An intermediate-level anthropological study of language, communication, and culture. The aim is to understand language in a cultural context; assess how the concepts, approaches, and methods of linguistic anthropology explain communication in changing cultural environments; and recognize how language both shapes and is shaped by culture. Topics include the origin of human language, linguistic diversity, structural elements of verbal and nonverbal language, language as social action, research in anthropological linguistics, language and power hierarchies, gendered communications, and linguistic diversity in the contemporary world.