Language and Society: What Your Speech Says About You

Overview

Discover the remarkable ways in which our society is a reflection of our language and how our linguistic choices play a determining role in every aspect of our lives. Language is not a passive means of communication; it actively constructs societies and shapes our social lives and realities. The field of sociolinguistics reveals how language serves as strong social capital, influencing our identity, relationships, and career success.

In these 24 thought-provoking lectures, you’ll investigate how social differences based on factors such as region, class, ethnicity, occupation, gender, and age are inseparable from language differences. Explore how these linguistic variations arise and how they reflect and generate our social systems. Join a brilliantly insightful sociolinguist and teacher in a compelling inquiry that sheds light on how our linguistic choices play a determining role in every aspect of our lives.

Course Content

01: What Does Your Speech Say about You?

Begin to investigate how language both reflects and shapes our social world. Observe the ways in which your speech signals information such as your age, economic class, gender, ethnicity, or place of origin. Grasp how even subtle linguistic variants such as -ing versus -in’ (e.g., going vs. goin’) communicate important information between speakers. (31 min)

02: Does Language Influence Worldview?

Explore how social life affects language use, and how our social roles impact the way we organize our world linguistically. Investigate how conceptual constructs regarding time, spatial relationships, and gender are encoded into language, influencing our perceptions and directing our thoughts into habitual patterns. (29 min)

03: What Is Sociolinguistics?

Grasp the differences between theoretical linguistics, which studies the underlying mental system of language, and sociolinguistics, which studies how that system is used by speakers. Learn how we use linguistic resources to categorize people into groups, interpret events, and form “speech communities” that locate and define us socially. (30 min)

04: Four Levels of Language Variation

Learn about phonetics, phonology, syntax, and morphology as groundwork for the course’s inquiry. Consider how these linguistic features become important social markers. (30 min)

05: How Do Dialects Develop?

Look closely at the terms “language” and “dialect,” noting how historical, geopolitical, and cultural factors play major roles in distinguishing the two. Follow how dialect variations emerge within languages, considering social, geographical, economic, cognitive, and physiological factors. (30 min)

06: Language Change-What’s New Is Old Again

Review the fascinating history of the English language, tracing its evolution from Old to Early Modern English, and examining how historical processes shape our language today. (28 min)

07: The Origin and History of American Dialects

Discover how regional American speech is traceable to pre-Revolutionary British dialects and settlement patterns. Learn how linguists measure the development of both regional and social dialects. (31 min)

08: Your Shifty Vowels

Delve into the complex subject of English vowels and what they reveal about speakers. Learn about the massive vowel changes currently taking place in American dialects and how these shifts identify social distinctions. (29 min)

09: Vowel Shifts and Regional American Speech

Take a deeper look at the vowel changes affecting U.S. English, observing how these changes operate like fashion trends, led mostly by the young. (30 min)

10: Language and Social Class

Study the impact of socioeconomic status, class, and education on speech, noting how specific features reflect social status. Grasp how social differences between speakers are systematically reflected in language differences. (29 min)

11: Sex, Age, and Language Change

Investigate why language change tends to be led by the young and how gender shapes our language. Explore how men and women gain social capital from contrasting forms of speech. (32 min)

12: Language Attitudes and Social Perception

Examine how attitudes about language influence our social existence and how we evaluate others based on their speech. (31 min)

13: Language as a Communicative Process

Learn about the interactive nature of conversation and the factors that contribute to successful communication. (28 min)

14: Making Sense of Conversational Intentions

Explore the separation between literal meaning and socially derived meaning in conversation, and how we convey meaning without explicit speech. (29 min)

15: Analyzing Conversation

Study how conversations are organized and the specific procedures that govern conversational interactions. (29 min)

16: The Mechanics of Good Conversation

Grasp how questions manage conversations and the functions of backchanneling in dialogue. (29 min)

17: Mind Your Manners-Politeness Speech

Investigate how we balance our need to be liked with our need not to be burdened in interactions. Study the strategies we use to express politeness. (28 min)

18: Linguistic Style and Repertoire

Observe how we vary our speech according to the situation and how our professional occupations affect speaking style. (30 min)

19: The Gender Divide in Language

Examine how men and women differ in their use and perception of speech, and consider theories explaining these differences. (31 min)

20: Ethnic Identity and Language

Learn how language marks ethnic distinctions and study features of African-American English and their evolution. (32 min)

21: Socializing Children into Language

Take a close look at how children learn to speak and the role adults play in modeling social and communicative aspects of speech. (28 min)

22: Language, Adolescence, and Education

Investigate adolescent culture as a key force in linguistic change and the social behaviors that drive the adoption of new linguistic features. (30 min)

23: Textspeak-2 Bad 4 English?

Weigh the effects of computer-mediated communication on speech and writing, and determine whether texting negatively affects English. (29 min)

24: The Changing Face of Linguistic Diversity

Consider the current forces of change within English and examine evidence supporting the conclusion that language reflects our differences and similarities. (32 min)