Postgraduate Course: Introduction to Sociolinguistics (LASC11095)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | Sociolinguistics can be defined as the study of language in use. Sociolinguistics research involves describing patterns of language in use and proposing theories to account for those observed patterns, often with recourse to social factors such as the identity of the speaker or the cultural relevance of the speaking context. Descriptive questions include: How do (different) people talk in different contexts, with different addressees, and for different purposes? When do people vary in how they use language, and when do they not vary? Theoretical questions ask why the answers to these questions look the way that they do, attempting to explore why the same sociolinguistic patterns can be seen across different communities and cultures. In short, this course covers research that asks: What motivates speakers to make different linguistic choices? And what communicative and social functions are served by those choices?
Feedback Events:
1: 20 minutes of one lecture dedicated to describing the expectations of the first assignment
2: One full hour dedicated to discussing the final assignment |
| Course description |
Not entered
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2015/16, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
| Course Start Date |
21/09/2015 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 22,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
75 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
One 1000 word essay (30%)
One 2500 word essay (70%)
Part One Assignment Deadline: Monday 20th October 2014, 12 noon
Maximum Word Count: 1000 words +10%
Part One Return Date: 11th November 2014
Part Two Assignment Deadline: Monday 8th December 2014, 12 noon
Maximum Word Count: 2500 words +10%
Part Two Return Date: 13th January 2015 |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
Our chief objectives in the course are to:
- Develop systematic approaches to studying the differences in how we use language; and
- Develop a distinctively linguistic perspective in how we describe and explain what we observe.
The terminology and knowledge that you are simultaneously developing in the core courses on linguistic structure will be extremely useful to you, and as the semester progresses, you should find you can draw on insights from those courses more and more often in your discussion of sociolinguistics.
Similarly, the skills and approaches you are developing in the Introduction to Discourse Analysis are a perfect complement to the skills and approaches we focus on in this course. By the end of the semester, you will be able to synthesise what you have learnt about the qualitative analysis of language in use (discourse analysis) with the quantitative analysis of language in use(our focus in sociolinguistics).
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Reading List
| "What is Sociolinguistics?" by Gerard Van Herk |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mr Josef Fruehwald
Tel: (0131 6)50 3983
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Toni Noble
Tel: (0131 6)51 3188
Email: |
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