Sociolinguistics is the study of the structure and use of language in its social and cultural contexts. This course is intended to provide students with a sound, basic coverage of some topics dealing with regional and social dialects, gender and age, as well as topics on multilingual speech communities: language choice, language maintenance, and language planning.

Course Content: This course provides an introductory overview of Sociolinguistics. Its focus is language as a reflection of the structure of the human mind and human society. The following topics are covered: question of language as a social phenomenon (dialects, language change, gender and age et.) and issues in multilingual speech communities (language choice, language maintenance, and language planning etc.)

Textbook: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics by Janet Holms, fourth ed., Pearson Education Limited, 2008