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Lehrende/r: PD Dr. habil. Martina Lampert
Veranstaltungsart:
online: Seminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan:
05.601.760
Semesterwochenstunden:
2
Unterrichtssprache:
Deutsch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl:
- | 30
Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:
After a brief state-of-the-art survey of the major trends in the development of (western) sociolinguistics, participants in this course will familiarize themselves with one of the key concepts and methods of sociolinguistic research; that is, they are free to choose according to their individual preference a chapter from a recent handbook that offers an up-to-date collection of substantial themes in sociolinguistics; next, selecting from a variety of empirical sample studies elaborating on their chosen topic, students will then have the chance to deepen their knowledge and expand their expertise in their favorable area; and, finally, adopting a decisively empirical ‘learning by doing’ method, they will engage in their own small-scale sociolinguistic case studies.
During the different phases of their work, students are instructed step-by-step about basic tools and fundamental skills to successfully carry out their own methodologically sound piece of research, to promote their independent handling of authentic data and prepare an in-depth analysis of their project.
To be credited Active Participation, students are expected to hand in four written tasks in total over the semester: (critical) reading reports of two articles to be chosen from a set of survey articles and a cross-section of current empirical studies; a proposal outlining their initial project idea; a scientific poster that is supposed to present their initial findings of and insights from their ongoing study. To be granted credit (Modulprüfung), students will have to hand in an empirical term paper of about 5,000 to 5,500 words in after the end of the term, whose date of submission will be announced on time.
Anwesenheitspflicht:
Please notice: While this seminar is an asynchronous digital course, which means that you are entirely free to organize your study time independently and according to your personal preferences, you should, however, be aware that there are some fixed dates for submitting tasks to be credited Active Participation.
Inhalt:
Over time, sociolinguistics—that is, the study of language and communication in society, and, vice versa, of society as reflected in the linguistic/communicative behavior of its population—has become an ever-increasing field of research. It goes far beyond the investigation of the (once canonical) social parameters like age, class/social status, gender, and ethnicity as determinants of language use, more or less directly emanating from speakers’ demographies. Indeed, there has been an unmistakable tendency in the scientific community to (almost) equate sociolinguistics with linguistics in general, that is, social aspects of whatever kind will have their say on all issues of communicative exchange. In the course of this scientific discourse, sociolinguists have increasingly come to pay special respect for the role of the individual, moving away from a(n exclusive) focus on the behavior of social groups, since all communication critically hinges on social interaction between concrete human agents in a particular context. Zooming in on the ‘linguistic individual’ has also raised researchers’ awareness of how communicative practices are shaped by cultural habits and reach beyond the exchange of verbal messages, integrating so-called ‘non’- or ‘paralinguistic’ devices, such as gestures and gaze in face-to-face interactions or layout and typographical choices in printed text.
Starting with a compact survey of sociolinguistics’ history, published a decade ago, we will, in this advanced seminar, have a closer look at a (hopefully) reasonable selection of sociolinguistic topics and methods of analysis, among them certainly classic themes like gender and ethnicity or studies of linguistic variation and change; but we will also have a glimpse at scholars who engage in critically exploring the impact of taken-for-grated conventions and normative ideologies in society, such as studies on the language of institutions, revealing power relations as expressed through language; and we will not leave aside another prominent aspect emerging in recent sociolinguistic publications, which is fundamentally grounded in a decisive interdisciplinary perspective and which favors an ethnomethodological orientation: to document how the change in social routine actions manifests in communicative behaviors, including language use.
Empfohlene Literatur:
A very recent publication, Jürgen Spitzmüller’s 2022 e-book Soziolinguistik: Eine Einführung (Berlin: Metzler), downloadable at the Central Library, is recommended as a comprehensive survey of the field, and everybody is invited to consult it for general issues and/or specific queries. Apart from that, the essential course material will be made accessible for participants in PDF form on the lms.uni-mainz.de platform. Among others, it will include introductory reading materials; various how-to’s for the written tasks students are expected to carefully carry out; a pool of sample studies that offer a wide range of project ideas from which course members are free to choose according to their personal preferences. Additional texts will be provided on request; participants are, however, expected to thoroughly research up-to-date literature on their respective projects.
Zusätzliche Informationen:
Please notice that all materials will be in English, as even more than in other strands of linguistics, sociolinguists have long been an ‘English-speaking’ community; of course, we are free to negotiate the language for our interpersonal communication in this class.
This seminar’s explicit goal is to promote students’ academic skills, raise their methodological awareness, and expand their analytical competence, in one central sphere of linguistic inquiry, and foster their successful self-determined engagement with fundamental issues in language and communication. At the same time, this course is particularly organized in a fashion to guarantee maximum opportunity for individual support, and allowing for topics to be tailored to each course member’s personal interest.
As a digital course, this advanced seminar will place a particular focus on promoting participants’ skills in major research presentation formats. For students, this emphasis on academic writing may well have an advantageous ‘side effect’ in view of their upcoming master thesis. Accordingly, the requirements for Active Participation in this course will center on academic genres such as critical reading reports, project outlines, and scientific posters. Students will also have the opportunity to do their own empirical research, designing a small-scale case study, using authentic data from ready at hand internet sources; this exploratory work, which will occupy them over the second half of the term, will serve as the sound basis for their empirical term paper.
Further detailed updates on the course and its organization will be available shortly before the start of the term. In case of any queries on whatever issue, please do feel free to contact me any time via e-mail to mlampert@uni-mainz.de.
Digitale Lehre:
Please note that this seminar will be entirely digital, and we will be using the LMS-software of JGU at https://lms.uni-mainz.de as our major information platform, providing background sources, course materials, and various how-to guidelines. Individual exchange via e-mail is welcome any time at mlampert@uni-mainz.de.
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