Historical sociolinguistics

6 ECTS credits
180 h study time

Offer 1 with catalog number 4022291ENR for all students in the 1st semester at a (E) Master - advanced level.

Semester

1st semester

Enrollment based on exam contract

Impossible

Grading method

Grading (scale from 0 to 20)

Can retake in second session

Yes

Taught in

English

Faculty

Faculty of Languages & Humanities

Department

Linguistics and Literary Studies

Educational team

Rik Vosters (course titular)

Activities and contact hours

26 contact hours Lecture
100 contact hours Independent or External Form of Study

Course Content

This course will provide students with an overview of the main topics, methods and theories within the field of historical sociolinguistics. After an introduction on what historical sociolinguistics is, why a historical sociolinguistic approach is useful, and how historical sociolinguistics studies language variation and change at the macro level, we will deal with a range of themes, such as dialect contact, standardization, social networks, communities and individuals, genres, speech and writing, language history from below, attitudes and ideologies, multilingualism and language contact, and language planning. The course will use examples and cases from different languages and linguistic communities, with a special emphasis on recent and ongoing research into the history of Dutch.
Depending on the circumstances, more frontal lectures by the instructor may be alternated by presentations and ensueing discussion about specific case studies led by groups of students.
Teaching may take place in a face to face manner and/or in a digital manner, depending on the situation.

Course material

Digital course material (Required) : Slides, handouts and reading material made available online

Additional info

Digital course material (Required) : Slides, handouts and reading material made available online.

During the academic year 2021-2022, the course will be based on a first draft of severa chapter of the textbook on historical sociolinguistics currently under contract in the Key Topics in Sociolinguistics series with Cambridge University Press (Rutten, G. & R. Vosters. In preparation. Historical sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.). Once the textbook has been published, the published version will be used as the required textbook for the course.

Learning Outcomes

General competencies

1. Students can recognize, situate and explain relevant theories, concepts and terms from the field of historical sociolinguistics.
2. Students can apply their knowledge of and insight into theories, concepts and terms in the field to a range of case studies in different languages.
3. Students show that they have acquired the necessary scientific independence to carry out a thorough study of research literature on a specialized topic and/or a relatively small-scale empirical research project on a related topic within the field of historical sociolinguistics.
4. Students can report about their reading of specialized literature in the field by means of a seminar presentation, using fluent academic language and making correct use of the appropriate sociolinguistic terminology.
5. Students can report about their insights and findings of a critical literature review and/or an empirical study in the form of a scientific paper, written in an appropriate academic register of the standard variety and with an accurate and rich use of the acquired terminology.

Grading

The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
LEC Presentation determines 40% of the final mark.
LEC Paper determines 60% of the final mark.

Within the LEC Presentation category, the following assignments need to be completed:

Presentation with a relative weight of 40 which comprises 40% of the final mark.

Within the LEC Paper category, the following assignments need to be completed:

Paper with a relative weight of 60 which comprises 60% of the final mark.

Additional info regarding evaluation

If a student does not participate in or does not hand in the required assignment for one of the evaluation modules for the course, he or she will receive a partial grade of 0/20 for tha evaluation module.

Late submissions of assignments, papers or other tasks will ve accepted unti 48 hours after the deadline. For submissions up to 24 hours after the deadline, the student's result will be lowered by 15%, and for submissions between 24 and 48 hours after the deadline, the student's result will be lowered by 30%. Submissions that are more than 48% late will not be evaluated anymore and receive a partial mark of 0/20.

Office hours: by appointment (http://www.rikvosters.be/appointment)

Allowed unsatisfactory mark

The supplementary Teaching and Examination Regulations of your faculty stipulate whether an allowed unsatisfactory mark for this programme unit is permitted.

Academic context