Auto-ethnography

Read the HLW 4-11 and the slides for week 1

What is auto-ethnography? Carolyn Ellis (2004) has said that auto-ethnographic writing

is… “writing about the personal and its relationship to culture. It is an autobiographical

genre of writing and research that displays multiple layers of consciousness.”

She continues that to write this way is to blend “research, writing, story, and method

that connect[s] the autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social, and political.”

If language is always cultural, social and political (and vice-versa), what if we were to

add “linguistic” to that list? I mean, in a way, how could we not?

Surely, auto-ethnography is analytical writing. Your personal experiences become data

that you and others a analyze in the interest of gaining a better understanding of a social

phenomenon. In this class, we’ll attend to the phenomena of language use, learning and

linguistic identity.

Let us start our writing by responding to our first prompt.

Here’s that prompt:

We explored some “universals about language.” You’ll find them on the slides for week

1. These are abbreviated from their discussion on the first pages of HLW. They include

“Language is essential and ubiquitous component of our lives,” and so forth.

Choose one universal that catches your interest, summarize how Genetti

explains this idea in HLW, and then explain the ways in which this universal has

expanded your thinkin. In particular, consider your own relationship with and through

the languages in your life, broadly conceived. These languages could be those of family

heritage, those that you’ve learned in classrooms, or perhaps the ways in which you

communicate with friends or acquaintances from any corner of your life.

The final line of this slide claims that language is ideological: How we “do”

language is wrapped up in feelings and attitudes about it. How have you reconsidered

this connection?

At some point in your response to prompt 1, include analysis of transcribed

language. The selection should relate to the points you make to address the ideas

above—it can capture any communication that is spoken, signed, texted, etc.

The paper just need more than 1 page, double spaced. Do not need to cite any other

papers