69455 - English Language and Culture III (First Language) (CL2)

Academic Year 2024/2025

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Forli
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Intercultural and Linguistic Mediation (cod. 8059)

Learning outcomes

In this course, you will develop knowledge and understanding of sociolinguistic aspects of English, focusing on how English varies across different social contexts, groups, regions, and cultures. You will acquire knowledge of different theoretical frameworks and empirical case studies that examine English usage and change in varieties of English worldwide.

Course contents

This course covers both traditional and contemporary approaches to the sociolinguistics of English:

  • Variation in English across space and time
  • Accents, dialects, and varieties of English
  • Language repertoires, registers, genres, and resources
  • Language attitudes and ideologies
  • Social variation and social networks
  • Social and linguistic variables, communities of practice, and social identity
  • Belonging, multiliteracy, and multimodality
  • Networked multilingualism, code-mixing, crossing, and translanguaging
  • Situational code-switching
  • Language, style, and identity
  • Overt and covert language attitudes and stereotypes, including mocking and appropriation
  • Language and sexism
  • Language and racism
  • Linguistic landscapes and language mobility
  • Language contact, flows, migration, and superdiversity
  • Research ethics and methods in sociolinguistics

Readings/Bibliography


Required textbook:

Rodney Jones, & Christiana hemistocleous (2022). Introducing Language and Society. Cambridge University Press.

Supplemental material available on companion website: www.cambridge.org/jones-themisocleous

Teaching methods

Traditional lectures, discussions, group work, multimedia presentations, and "flipped" classroom.

Assessment methods

The exam consists of three short essays essay (300-400 words each) and an oral presentation based on topics during the course.

*More exam information will be provided during the course.

**Class attendance requirement: at least 70%.

Grading scale

Excellent (28-30)

Good (24-27)

Fair (20-23)

Passing (18-19)

Teaching tools

PPT presentations, audiovisual material.

Office hours

See the website of Giulia Bencini