SLS 660: Sociolinguistics and Second Languages
Fall 2006
Dr. Christina Higgins
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Schedule of readings

Paper 1
Student Papers

Paper 2
Course description
This course introduces basic concepts, findings, issues and research methods in sociolinguistics as they relate to second and foreign language issues. Two questions we will revisit throughout the course are, 1) What is the role of regional and social variation in the teaching, learning, and use of second and foreign languages? and 2) How does our understanding of the social meanings produced in language inform language teaching, learning, and use? To begin to answer these questions, we will engage in extensive reading and discussions, class presentations, and two papers. Course readings and lectures will examine topics that are relevant to learning/teaching, such as the role of language policy in teaching and learning of languages, the relationship between identity and language learning, the process of language socialization, the role of power and privilege in language teaching/learning/use, the nature of linguistic variation in first/second language varieties, and the politics of teaching English as an international language. Through our examination of these topics, we will problematize key concepts used in much SLA research, including target language , standard language , native speaker, motivation , and language proficiency , and we will examine how these ideas relate to more contemporary concepts such as linguistic and social identity , competent language user , investment , appropriation , localization , and legitimacy .

Required Text

1. Course Packet. Available at Professional Image, 2633 S. King St., 973-6599

Recommended Texts: Available at UH bookstore

note : I have ordered four different texts that you may choose to purchase, based on your personal research and teaching interests.

1. Hall, J. K. 2002. Teaching and researching language and culture . London: Longman/Pearson. ISBN: 0582423376

2. Kam, Ho Wah, and Ruth Wong (Eds.) 2004. English language teaching in East Asia today: Changing policies and practices (Paperback). Eastern University Press ISBN: 9812103368

3. Mesthrie, Rajend, Joan Swann, Ana Deumert and William L. Leap. 2000. Introducting sociolinguistics . Amsterdam: Benjamins ISBN: 1 55619 206 1

4. Ricento, Thomas (ed.) 2005. An introduction to language policy: Theory and method . Malden, MA: Blackwell. ISBN: 1405114983

Schedule of readings and assignments

Week 1 Aug 21 Introduction to the course
  Aug 23 Introduction to sociolinguistics
   

Mesthrie, R., Swann, J., Deumert, A., & Leap, W. 2000. Introducing sociolinguistics . Ch. 1: Clearing the ground: basic issues, concepts and approaches (pp. 1-43).   Philadelphia:Benjamins.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. 1997. Ch. 4, Language subordination model. In English with an accent .London: Routledge.


Week 2
Aug 28
Social dialectology and language attitudes

Mesthrie, R., Swann, J., Deumert, A., & Leap, W. 2000. Introducing sociolinguistics .Ch. 3: Social dialectology (pp. 76-113). Philadelphia: Benjamins.

 

Aug 30

 

 

Delpit, Lisa. 2003. No kinda sense. In L. Delpit & J. Dowdy (eds.) The skin that we speak: Thoughts on language and culture in the classroom (pp. 49-61). NY: The New Press.            

Do You Speak American? & American Tongues (excerpts) - videos in class

Discussion leaders: Roo, Jung Min, Min Koo


Week 3
Sept 4
Holiday
Sept 6

Ideology, dialectology, and pedagogy

 

Baker, Judith. 2003. Trilingualism. In L. Delpit & J. Dowdy (eds.) The skin that we speak:Thoughts on language and culture in the classroom (pp. 49-61). NY: The New Press.

Tollefson, James. 2002. Reconsidering 'target language.' Language Research Bulletin ,17: 143-153.

Tonouchi, Lee. 2002.   Excerpts from Living Pidgin . Kaneohe, HI: Tinfish Press.

Discussion leaders: Autumn, Samantha, Minkoo


Week 4
Sept 11
Language pedagogy and policy: Critical Discourse Analysis
    de Mejia, Anne-Marie. 2002. Ch. 12 in Power, prestige and bilingualism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
  Sept 13 Language planning and bilingual education
   

Dicker, Susan J. 2000.   Official English and bilingual education: The controversy overlanguage pluralism in U.S. society. In J. K. Hall & W. Eggington (eds.) The sociopoliticsof English language teaching . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Discussion leaders: Miyung, Autumn, Merica


Week 5
Sept 18
Bilingual education, heritage language education

Davis, Kathryn, Cho, Hye-Sun, Ishida, Midori, Soria, Julius, & Bazzi, Sarah. 2005.  "It's our Kuleana ": A critical participatory approach to language minority education. In Lucinda Pease-Alvarez and Sandra R. Schecter (eds.) Learning, Teaching, andCommunity (pp. 3-25). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.     

Sept 20 Language policy and pedagogy in Asia

Noguchi and S. Fotos (eds.) Studies in Japanese bilingualism (pp. 184-233). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Nunan, D. 2003. The impact of English as a global language on educational policies andpractices in the Asia-Pacific region. TESOL Quarterly , 37 589-613.

Discussion leaders: Megumi, Emiko, Pongo, Hyang Suk


Week 6
Sept 25
English as an international language

Shim, Rosa. 2002. Changing attitudes toward TEWOL in Korea. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 12, 143-158.

Sept 27

Critical issues in teaching EIL

Jenkins, Jennifer. 2006. Curent perspectives on teaching World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca. TESOL Quarterly 40, 157-181.

Pennycook, Alastair. 2001. In J. K. Hall & W. Eggington (eds.) The sociopolitics of English language teaching . (pp. 89-103). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.  

Discussion leaders: Yong Hwan, Yun Deok, Samantha, Jung Min


Week 7
Oct 2
student presentations: Nick, Betsy, Megumi

Cameron, Deborah. 2001. Collecting data: Practical and ethical considerations. Ch. 2. in Working with spoken discourse . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Oct 4 student presentations: Miyung, Yong Hwan, Min Koo

First Draft of Paper 1 due October 6 by email

Week 8
Oct 9
conferences on Paper 1
Oct 11

student presentations: Roo, Samantha
Sociocultural theory, ethnography and language socialization

Duff, Patricia. 2001. The discursive co-construction of knowledge, identity, and difference: An ethnography of communication in the high school mainstream. Applied Linguistics , 23,289-322.


Final Draft of Paper 1 due October 16 by email


Week 9
Oct 16
Language Socialization & Participation in (imagined) S/FL Communities

Morita, Naoko. 2004. Negotiating participation and identity in second language academic communities. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 573-603.
 

Oct 18

 

 Kinginger, Celeste. 2004.   Alice doesn't live here anymore: Foreign language learning and identity reconstruction. In A. Pavlenko & A. Blackledge (eds.) Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts (pp. 219-242). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
    Seargeant, Philip. 2005. 'More English than England itself': The simulation of authenticity in foreign language practice in Japan. International Journal of Applied Linguistics , 15, 326-345.

Discussion leaders: Yong Hwan, Yun Deok, Yi Jun

Week 10
Oct 23


Learner subjectivities: Narratives of second language users/learners

Ide, Kyoko. 2006. . "Being a woman and able to say your opinion too". Gender, audibility, and language learning of (a) Japanese female international student(s) in a U.S. university system. Unpublished Scholarly Paper, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Norton, Bonny. 2000. Ch. 5: Mothers, migration and language learning. In Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change . London: Longman/Pearson.

Oct 25

 

Pavlenko, Aneta. (in press). Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics.

Discussion leaders: Miyung, Pongo, Yi Jun


Week 11
Oct 30
Co-constructing cultural difference

Cameron, Deborah. 2001. Working with spoken discourse . Ch. 8: Small differences, big difference: Interactional sociolinguistics (pp. 106-121).   Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Tyler, Andrea. 1995. The co-construction of cross-cultural miscommunication: Conflicts in perception, negotiation, and enactment of participant role and status. Studies in Second Language Acquisition , 17, 129-152.

Nov 1

 

Zimmerman, Erica. in press. Constructing Korean and Japanese interculturality in talk: Ethnic membership categorization among users of Japanese. Pragmatics.


Week 12
Nov 6
Politeness
Kasper,Gabriele. 2005. [1997] Linguistic etiquette. In S. Kiesling & C. Bratt Paulston (eds.) Intercultural discourse and communication (pp. 58-76). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Nov 8

 

 

 

Cook, Haruko. 2001. Why can't learners of JFL distinguish polite from impolite speechstyles? In K. Rose & G. Kasper (eds.) Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 80-102).Cambridge.

Okamoto, Shigeko.   1998. The use and non-use of honorifics in sales talk in Kyoto and Osaka: Are they rude or friendly? Japanese/Korean Linguistics 7: 141-157. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information.

Discussion leaders: Nick, Emiko, Betsy


Week 13
Nov 13
Gender
   

Miyazaki, Ayumi. 2004. Japanese junior high school girls' and boys' first-person pronoun use and their social world. In S. Okamoto & J. Shibamoto Smith (eds.) Japanese language, gender and ideology: Cultural models and real people (pp. 256-274). Oxford.

Hruska, Barbara. 2004. Constructing gender in an English dominant Kindergarten: Implications for second language learners. TESOL Quarterly , 38, 459-484.

Nov 15

 

Cameron, Deborah. Language, gender, and sexuality: Current issues and new directions. Applied Linguistics , 26, 482-502.


Discussion leaders: Megumi, Betsy, Hyang Suk


Week 14
Nov 20
Ethnicity/nationality

Armour, William. 2001. This guy is Japanese stuck in a white man's body': A discussion of meaning making, identity slippage, and cross-cultural adaptation. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development , 22 1-18.

Ibrahim, Awad. 1999. Becoming Black: Rap and hip hop, race, gender, identity, and the politics of ESL learning. TESOL Quarterly , 33, 349-369.             

 

Nov 22

 

Kang, M. Agnes. 2004. Constructing ethnic identity through discourse: Self-categorization among Korean American camp counselors. Pragmatics , 14, 217-233.

Discussion leaders: Nick, Roo, Merica


Week 15
Nov 27
Student presentations
  Nov 29 Student presentations

First Draft of Paper 2 due December 1 by email

Week 16
Dec 4
Student presentations
Dec 6 Student presentations, evaluations

Final Draft of Paper 1 due December 8 by email