Sociolinguistics

Catalog description

This course examines the major regional and social dialects in the United States with emphasis on the nonstandard varieties of English spoken by African Americans and Hispanic Americans. The course explores the educational, linguistic and cultural aspects of non-mainstream dialect usage. The course will also examine some important concepts and issues in sociolinguistics such as language change and the social and media generators, gender differences in language, language and identity, language as a social marker, how culture is reflected through language, figurative language (slang) and other sociolinguistic concepts and issues.