School for Designing a Society

Language Courses

Playing Attention to Language: Introductory Course

Language has a reputation in our society of "mere-ness", of being a mere "carrier" of thought and meaning. In the architectonic hierarchy of importances, thought and meaning are high up as the significant parts of a message, with language underneath, a relatively insignificant, mechanistic, pierceable surface. This class focuses on another reputation: that language is a major dynamic in social affairs, not only carrying thoughts, but shaping them. Students analyze texts in that light, examining use of adjectives, but/and, the figment "It is" as sentence subject, report/argument, dependent and independent clauses. Exercises, games, and discussions molded by outlandish constraints, are to be played.

Playing Attention to Language: II

As a prelude to composing texts, conceptual topics are addressed: "I" in the third person, metaphor, framing, linguistic take-overs, the power of the respondent, dismissals, the construction of emphasis, etc. Distinctions between scientific language, academic language, and creative language are examined. Passive voice, too. We read texts by Thomas Kuhn, Benjamin Lee Whorf, Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Herbert Brün, Gertrude Stein. Participants are asked to compose texts that belong to a society they prefer and imagine, and whose language shapes that which they desire and long for. In anticipation of writing current events, students are asked to describe a discouraging 'fact' in an encouraging way.

(S)elf-Defense for Women, Men, and Trees: How to Read, Write, Speak, Learn English in a Time of Disinformation, Misinformation, Slander, Spin, Propaganda

(Pre-requisite: Playing Attention to Language I and II) Less a class, more an activist strategy/awareness-raising, this project is a collaboration of people working together to influence the learning of English in current times. We will create a hand-book that could be used in any high school or college English class, from composition to ESL, and would offer a "self-defense" against the accelerated propaganda mechanisms that purposely debase language and thought. Part of the collaboration would be to form relationships with English and ESL teachers in the area, eliciting their ideas and suggestions as to the content, format, and function of this booklet. The challenge for us as writers would be to write in a way that is non-bi-partisan, informative without being academic, acute without seeming on-the-edge-of-conspiracy-theory, and fun to read; the challenge for us as activists would be to follow-up the writing with ideas and methods for disseminating the booklet into friendly hands.

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