This course has two goals: (1) to acquaint students with various theoretical and methodological
approaches to sociolinguistics; (2) to supply students with basic methodological and analytical
skills used by sociolinguists.  Accordingly, two major aspeccts of sociolinguistics will be
emphasized: research methodology and analysis.  Research gathering techniques, such as
questionnaire and interview construction and participation observation; (3)
researcher/interviewer roles; (4) data selection.  Analysis will include: (1) variable rule analysis;
(2) wave theory; (3) discourse analysis; (4) transcription of data; (5) influence of theory on
analysis.  These will be looked at from a variety of language situations such as dialect variation,
language contact, style/register variation, and language development.  Students will conduct a
research project of their own and/or will develop skills in the various techniques through class
exercises.

TEXTS: Selected readings.