Course Description

This course introduces students to basic concepts in sociolinguistics, including socially determined variation in style and register; language varieties reflecting social class, gender and ethnicity; Topics also include investigations of factors influencing language choice in bilingual societies, as well as related phenomena such as code-mixing and code-switching. Discussion of issues such language maintenance and language shift; the emergence of new language varieties such as pidgins and creoles, and the impact of globalization and new communicative orders on the status of languages will also be covered.