Course Content: Linguistic variation: language and dialect, regional and social varieties, register; Languages in contact: language contact, change, shift and death, pidgins, creoles, koine and mixed language, bi/multilingualism, diglossia; Language in social context: social networks, speech communities, gender, style; Language and ethnicity: language attitude and linguistic identity; Applied domains: language policy and planning, multilingualism and education; Meaning as a cultural construct: space, metaphor, kinship, politeness strategies, linguistic construction of personhood, classifiers; The social brain: neural representation and brain connectivity associated with cultural and linguistic structures. Universality Vs relativity debate.
References:
1. R. Wardhaugh. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 5th Ed. Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
2. P. Trudgill. Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society, 4th Ed. Penguin Books, 2000
3. C.B. Paulston and G.R. Tucker. Sociolinguistics: The Essential Readings. Blackwell Publishing. 2003
4. R.A Hudson. Sociolinguistics. Cambridge University Press, 1996
5. Bradd Shore. Culture in Mind. Oxford University Press. 1996.1st edition.
6. William Foley. Anthropological Linguistics (Language in Society). Blackwell Publishing. 1997.
7. Daniell Everett. Language: The Cultural Tool. Vintage. 2012.
8. Daniel Everett. Don’t Sleep: There Are Snakes. Vintage. 2009.
9. Jason Warnick and Dan Landis (eds). Neuroscience in Intercultural Context. Springer. 2015.
