnographic study.
    Weekly Contact:Lecture 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Consent:Departmental consent required
  • LIR 901 - Directed Readings (French)
    Course DescriptionThe course will provide students with the opportunity to develop a structured program of study in linguistics, intercultural relations, language acquisition, literary or cultural studies, translation theory or a related field. In collaboration with a faculty advisor, students will select and discuss readings on their chosen topic. They will complete a major research paper complete with literature review in French or, by departmental permission, in English.
    Weekly Contact:Tutorial 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Consent:Departmental consent required
  • LIR 902 - Directed Readings (Spanish)
    Course DescriptionThe course will provide students with the opportunity to develop a structured program of study in linguistics, intercultural relations, language acquisition, literary or cultural studies, translation theory or a related field. In collaboration with a faculty advisor, students will select and discuss readings on their chosen topic. They will complete a major research paper complete with literature review in Spanish or, by departmental permission, in English.
    Weekly Contact:Tutorial 3 hrs.
    GPA Weight:1.00
    Billing Units:1
    Count:1.00
    Consent:Departmental consent required