Fall 2008

SPN 396K • Language Contact, Conflict, and Change

Course Description

I. Introduction: Language and society, major topics in sociolinguistics and sociology of language. Speech communities, networks, repertoires; language, dialect, and style; bilingualism and diglossia; language contact and language change. Social and linguistic dimensions of contact and conflict; language maintenance and shift; language death. Micro and macro levels of analysis; quantitative and qualitative approaches. Case studies. II Applications to the current situation of Spanish as a national language and a second language in the U.S. and as an official or working language in international organizations. Standardization and change, e.g., in public administration, business, sci-tech, and other fields. Lexical, phonological, and morphosyntactic variation and representative research procedures. Discourse and gender. Case studies. III Consequences of contact and conflict (or lack thereof) with indigenous languages of the Americas and elsewhere. Bilingualism and diglossia, codeswitching, contact vernaculars and other features of stable extensive bilingualism; "Spanglish". Critical sociolinguistics and language factors in power relationships. Language policy and planning and their implementation in public life. Case studies.

Texts

Carmen Silva-Corvalán, Sociolingüística y pragmática del español Sara Thomason, Language contact: an introduction Miranda Stewart, The Spanish language today

back