[ Home | Page d'accueil ]

Shana Poplack

Cours de premier cycle / Undergraduate Courses Cours de deuxième et troisième cycles / Graduate Courses

Cours de premier cycle / Undergraduate Courses

Cours enseignés en français
LIN 3540 Sociolinguistique
Introduction à l'étude de la variabilité linguistique à travers le temps, l'espace et le contexte social. Thèmes abordés: les variables sociales et linguistiques, le changement linguistique, les variétés régionales et stylistiques, le stigma et le prestige, l'idéologie, norme et "écarts".
Préalable ou concomitant: LIN 2500 ou 2510 (ou LIN 2100 ou 2110).

LIN 4541 Dialectologie
Approches contemporaines à la différenctiation entre dialectes régionaux, sociaux et ethniques.
Préalable ou concomitant: LIN 2500 ou 2510 (ou LIN 2100 ou 2110).

LIN 4542 Dialectologie Urbaine I
Analyse du langage et du comportement social à partir de données sur le parler spontané, recueillies dans une communauté linguistique. Méthodes de collecte de données en milieu urbain: enquête anonyme rapide, entrevue sociolinguistique, observation du participant et expérimentation naturelle. Étude en groupes d'un quartier de la région métropolitaine d'Ottawa-Hull.
Préalables: LIN 2500 et 2510 ou permission du département. Suivre en conjonction avec LIN 4543.

LIN 4543 Dialectologie Urbaine II
Introduction aux méthodes quantitatives reliées à l'analyse empirique de la variation linguistique, à la stratification des classes sociales et des ethnies, à l'étude du changement linguistique en cours et à l'analyse du discours dans le cadre de la théorie de la variation linguistique. Aspects techniques de la transcription, du codage, du dépouillement et de l'emmagasinage des données recueillies dans le cadre du cours LIN 4542 (Dialectologie Urbaine I) ou ailleurs.
Préalable: LIN 2500 et 2510 ou permission du département. Préalable fortement recommandé: LIN 4542.
Courses Taught in English
LIN 3140 Sociolinguistics
Introduction to the study of linguistic variation across time, space and social context. Topics include linguistic and social variables, language change, regional and stylistic varieties, prestige and stigma, norms and "deviations", linguistic ideology.
Prerequisite or co-requisite: LIN 2100 or 2110 (or LIN 2500 or 2510).

LIN 3141 Dialectology
Contemporary approaches to the study of regional, social and ethnic dialect differences.
Prerequisite or co-requisite: LIN 2100 or 2110 (or LIN 2500 or 2510).

LIN 4142 Urban Dialectology I
Analysis of language and social behavior on the basis of natural data gathered in the speech community. Methods of linguistic data collection in the urban setting, including the rapid anonymous survey, the sociolinguistic interview, participant observation, and natural experimentation. Working in groups, students will study a neighborhood in the Ottawa-Hull region.
Prerequisites: LIN 2100 and 2110, or permission from the instructor. Should be taken in conjunction with LIN 4143.

LIN 4143 Urban Dialectology II
Introduction to quantitative methods, within the framework of variation theory, for the empirical study of linguistic variation, class and ethnic stratification, age and sex differentiation, linguistic change in progress, and discourse analysis. Technical aspects of the course include transcribing, coding, counting, storing and quantitative analysis of spontaneous speech data using the corpus collected by students in LIN 4142 (Urban Dialectology I) or elsewhere.
Prerequisite: LIN 2100 and 2110, or permission from the instructor. Highly recommended prerequisite: LIN 4142.

LIN 4997 Bilingualism
How do bilinguals produce grammatical utterances containing elements from more than one language? Exemplifying with French-English contact in Canada, as well as other well-documented bilingual situations world-wide, this course will focus on the two major mechanisms of language combination: codeswitching and borrowing. We adopt a variationist perspective on the linguistic consequences of language contact in stable bilingual communities to address the key theoretical and methodological issues in their analysis.
Prerequisite: LIN 3140/3540.

Cours de deuxième et troisième cycles / Graduate Courses

LIN 5903 Sociolinguistics I - Variation Theory
A survey of recent and classical work in variationist sociolinguistics, including the establishment of the linguistic variable, the notion of accountability and the relationship of phonological and syntactic variation to speech style, social status, gender and age. In partial fulfillment of course requirements, students will conduct and present an original empirical study of one (aspect) of the topics covered in class.
Prerequisite: LIN 4142 and LIN 4143 or permission from the instructor.

LIN 5908 Language Contact
How do bilinguals produce grammatical utterances containing elements from more than one language? Exemplifying with French-English contact in Canada, as well as other well-documented bilingual situations world-wide, this course will focus on the two major mechanisms of language combination: codeswitching and borrowing. We adopt a variationist perspective on the linguistic consequences of language contact in stable bilingual communities to address the key theoretical and methodological issues in their analysis.

LIN 7910 Urban Dialectology I
Analysis of language and social behavior on the basis of natural data gathered in the speech community. Methods of linguistic data collection in the urban setting, including the rapid anonymous survey, the sociolinguistic interview, participant observation, and natural experimentation. Working in groups, students will study a neighborhood in the Ottawa-Hull region.
Prerequisites: LIN 2100 and 2110, or permission from the instructor. Should be taken in conjunction with LIN 7911.

LIN 7911 Urban Dialectology II
Introduction to quantitative methods, within the framework of variation theory, for the empirical study of linguistic variation, class and ethnic stratification, age and sex differentiation, linguistic change in progress, and discourse analysis. Technical aspects of the course include transcribing, coding, counting, storing and quantitative analysis of spontaneous speech data using the corpus collected by students in LIN 4142/7910 (Urban Dialectology I) or elsewhere.
Prerequisite: LIN 2100 and 2110, or permission from the instructor. Highly recommended prerequisite: LIN 7910.

LIN 7913 Seminar: Language Change meets grammatical ideology
The study of language change has been confounded by a lack of appropriate real-time data reflecting an earlier stage of the language, coupled with a strong grammatical tradition invoking forms used rarely (if at all) in speech. The absence of reliable diachronic evidence on the spoken language, where most changes originate, is at least partly responsible for the widespread assumption that stigmatized features of contemporary vernaculars are recent innovations. In this course we pinpoint the existence, date and directionality of change by confronting specific claims in the literature with the data of unique corpora representing the spoken language of at least a century and a half ago. At the same time we will track prescriptive grammatical rules for use of selected features over the centuries, and compare those rules to actual usage of the time. Using variationist methodology, students will identify and analyze a morphosyntactic variable from the tense-mood-aspect systems of English or French. Appropriate corpora will be made available on request.
Prerequisite: LIN 5903 or permission from the instructor.

LIN 7942 Sociolinguistics II
Prerequisite: LIN 5903 or permission from the instructor.

Pidgin and Creole Linguistics
This course examines key issues in pidgin and creole linguistics, including the origins and development of pidgin/creole languages, criteria for classification of mixed languages, the bioprogram hypothesis, and universalist vs. substrate theories. We focus on characteristic grammatical features of creoles, with special emphasis on the tense/mood/aspect system. Making use of variationist methodology, we show how system membership may be reconstructed from surface variability and explore how this may contribute to a solution to assessing prior creole origin. We illustrate with a number of empirical studies of varieties of English that have been characterized as creole-like, including African Nova Scotian English.

Research in Sociolinguistics
This course augments students' skills in the theory and methodology of variationist sociolinguistics, and provides them with practice in distilling findings into appropriate format for presentation at scholarly meetings. Students will carry out a variationist analysis of a linguistic variable, using spontaneous speech data, submit a one-page abstract on the results, and prepare a 20-minute oral presentation, following standard conference procedure. A written version of the analysis will be submitted at the end of the course.

Language Variation and Linguistic Ideology
Does every linguistic form correspond to a unique semantic function? Prescriptive grammarians tend to assume they do, but examination of natural speech data reveals that isomorphy between form and function is often illusory. This course tracks the development of the form-function problem for a number of linguistic variables by examining the rules for their use in prescriptive grammars over the centuries, and comparing those rules to actual use of the forms in contemporaneous texts. Making use of the variationist method, students will carry out an analysis of a morphosyntactic variable selected from the tense-mood-aspect systems (e.g. subjunctive, conditional, future) of English or French.

[ Home | Page d'accueil ]