Researching Cultures: Sociolinguistics of the Spanish-Speaking World

3 units

This course provides an introduction to the basic concepts in sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics focuses on the symbolic value of language as an expression of group identity based on region, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, age, or other ways of defining group affiliation. Notions such as speech community, sociolinguistic variable, phonological and syntactic variation, and field methods will be included. The course also surveys other related topics such as language in contact, bilingualism and Spanish in the United States, Spanish as a heritage language, language attitudes and language identity, and language and the law. We will focus on research examining the use of Spanish in Latin America, Spain, and the United States.