Lecturer: Prof John Rickford

This course, LING 6302: Sociolinguistics of West Indian Language and Society, is designed to expose students to a more detailed examination and analysis of sociolinguistic concepts, issues and problems that are of theoretical importance and practical relevance to West Indian speech communities, given their diverse linguistic backgrounds.  This course will address theoretical issues of language variation and quantitative analysis, issues which have relevance for Caribbean communities.

The CLLI course is offered as Module I of LING 6299: Dynamics of Language Variation.  LING 6299 is intended to give students a thorough grounding in the sociolinguistic study of language variation, particularly as it is manifested in the Caribbean.  The course will consider in turn early studies of variability, the concept of the speech community and the community of practice, the role of age, social class, network, gender, age, ethnicity and style in variation and change, quantitative versus implicational and sociopsychological (Acts of Identity) models, and the concept of the creole continuum.  Additionally, we will consider and attempt (via weekly field exercises) various methods of collecting data for the sociolinguistic study of variation, including questionnaires, sample approaches, individual interviews and group recordings.