Objectives

The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to some of the social implications of language use by exploring its central role in the transmission of social and cultural values. In focusing on how language is used to express various social relationship, it aims to familiarize students with a range of investigative methods in current sociolinguistic research.It will be discussed how quantitative methods in linguistics can be coupled with insights from linguistic anthropology and sociology to engage questions about the social conditioning of linguistic variation, stylistic practice, language change, and the connection between smaller-scale interactions and macro-social patterns of variation. It will also be examined how ideologies about linguistic variation have been used to invalidate particular ways of speaking and disempower speakers of these varieties, exploring the ways that language can reflect, reinforce, or ultimately contest social inequalities.On successfully completing this course, students will be able to define language, dialects and varieties, to know the phenomena of language maintenance and shift, language change and multilingualism, to understand and discuss policies and planning in Pakistan and to understand and discuss applications of sociolinguistics.

Course Objectives

1. Introduction,our knowledge of language, the problem of variation
2. The scientific investigation of language
3. Relationships between language and society
4. Socio linguistics and sociology of language
5. Language, dialects, registers and varieties
6. Speech communities
7. Linguistic varieties and multilingual nations
8. Language change
9. Language and culture: the Whorfian hypothesis, kinship systems, taboo and euphemisms
10. Ethnography and ethnomethodology
11. Solidarity and politeness
12. Language and sex, Language and power, Language and power
13. Attitudes and applications
14. Socio linguistics and education
15. Socio linguistic universals
16. Language and worldview

Recommended Texts

1. Wardhaugh, R., & Fuller, J. M. (2015). An introduction to sociolinguistics (7th ed.). Hoboken. John Wiley & Sons.
2. O' Grady, W., Dobrovolsky, M., & Katamba, F. (1997). Contemporary linguistics: an introduction. London: Longman.

Suggested Readings

1. Holmes, J., & Wilson, N. (2017). An introduction to sociolinguistics (5th ed.). New York: Routledge
2. Trudgill, P. (2000). Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society (4th  ed.). London: Penguin Books.
3. McKay, S. & Hornberger, N. H. (Eds.). (1996). Sociolinguistics and language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Assessment Criteria

Mid Terms+ Research Assignment: 50 Marks

Final Term: 50 Marks