The course examines ways in which social and interpersonal factors such as gender, class, ethnicity and regional differences influence language variation. Other topics covered include language change over time, language contact, language attitudes, and social aspects of interaction and style. This course also introduces you to the main methods of sociolinguistic research and explores language and new media (for example email, SMS, Twitter etc.), and situational variation in language (formal vs. informal; written vs. spoken).