In this course you will examine 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.

You will also examine the main methods of sociolinguistic research and explore language and new media (for example email, SMS, Twitter etc.), and situational variation in language (formal vs. informal; written vs. spoken).