BS ENGLISH LITERATURE & LINGUISTICS

COURSE TITLE: Sociolinguistics

COURSE CODE: LNG-401

Course Description:

This course provides an overview of the field of sociolinguistics – studying language in its social context and
looking at how linguistic choices are associated with social and situational characteristics. The course is
designed to increase your awareness of the ways that language and social contexts interact and develop your
ability to explain some of these interactions to other people – both other linguists and the general public and
increase your understanding of concepts, terminology, and research paradigms which are important in
understanding sociolinguistic work strengthen your ability to apply sociolinguistic principles and research in
teaching, workplace, and everyday situations it give you practice with some analytical techniques in
sociolinguistic work allow you to focus more detailed attention on a single sociolinguistic topic that is currently
an important political/social issue. The approaches that we will use in considering the interaction of language
and society will be drawn from related disciplines, including anthropology (the ethnography of speaking) and
social psychology. Although most of the language data we will consider will be drawn from the English
language and American culture, we will also examine the sociolinguistics of other languages and cultures.

Course Objectives: This course aims to:

 Familiarize students with different aspects about the origin of language.

 Provide students an overview of how a language develops through a comprehensive exposure to English
language development.
 Enable students to identify major theoretical formulations in the development of linguistics.
 Give students a comprehensive overview of language system as human faculty.
To teach specific aspects of language

Learning Outcomes:

1. Help you develop a greater awareness of the relationships between language and social context, and how
these relationships are signed through language.
2. Introduce you to key sociolinguistic theory and concepts for explaining how our language varies in social
contexts.
3. Help you develop an understanding of the tools and methodological insights needed to explore language
variation in our social world.
4. Consider issues related to language use and social context, with particular attention to language attitudes.
5. Develop and demonstrate your time management and personal/project management abilities.
6. Practice your communication of complex ideas and present your work in a clear and engaging way.
Course contents
Weeks Description of Topic Referred Material
Introduction of sociolinguistics The Cambridge Handbook of
Sociolinguistics
Language in society Rajend Mesthrie, p.15
o Language and social class

o Language and gander

o Language and culture

o Language and ethnicity

An Introduction to Sociolingu
Sociolinguistics within linguistics FIFTH EDITION, R
Wardhaugh, p.25
Sociolinguistic foundations
1st Week Language, Dialect and Variation

1: what role a language plays in a society and how dialect is different

from a standard language

2: how dialects vary from area to area and social backgrounds and
customs affect dialects

3: understanding of Style and Register

4: Dialect is different from Register why and how?

2nd Week Pidgin and Creole. An Introduction to Sociolingu

FIFTH EDITION, R
1: What is pidgin and how it is created? Wardhaugh,p.58

2: Why it takes centuries to develop a language?

3: How language is developed from a base or crude form of pidgin to the

level of Lingua Franca?

o Objective is to determine the understanding of students

about pidgin and creole
 1:Diglossia as a sociolinguistics situation An Introduction to Sociolingu
FIFTH EDITION, R
o Bilingualism and Multilingualism Wardhaugh,p.88

o Codes

o Code switching

2: What is meant by Diglossia and why H-varieties are prestigious and

3rd Week
L-varieties are not?

i. How Diglossia and register are different?

ii. Introduction to Bilingualism and Multilingualism.

iii. Code switching and mixing

Ethnography of Speaking An Introduction to Sociolingu

FIFTH EDITION, R
Varieties of Talk Wardhaugh,p.242

1: Introducing Ethnography of speaking with examples.

2: Hymes model of SPEAKING

4th Week
o Communicative competence

o Ethnomethodology

3: Significance and implications of ethnography and Hymes Model

5th Week Language culture and identity An Introduction to Sociolingu

FIFTH EDITION, R
1: To define Relationship between language and culture Wardhaugh,p.221
 2: Whorfian Hypothesis

o Kinship and Taxonomies

o Prototypes

o Taboo and Euphemism

3: Comparative study of culture and identity

6th Week Language and gender An Introduction to Sociolingu

FIFTH EDITION, R
1: How males and females use language differently and why? Wardhaugh,p.315

o Fundamental principles

o Gander performativity

2: Approaches to language and gander

o Deficit approach

o Dominance approach

o Difference approach

o Feminist approach

o Social constructionist/Dynamic approach

3: What different researchers say about effect of gender on language

4: Gander and conversational strategies

 5: Language, gander and communities of practice

Endangered language An Introduction to Sociolingu

FIFTH EDITION, R
1: Language shift and maintenance Wardhaugh,p.335

o What makes a language endangered?

7th Week
2: Language shift and maintenance

3: Language Death

Continue … Language death , David crysta

pp.8,9,10,
Language Death

1: What is language death?

o Language pool

o Size of problem
8th Week
2: Why should we care?

3: Why do languages die?

o How can we save language for its usage?

o Discussion about all topics about language death

(Midterm exam )
9th Week
10th Week Language culture and teaching An Introduction to Sociolingu
FIFTH EDITION, R
o Sociolinguistics and Education Wardhaugh,p.221

2: What is culture and how it affects language?

3: Relationship between culture, language and education Discussion

about the topic of the week
 Words and culture An Introduction to Sociolingu
FIFTH EDITION, R
1: Language and thought Wardhaugh,p.221

11th Week
2: Culture, civilization, thinking and categorization of thoughts

3: Discussion about the topic

Social factors in language Change An Introduction to Sociolingu

FIFTH EDITION, R
1: Solidarity and Politeness Wardhaugh,p.221

o Tu and Vous concept

o Address Terms

2: Difference between solidarity and Politeness according to Ronald

Wardhaugh

3: According to different linguist describe about politeness and

12th Week solidarity

o Positive and negative politeness

o Fae validity

13th Week Talk and action An Introduction to Sociolingu

FIFTH EDITION, R
Wardhaugh,p.286
 1: What are speech acts

utterance we use are locutions

o Illocutionary

o perlocutionary

2: Understanding and differences between three types of speech acts

3: Austin divides performatives

4: Cooperation

o cooperative principle

Semiotics An Introduction to linguistics

SIXTH EDITION, G
Social semiotics yule,p.425

1:Understanding of semiotics and social semiotics

14th Week 2: Why social semiotics is necessary to understand different modes of

expression and how.

3: Difference between solidarity and Politeness according to Ronald

Wardhaugh

15th Week Languages planning and policy An Introduction to Sociolingu

FIFTH EDITION, R
1: Language Planning Wardhaugh,p.356

o status planning

o corpus planning

2: Language Planning in Local Contexts.

3: Limitations of Language Planning

Ideologies that may motivate actual decision-making in language

 planning in a particular society
o Linguistic assimilation
o linguistic pluralism,
o vernacularization
o Internationalism.

Social factors in language Change An Introduction to Sociolingu

FIFTH EDITION, R
Types of variations Wardhaugh,p.356

o Language variation

o Linguistic variation

16th Week
o social variation

o Regional Variation

2 : Social factors in language change

3: how social factors are change languages in t the society?

An Introduction to Sociolingu
FIFTH EDITION, R
a) on the comparative study of Solidarity and politeness b) Talk Wardhaugh, full book
and action

c. what the interrelationship of a and b

17th
Week
On the comparative study of all topics which are included in this
course. Discussion: How does theory of language and language
learning affect design and procedure?

A comprehensive study of full syllabus

(Final Term Examination)

th
18 Week
Text Books: Wardhaugh, Ronald. 2010. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (6th ed.).
Text Books: The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics, Rajend Mesthrie, p.15

An Introduction to linguistics SIXTH EDITION, George yule

Suggested material
Evaluation System

 Quizzes/Presentations/Viva Voice 15%

 Assignment 10%
 Mid Term Test 25%
 Final Examination(at the end of the semester) 50%