Sociolinguists are interested in studying social language variation which occurs in every society whether they are rather closed and uniform or diverse or even multicultural. Looking at language and language variation without taking cultural and societal aspects into account is almost impossible as they are so closely interwoven. Often speakers are not aware of the fact that they judge other speakers constantly on the basis of how they talk. We make generalizations about social standing, people’s values or intellect etc. simply because we hear them speak in a certain manner.
In this course we will look at linguistic diversity (mostly) in the English speaking world. We will investigate dialects and accents and why we choose a certain code to communicate, but we will also look at ethnical or gender differences in speech and how they form and express our identity. |
