THIS COURSE IS TAUGHT IN BUENOS AIRES



According to René Appel and Pieter Muysken "Bilingualism or language contact in itself is not a scientific discipline. It is an issue, a subject or a field to which various disciplines can contribute. The disciplines can interact or, on the other hand, function independently, because of differing viewpoints, methodologies, or terminologies." (Appel and Muysken 1987: 7-8) Due to the fact that language in society is inherently multifaceted and multidisciplinary, the study of such a complex phenomenon as bilingualism (or multilingualism) cannot be justly limited to traditional or purely linguistic approaches: the fields of syntax, morphology, phonology, and semantics. Therefore, the study of bilingualism includes not only languages in contact, in the most traditional sense, but also entails serious explorations into newer subfields like geolinguistics and language planning, as well as other academic fields such as education, psychology, anthropology, sociology, political science, and law. (1 unit)