Introduction to Sociolinguistics

The course aims to enable students to analyse the intricate links between language and society by providing students with the knowledge of sociolinguistic theory, research methods, main concepts and terminology along with developing the relevant application skills. Students are guided into the exploration of language change and death, development and standardization, regional and social variation as well as the dependence of language use on a range of social variables such as gender, age, status, etc. Students analyse study material, participate in discussions, complete practical tasks, prepare and deliver oral and written presentations.

To equip students with the basis of sociolinguistics fostering their competence to analyse multifaceted links between language and society including the issues of language choice, development, standardisation, social and regional dialects as well as the interdependence between language use and various social factors.

English proficiency level C1/C2 (according to CEFR)

Sociolinguistics as an academic discipline. Language choice, bilingualism and multilingualism. Lingua Franca, creoles and pidgins. Language maintenance and death. Regional and social dialects. Language and gender Language and power; CDA. Variationist sociolinguistics: Labov, Fischer and Trudgill. Ethnography of communication: Hymes. Interactional sociolinguistics and conversation analysis: Sacks, Goffman and Gumperz. Politeness theory, address forms and sociolinguistic competence.

1. The student recognizes and correctly explains the interrelation between language and society 2. The student understands and accurately explains the existence of dialects and various cases of multilingualism in society. 3. The student understands and accurately explains the influence of various social factors on language use. 4. The student knows sociolinguistic terms and uses them properly 5. The student correctly describes sociolinguistic concepts. 6. The student accurately explains the main laws of sociolinguistics. 7. The student analyses pieces of discourse with regard to major sociolinguistic theories. 8. The students knows and succesfully applies the main principles of sociolinguistic research.