239602 Multilingual Britain (S) (WiSe 2012/2013)

Great Britain is a place of cultural diversity and multi-ethnicity. Ever since ancient times, waves of (im)migration as well as the presence of various peoples have helped to shape the character of the British Isles. The linguistic diversity in the British Isles can be attributed to several aspects of language and dialect contact and it can be subdivided into two major strands: On the one hand, there are the ‘older languages’ such as Welsh or Irish Gaelic, which still have official status in some areas. On the other hand, there are large groups of immigrants bringing languages such as Polish, Punjabi, Mandarin Chinese, French or Greek into the United Kingdom. In addition, the region is marked by an impressive range of older and more recent (urban) dialectal differentiation. Thus, in this course we will look at the linguistic diversity as it can be observed in the United Kingdom today. We will investigate how the multilingual und dialectal makeup in the British Isles has developed and examine the increasingly complex present-day sociolinguistic situation.

Requirements for participation, required level

BaAngBM2 completed! (für Einschreibung bis SS 2011)
BaAngBM3 completed! (für Einschreibung ab WS 2011/2012)

Bibliography

A reader with the required reading assignments for each session will be made available before start of term.
Please make sure to get your personal copy before our first meeting.