Introduction to Sociolinguistics

This course is an introduction to sociolinguistic theory and its application to issues related to Spanish in the contexts of Spain, Latin America, and the United States. It will focus on both quantitative and qualitative research on language variation and language contact in the Spanish-speaking world. We will discuss basic concepts and principles of contemporary sociolinguistics (language vs. dialect; language variation; mechanism of language change; diatopical variation; social variation; etc. We will also identify and discuss methodologies for sociolinguistic research (participant observation; selection of speech community/speakers; socio-economic variables; taping conversations; collecting, organizing, and analyzing sociolinguistic data). (1 unit)