In this fully online course, we will explore the role of language in the dynamic construction of social and cultural identities. After a brief overview on the intricate interplay between language, thought, and culture, we will explore identity not as a static category, rather as a dynamic process in continuous negotiation with both the self and with other identities. We will be able to analyze how speakers enact, legitimate, and protect their culturally specific positionings through communicative interactions in various sociocultural settings. How does language influence these dynamic and changing processes? How does language play a role in creating, changing, or removing boundaries around social actors’ identities? How are our multiple identities constructed, transformed, deconstructed, or erased in discursive practices? These and other questions will be addressed in this course by reading the most current linguistic anthropological literature on these key issues. Some of the topics of this course include the configuration of identity in our everyday life such as in storytelling events, in interactions between men and women, among teenagers in classroom settings, and in interview settings. Students will thus become familiar with new ways of thinking about the relationship between language, culture, and society not only by looking at examples in the United States, but also by exploring these key issues cross-culturally.