MPhil Seminar: Language Variation

Lent Term 2008

Goals

  • Familiarise students with central concepts and primary literature of sociolinguistics, particularly in the Labovian tradition.
  • Inculcate analytical and presentational skills by having students read and present primary works of sociolinguistic research.

Required general readings

  • Coulmas, Florian. 1998. The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Eckert, Penelope. 2000. Linguistic variation as social practice. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

  • Labov, William. 2000. Principles of Linguistic change. Volume II: Social Factors. Oxford: Blackwell. 

    Schedule

  • More important readings marked with asterisk *, but you should try to do all of the readings. Readings for Week 1 are important and should be done pronto, even though the lecture is already past.
  • Students in the seminar will each be expected to present one paper in class, and lead discussion on one (different) paper in class. There will normally be two papers per class, but sometimes three. We will assign papers during Week 1.

Week 1 Lecture: Overview of language variation

Week 2 Class

Week 3 Gender

Week 4 Race

Week 5 Ethnicity

Week 6 Age

Week 7 Region

Week 8 Contact, diglossia, codeswitching, and bilingualism