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Unit of study_
ANTH3621: How We Connect: Communication and Media
2025 unit information
We are all interconnected, and so we can’t not communicate. If people depend on others then we depend on languages and other shared resources for understanding each other. Many contemporary issues in the social sciences turn on the patterns, politics, and consequences of how people communicate and how people’s lives and experiences are mediated. In this unit of study, we explore language as action, the social life of media texts, and the politics of symbols, representations, and knowledges through the study of ethnographies of semiotic systems, and processes that enable people to express themselves and their worlds.
Unit details and rules
Managing faculty or University school:
Arts and Social Sciences
| Study level | Undergraduate |
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| Academic unit | Anthropology |
| Credit points | 6 |
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Prerequisites:
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12 credit points at 2000 level in Anthropology |
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Corequisites:
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None |
| Prohibitions:
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None |
| Assumed knowledge:
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None |
At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:
- LO1. To understand the scope of linguistic anthropology, its place within anthropology as a social science, and how it contrasts with other studies of communication.
- LO2. To develop familiarity with major theories of communication as practice and event, to understand their models of semiosis, and to apply them as analytic tools to ethnographic case material.
- LO3. To be able to analyze the use of language and other systems of communication as social practices, and as a site of ideological value and struggle.
- LO4. To be able to connect specific ethnographic cases to broader patterns in the use of language and communication systems, and to draw independent conclusions about the implications of communicative practice for social dynamics, inequalities, and forms of domination.
- LO5. To be able to research and evaluate scholarly research and to situate specific empirical research results in broader scholarly debates among distinct perspectives on society.
Unit availability
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| Session | MoA ? | Location | Outline ? |
|---|---|---|---|
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Semester 1 2025
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Normal day | Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney |
Outline unavailable
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There are no availabilities for previous years.
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Modes of attendance (MoA)
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