3 credits
Requires departmental authorization

The topic for this year's course is variation. For over 30 years now,
we have known that linguist-tic variation is not really "free", but
rather influenced in very systematic ways by social and linguistic
factors. While these findings have convinced many sociolinguists that
theories of gram-mar should take into account such variable patterns
in developing rules and models, others still attri-bute variation
patterns to dialect mixing and performance and exclude such ques-tions
from their research.

In this course, we will examine and discuss the methodology and theory
which underly variation studies, as well as the main questions and
controversies which divide sociolinguists among themselves and oppose
them to "theoretical" linguists. We will also put into practice the
metholology and theory of variation studies in a research paper in
which each student will design their own study, analyze the data, and
interpret them.