Course information

Title

The Social Uses of Language

Lecturer

Barát Erzsébet

Course code

YSE_BTK_011-00970

Credit

4

Location

Kristó Terem

Time

Wednesday 4-6 pm

Course description

Short description

This lecture course covers the following topics: geographic, social and style variation in English; the English spoken by native speakers vs. nonnative speakers (including English as a lingua franca); language policy and planning (the spread of English, the European Union); forensic linguistics; pragmatics (its scope and methods); cross-cultural, intercultural and interlanguage pragmatics; linguistic politeness; conversation analysis; talk in institutional contexts; language, ideology and power; language use and identity; the interdisciplinary concept of discourse.

Schedule

1. September 5 Introduction & Cross-cultural, intercultural and interlanguage

pragmatics (MS)

2. September 12 Social and stylistic variation (FA)
3. September 19 Geographical variation (FA)
4. September 26 Bi- and multilingualism (FA)
5. October 3 Linguistic (im)politeness (MS)
6. October 10 Conversational analysis in private and institutional settings (MS)
7. October 17 Native and nonnative English (DP)
8. October 24 English as a lingua franca (DP)
9. November 7 Ideology and power in translation (LM)
10. November 14 Social aspects of literacy (LM)
11. November 21 The interdisciplinary concept of discourse (BE)
12. November 28 Language, ideology and power (BE)
13. December 5 Language use and identity & Students’ quiries (BE)

Semester

FALL

Requirements

Requirements to get the grade

90 minute written exam with 3 essay questions on topics covered in the lectures.

Reading list

Regional, Social and Stylistic variation (2 lectures) (FA)

Mesthrie, Rajend. 2000. Regional dialectology. In: Mesthrie, Rajend, Joan Swann, Andrea Deumert, and William. L. Leap, eds. Introducing sociolinguistics. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 44-75.

Mesthrie, Rajend. 2000. Social dialectology. In: Mesthrie, Rajend, Joan Swann, Andrea Deumert, and William. L. Leap, eds. Introducing sociolinguistics. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 76-112.

BI- AND MULTILINGUALISM (FA)

Meyerhoff, Miriam. 2006. Multilingualism and language choice. In: Miriam Meyerhoff, Introducing sociolinguistics. London: Routledge, 102-126.

Edwards, John. 2004. Foundations of bilingualism. In: Tej K. Bhatia and William C. Ritchie, eds. The handbook of bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell, 7-31.

Cross-cultural, Intercultural and Interlanguage Pragmatics (MS)

Pavlidou, Theodosia-Soula, 2000. Telephone Conversations in Greek and German: Attending to the Relationship Aspect of Communication. In: Helen Spencer-Oatey (ed), Culturally Speaking. Managing rapport through talk across cultures. London: Continuum: 121 – 141.

Günther, Susanne, 2000. Argumentation and Resulting Problems in the Negotiation of Rapport in a German-Chinese Conversation. In: Helen Spencer-Oatey (ed), Culturally Speaking. Managing rapport through talk across cultures. London: Continuum: 217 – 240.

LINGUISTIC (IM)POLITENESS (MS)

Kádár, Dániel Z., Mochael Haugh, 2013, Understanding Politeness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1-103.

Spencer-Oatey, Helen, 2008. Face, (Im)Politeness and Rapport, In: Helen Spencer-Oatey (ed), Culturally Speaking. Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory. London: Continuum: 11-46.

Bousfield, Derek and Miriam A. Locher (eds), 2008. Impoliteness in Language. Studies on its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Chapter 2: 17-44.

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS IN PRIVATE & INSTITUTIONAL SETTINGS (MS)

Hutchby, Ian and Robin Wooffitt, 1998. Foundations of Conversation Analysis. In: Ian Hutchby and Robin Wooffitt, Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press. 38 – 69.

Raymond, Geoffrey, 2006. Questions at Work: Yes/No Type Interrogatives in Institutional Contexts. In: Drew, Paul, Geoffrey Raymond, and Darin Weinberg, Talk and Interaction in Social Research Methods. London: Sage Publications. 115 – 135.

THE INTERDISCIPLINARY CONCEPT OF DISCOURSE (BE)

Gee, James Paul: Chapter 2. Discourses and Social Languages; Chapter 3. Situated Meanings and Cultural Models. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. Routledge, 1999, 11-39; 40-57.

LANGUAGE, IDEOLOGY, AND POWER (BE)

Thompson, Denise: Chapter 2. Ideology: Justifying Domination. Radical Feminism Today. Sage, 2001, 22-35.

Butler, Judith: Chapter 4: Implicit Censorship and Discursive Agency. Excitable speech: A Politics of the Performative. Routledge, 1997, 127-163.

LANGUAGE USE AND IDENTITY (BE)

Bucholtz Mary and Hall, Kira: Language and Identity. Alessandro Duranti (ed.) A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Blackwell, 2004, 368-388.

NATIVE AND NONNATIVE ENGLISH (DP)

Davies, Alan. 2004. The native speaker in applied linguistics. In: Davies, Alan & Catherine Elder (Eds.), The handbook of applied linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 431-450.

Hall, Joan Kelly, An Cheng, and Matthew T. Carlson. 2006. Reconceptualizing multicompetence as a theory of language knowledge. Applied linguistics 27/2: 220-240.

ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA (DP)

House, Juliane. 2008. English as a lingua franca in Europe today. In Extra, Guus and Durk Gorter (eds.). Multilingual Europe: Facts and policies, (pp. 63-85). Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin.

IDEOLOGY AND POWER IN TRANSLATION (LM)

Baker, Mona 2007. Reframing Conflict in Translation. Social Semiotics (17)/2 151-169.

Schäffner, Christina 2007. Politics and Translation. In. P. Kuhiwtzak and K. Littau (Eds). A Companion to Translation Studies. (pp. 134-147). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF LITERACY (LM)

Perry, Kristen H. 2011. What is literacy? – A Critical Overview of Sociocultural Perspectives. Journal of Language and Literacy Education (8)/1 50-71.

Street, Brain V. and Besnier, Niko. 1994. Aspects of Literacy. in: Ingold, Tim (ed) Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology. (pp. 527-562). London and New York: Routledge

Suggested reading list

Regional, Social and Stylistic variation (2 lectures) (FA)

Chambers, J.K., Peter Trudgill, and Natalie Schilling-Estes, eds. 2002. The handbook of language variation and change. Oxford: Blackwell; from Part 3: Social Factors, sections Time and Social differences, pp. 307-472.

Labov, William. 1972. The social stratification of (r) in New York City department stores. In: Labov, William. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 43-70.

Trudgill, Peter. 1983. Acts of conflicting identity: The sociolinguistics of British pop-song pronunciation. In: Trudgill, Peter. On dialect: Social and geographical perspectives. New York: New York University Press, 141-160.

Wolfram, Walt, and Natalie Schilling-Estes. 1998. Why do languages have dialects? In: Wolfram, Walt, and Natalie Schilling-Estes. American English: Dialects and variation. Oxford: Blackwell, 24-56.

BI- AND MULTILINGUALISM (FA)

Grosjean, Francois. 1982. Life with two languages: An introduction to bilingualism. Boston: University of Harvard Press.

Grosjean, Francois. 2008. Studying bilinguals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cross-cultural, Intercultural and Interlanguage Pragmatics (MS)

Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper (eds), 1989. Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Kasper, Gabriele, 2000. Data Collection in Pragmatic Research. In: Helen Spencer-Oatey (ed), Culturally Speaking. Managing rapport through talk across cultures. London: Continuum: 316 - 342.

Wierzbicka, Anna, 2003. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Žegarac, Vladimir and Martha C. Pennington, 2000. Pragmatic Transfer in Intercultural Communication. In: Helen Spencer-Oatey (ed), Culturally Speaking. Managing rapport through talk across cultures. London: Continuum: 165 – 191.

LINGUISTIC (IM)POLITENESS (MS)

Mills, Sara., 2005. Gender and impoliteness, Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behavior, Culture 1(2), 263-280.

Hickey, Leo and Miranda Steward (eds), 2005. Politeness in Europe. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Watts, Richard J., 2003. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Watts, Richard J., Sachiko Ide and Konrad Ehlich (eds), 1992. Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, theory and practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS IN PRIVATE & INSTITUTIONAL SETTINGS (MS)

Drew, Paul and John Herritage, 1992, Talk at work. Interaction in institutional settings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wooffitt, Robin, 2005, Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis: A Comparative and Critical Introduction, London: Sage

Schegloff, Emanuel A., 2007, Sequence Organization in Interaction: Volume 1: A Primer in Conversation Analysis, Cambridge: CUP

ten Have, Paul,. 2007. Doing Conversation Analysis. A Practical Guide. London: Sage. (Second edition of [1999])

THE INTERDISCIPLINARY CONCEPT OF DISCOURSE (BE)

Fairclough, Norman: Discourse and Social Change. Polity Press, 1992.

Foucault, Michel: The Archaeology of Knowledge. Routledge, 1967/2001.

Norris, Sigrid and Rodney H. Jones (eds.): Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis. Routledge, 2005.

Wetherell, Margaret, Stephanie Taylor, and Simeon J Yates (eds.): Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader. Sage in association with The Open University, 2001.

LANGUAGE, IDEOLOGY, AND POWER (BE)

Austin, J. L. How To Do Things With Words. Harvard University Press, (2^nd Edition), 1975.

Barát, Erzsébet: The troubling internet space of ‘woman’s mind.’ Discourse and Communication. 2009, Vol. 3(4): 1–26.

Billig, Michael: Arguing and Thinking. A rhetorical approach to social psychology. Cambridge University Press, 1996 (2^nd edition).

Fairclough, Norman: Language and Power. Longman, 1989, particularly Chapter 10, the addition in the 2^nd edition, 2001.

Lazar, M. Michelle (ed.): Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. Gender, Power, and Ideology in Discourse. Palgrave, 2005.

Lakoff, Robin Tolmach: The Language War. 2000. University of California Press.

LANGUAGE USE AND IDENTITY (BE)

Barát, Erzsébet: Les-being and Identity Politics: The Intersectionality of Sexual Identity and Desire. Marie-Luise Kohlke and Luisa Orza (eds.) The Intricacies of Sexual Idioms. Rodopi Press, 2008, 103-128.

Bourdieu, Pierre: Part I. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Distinction. Routledge, 1979/1996, 9-96.

Bucholtz, Mary, A. C. Liang, Laurel Sutton (eds): Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Bucholtz, Mary and Hall, Kira (eds.) Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self, Routledge, 1995.

Gal, Susan and Gail Kligman: Chapter 3. Dilemmas of Public and Private. The Politics of Gender After Socialism. Princeton University Press, 2000, 37-62.

ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA (DP)

Davies, Alan. 2003. The native speaker: Myth and reality. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Jenkins, Jennifer. 2000. The phonology of English as an international language: new models, new norms, new goals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jenkins, Jennifer. 2007. ELF: what it is and what it’s thought to be. In: Jenkins, Jennifer, English as a lingua franca: attitude and identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1-30.

Seidlhofer, Barbara. 2000. Mind the gap: English as a mother tongue vs. English as a lingua franca. Vienna English Working Papers (9)/1, 51-68.