This course is an introduction to the connection between language and social and identity as it is studied from a variety of methodologies and perspectives, including ethnography, variationist sociolinguistics, and experimental sociolinguistics in the lab. Topics to be examined include the following: How do we create our intersecting identities when we use language? How do social factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class influence the way people use language? How do individual speakers use language differently in different situations? How do social and regional dialects differ from each other, and why? How does language change spread within and between communities? Students will collect and analyze data from real-life speech to explore the social correlates of linguistic behavior, using both qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze their data.
- Teacher: David Wilson