Introduction to Spanish Sociolinguinistics

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the study of Spanish language variation within its social context. Social factors such as geography, race, gender, age, social class, economics, education, as well as specific linguistic features belonging to certain Spanish speaking communities, will be discussed. Students will familiarize with sociolinguistic research methodology and theory including, but not limited to, sampling of speech community, data collection, types of linguistic variation, and the sociolinguistic variable. In addition to learning about the concepts, questions, and methods associated with sociolinguistic research as they are applied to language, students will discuss and review studies of language variation in different speaking communities. Finally students will examine language contact situations such as Spanish in the United States.