Linguistics 548:  Sociolinguistics (Fall 2008)

 

Instructor:        John Lipski

Office:             Burrowes 347

Telephone:      865-4252

Office Hours:  MWF 12:00-12:45 and by appointment

E-mail:            jlipski@psu.edu

Home page:     http://www.personal.psu.edu/jml34/

 

 

Textbooks:

 

Tagliamonte, Analyzing sociolinguistic variation (ASV)

Wardhaugh, An introduction to sociolinguistics; 5th edition (IS)

 

Books on library reserve:

Milroy, Language and social networks (LSN)

Milroy and Gordon, Sociolinguistics:  method and interpretation (SMI)

Paolillo, Analyzing linguistic variation (ALV)

Romaine, Language and society (LS)

Woods, Fletcher and Hughes, Statistics in language studies (SLS)

 

Objectives:

 

This class presupposes a basic knowledge of general linguistics, and an introduction to contemporary sociolinguistics, e.g. as presented in one of the many introductory textbooks.  Linguistics 548 will bridge the gap between theory and practice, by focusing on a small number of specific topics central to sociolinguistics, developing the theoretical and methodological tools to study these topics, and performing actual practices and analyzing the results.  The course will be divided into two parts, each featuring one of the major areas of sociolinguistic research.  After an introduction the first part of the course will deal with general issues involving the embedding of language in a social context.  The second portion of the course will treat variational phenomena as manifestations of sociolinguistic stratification, and will include the theory, methodology, and practice of variational and quantitative sociolinguistics.  The student who successfully emerges from Linguistics 548 should be able to produce a publishable essay in sociolinguistics, as well as independently pursuing future research projects. 

 

Assignments:

 

·       For each class, students will be asked to give a brief oral summary of selected readings.  This task will be assigned in a prior class, and will rotate among the students.

·       A sample social network analysis, based on individually conducted interviews with 8-10 individuals who routinely interact linguistically and socially.

·       Preparation of a coded VARBRUL/GOLDVARB token set and sample run.

·       Class presentation of an article in which variational data are analyzed and interpreted using VARBRUL/GOLDVARB.  The article can deal with a speech community in this country or another country, an issue of language attitudes, dialect contact, language planning, or domains of language usage, providing that quantitative data are incorporated into a logistic regression analysis.

·       A final project involving a qualitative and quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of an available language corpus (written or oral), including identification of relevant variables, coding techniques, GOLDVARB token files, GOLDVARB runs, and interpretation of results in terms of sociolinguistic theory.  Further details will be given later in the semester.

 

Grade breakdown:

 

Sample social network:                                   15%

GOLDVARB token set:                                   15%

In-class report on reading:                              15%

Final project:                                                  40%

Class participation:                                         15%

 

F    This is a paper-free course. All assignments are to be turned in electronically in documents prepared using Microsoft Word®.  Send assignments and all other communication ONLY to jlipski@psu.edu  International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) phonetic symbols should be in the DoulosSIL font, available from www.sil.org If you use phonetic symbols, be sure to check the “embed truetype fonts” box on the Tools-Options menu in Word® before saving the file, to ensure that the fonts will be preserved when I open your file. 

F    All electronic communication should be through e-mail:  jlipski@psu.edu.  Do NOT send messages via ANGEL; I will use ANGEL only for posting readings, assignments, and other files.

 

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

 

The Pennsylvania State University defines academic integrity as the pursuit of scholarly activity in an open, honest and responsible manner. All students should act with personal integrity, respect other students’ dignity, rights and property, and help create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the fruits of their efforts (Faculty Senate Policy 49-20). Dishonesty of any kind will not be tolerated in this course. Dishonesty includes, but is not limited to: cheating, plagiarizing, fabricating information or citations, facilitating acts of academic dishonesty by others, having unauthorized possession of examinations, submitting work of another person or work previously used without informing the instructor, or tampering with the academic work of their students. Students who are found to be dishonest will receive academic sanctions and will be reported to the University’s Judicial Affairs office for possible further disciplinary sanction. See http://www.psu.edu/dept/oue/aappm/G-9.html

 

To make matters much simpler, for the purposes of this course, I define academic integrity as follows:

 

For any graded assignment, you may use any written, published, or virtual source, provided that you give a complete citation.  You may NOT consult with any other person about a graded assignment (by any means, including e-mail, telephone, etc.) EXCEPT for the instructor (John Lipski).  All your work must be done by you alone.  Conversely, you may not assist any other student in this class with any graded assignment.

 

DISABILITY ACCESS STATEMENT

The Pennsylvania State University encourages qualified people with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities and is committed to the policy that all people shall have equal access to programs, facilities and admissions without regard to personal characteristics not related to ability, performance, or qualifications as determined by University policy or by state or federal authorities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation in this course or have questions about physical access, please tell the instructor as soon as possible.

 

Tentative schedule of assignments

 

Week #1 (August 25):  Introduction—the domains of sociolinguistics.  Sociolinguistics vs. sociology of language; the social correlates of language variation.  Readings:  IS, chaps. 1-2; LS, chap. 1

 

Week #2 (September 3):  Speech communities.  Readings: LS, chap. 3; SMI, chap. 5; IS, chap. 5

 

Week #3 (September 8):  Language choice and code-switching.  Readings: SMI, chap. 8; IS, chap. 4

 

Week #4 (September 15):  Case studies of multilingual/multidialectal speech communities.  Readings:  TBA.

 

Week #5 (September 22):  Social networks and language behavior.  Readings:  LSN, chaps. 2-5; Labov, “Linguistic consequences of being a lame,” on ANGEL

 

Week #6 (September 29):  Qualitative aspects of language variation: gender, social class, ethnicity, etc.  Readings:   IS, chaps. 10-11, 13-14

             Sample social network analysis due October 1.

 

Week #7 (October 6):  The study of linguistic variation. Readings: IS, chaps. 6-7; ASV, chap. 1; Labov, “The social motivation of a sound change”; “Contraction, deletion, and inherent variability of the English copula” (on ANGEL). 

 

Week #8 (October 13):  Research design and data collection.  .  Readings:  SMI, chaps 3, 6, 7; ASV, chaps. 2-3 

Article title for class presentation submitted for approval October 13

                                     

Week #9 (October 20):   Quantitative methods in sociolinguistics.  Readings:  SLS, chaps. 8-10; ALV, chaps. 3-4; ASV, chaps. 4-6

 

Week #10 (October 27):  Quantitative methods, cont.  Readings:  SLS, chaps. 11-14; ALV, chap. 6-8; ASV, chaps. 7-8

 

Week #11 (November 3):  Using GOLDVARB (VARBRUL) and similar packages.  Readings:  GOLDVARB manual and sample examples; ASV, chap. 9-11

 

GOLDVARB (X) for Windows can be downloaded from: 

http://individual.utoronto.ca/tagliamonte/goldvarb.htm

GOLDVARB for Macintosh is available from:  http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/~sankoff/GoldVarb_Eng.html

Additional information on GOLDVARB is at:  http://www.unh.edu/linguistics/lab/goldvarb.html 

http://comp.lin.msu.edu/statistics2006/GoldVarb_Wake.doc

 

http://www-nlp.stanford.edu/~manning/courses/ling236/handouts/ling236-ass7.html (a good walk-through of a GOLDVARB analysis for beginners}

 

The GOLDVARB manual for GOLDVARB 2001 for Windows is no longer available on-line, but is posted on ANGEL. 

 

Week #12 (November 10):  Practice with GOLDVARB data sets and analysis of class mini-project data.  GOLDVARB token set due November 12.

 

Week #13 (November 17):  Language variation as language change.  Case studies of language variation Readings:  SMI, chap. 6 and TBA

 

Week #14 (December 1):   Presentation of articles to the class.

 

Week #15 (December 8):  Presentation of final projects to the class.

 

Final project due:  MONday, DECEMBER 15, 4:00 p. m.