This course examines various ethical approaches to communicating. Additionally students will learn to distinguish between communication patterns that are “unethical” and ones that are simply understood and applied differently in differing cultural contexts. Finally, students will learn to navigate between and within these varied contexts.

Investigation of the relationship between language, thought, and belief systems. The course also examines a wide variety of cultures and evaluates how languages shape thought patterns and everyday communications.

Language is a unique gift from God to create meaning and conduct communication. This course introduces key concepts and principles in the study of the social functions and context of language. We will focus on how language is relational and how meaning is produced, maintained, negotiated, manipulated and changed in the dynamics of social relationships. Students will design a poster to map a concept or a principle of their choice. They will then present the topic to the class. Students will also present a case study of language learning or teaching in the rich social contexts of meaning negotiation.

This course will explore the complex relationship between the media and society and learn how the media communicate, persuade, and construct meaning across cultures. This course recognizes that people gain information about other cultures and people groups through mass media, so it seeks to enable students to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media in various cultural contexts.

The fundamental premise of visual culture in global society is reciprocal, in that it creates meaning through global flows and that the very foundations of global capital, global culture, and global media are based on the dynamics of visuality, and in the power systems it both affirms and challenges. In this course we use a visual perspective to analyze major historical themes: nationalism, colonialism, cultural imperialism, racial and cultural difference and similarities in, society and religion. Students will focus on the inter-relationship of visual culture with the development and process of globalization, which forces similarity, and students will examine the role and impact of global cultural flows.