230169 Sociolinguistics (S) (WiSe 2014/2015)

This class is intended to introduce students to an important branch of linguistics which is called sociolinguistics. In this class we will thus study language in relation to society, describe language use as a social phenomenon and look for correlations between language use and social structure. This will include the discussion of a variety of topics traditionally dealt with in sociolinguistics, such as 'language and dialect', 'language and gender', ‘language and age’, 'language and identity', ‘language contact’, ‘language variation and change’, 'language planning' etc. As a great deal of what we know today about language in relation to society has been discovered through empirical research, we will also have a look at some of the most famous sociolinguistic studies. Additionally, as methodology is both important and problematic at all stages of sociolinguistic research, we will discuss some tools for collecting and evaluating data. At the end of the term, you will thus be able to read sociolinguistic research papers, as well as to conduct and evaluate sociolinguistic surveys of your own.