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 (*note that many articles are posted to the UH portal site if available electronically)
Recommended Texts: Available at UH bookstore. These are texts that you may choose to purchase, based on your personal research and teaching interests.
1. Mesthrie, Rajend, Joan Swann, Ana Deumert and William L. Leap. 2000. Introducting sociolinguistics . Amsterdam: Benjamins ISBN: 155619206 1
2. Block, David. 2003. The social turn in SLA. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
| Week 1 | Aug 26, 28 | to be rescheduled (TBA) |
| Week 2 | Sept 2 | Introduction to sociolinguistics |
| @McKay, S. & Rubdy, R. forthcoming. The social and sociolinguistic contexts of language learning and teaching. In M. H. Long and C. J. Doughty (eds.) Handbook of second languaeg teaching. New York: Blackwell. |
| Sept 4 | Dialectology and pedagogy in L1 contexts | |
| 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 |
| Language variation and pedagogy in L2 contexts | ||
| Week 3 | Sept 9 | @Tollefson, James. 2002. Reconsidering 'target language.' Language Research Bulletin , 17, 143-153. @Ohara, Y. (forthcoming). Identity theft or revealing one's true self? : The media and construction of identity in Japanese as a foreign language. In C. Higgins (ed.) Negotiating the self in a second language: Identity formation in a globalizing world. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. |
| Sept 11 | English variation and TESOL | |
Kirkpatrick, A. 2006. Which model of English: Native-speaker, nativized or lingua franca? In R. Rubdy & M. Saraceni (eds.) English in the world: Global rules, global roles (pp. 71-83). London: Continuum. |
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Discussion Leaders: Jae-rim, Kate, Chie |
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| Week 4 | Sept 16 | Problems and transformative practices in S/HL education DQ: Dae-hoi |
| 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 sociopolitics of English language teaching . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 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, and Community (pp. 3-25). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. |
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| Sept 18 | Kanno, Y. 2004. Sending mixed messages: Language minority education at a Japanese public elementary school. In A. Pavlenko & A. Blackledge (eds.) Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts (pp. 316-338). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. | |
| Discussion Leaders: Ritsuko, Shakeel, Naho | ||
| Week 5 | Sept 23 | Language pedagogy and policy: Critical Discourse Analysis DQ: Reggie |
| de Mejia, A. 2002. Critical discourse analysis. In Power, prestige and bilingualism (pp. 346-362). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. | ||
| Sept 25 | CDA of language policy and pedagogy in East Asia | |
| Yoo, O. 2005. Discourses of English as an official language in a monolingual society: The case of South Korea. Second Language Studies 23, 1-32 (shortened version; full version available at http://www.hawaii.edu/sls/uhwpesl/on-line_cat.html Sungwon, Y. 2007. Globalization and language policy in South Korea. In A. Tsui & J. Tollefson (eds.) Language policy, culture and identity in Asian contexts (pp. 37-54). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. |
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| Discussion Leaders: Nate, Sun-ah, Dae-hoi, Moon-young | ||
| Week 6 | Sept 30 | Sociocultural approaches to L2 teaching, learning and use DQ: Nate |
Block, D. 2007. Identity in the social sciences today. Ch. 2 in Second language identities . London: Continuum. |
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| Oct 2 | Acquisition and use of social languages in L2 contexts | |
| @Talmy, S. (forthcoming). in A. Reyes & A. Lo (Eds.), Beyond Yellow English: Toward a inguistic anthropology of Asian Pacific America . New York: Oxford University Press. @Morita, Naoko. 2004. Negotiating participation and identity in second language academic communities. TESOL Quarterly , 38, 573-603. |
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| Discussion Leaders: Reggie, Helen, Wing | ||
| Week 7 | Oct 7 | Student Presentations on Paper #1 |
| 1. 2. 3. | ||
| Oct 9 | Student Presentations | |
| 4. 5. 6. |
| Week 8 | Oct 14 | Student Presentations 7. 8. |
| Transformations of the self and L2 identities DQ: Chie | ||
| Pavlenko, A., & Lantolf, J. 2000. Second language learning as participation in the (re)construction of selves. In J. Lantolf (ed.) Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 155-177). Oxford: OUP. | ||
| Oct 16 | DQ: 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. @ Lam, E., 2000. Second language literacy and the design of the self: A case study of a teenager writing on the internet. TESOL Quarterly, 34 (3) : 457-483. |
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Discussion Leaders: |
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Final draft of paper due October 17 by email
| Week 9 | Oct 21 | Narrative inquiry and L2 identities DQ: |
| @Pavlenko, A. 2007. Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics 28, 289-322. | ||
| Oct 23 | Narrative analysis DQ: | |
@Higgins, C. (forthcoming). Western women's resistance to identity slippage in Tanzania. In C. Higgins (ed.) Negotiating the self in a second language: Identity formation in a globalizing world. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. @Solé, R. 2007. Language learners' sociocultural positions in the L2: A narrative approach. Language and Intercultural Communication 7, 203-216. |
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| Discussion Leaders: | ||
| Week 10 | Oct 28 | Gender and L2 learning, teaching, and use DQ: Jae-rim |
@Hruska, Barbara. 2004. Constructing gender in an English dominant Kindergarten: Implications for second language learners. TESOL Quarterly , 38, 459-484. |
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| Oct 30 | @Simon-Maeda, A. 2004. The complex construction of professional identities: Female EFL educators in Japan speak out. TESOL Quarterly 38, 405-436. |
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| Discussion Leaders: | ||
| Week 11 | Nov 4 | Holiday: Election Day |
| Nov 6 | Race/ethnicity and L2 learning, teaching and use DQ: Ritsuko | |
McKay, S., & Wong, S. 1996. Multiple discourses, multiple identities: Investment and agency in second-language learning among Chinese adolescent immigrant students. Harvard Educational Review 66, 577-608. |
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| Week 12 | Nov 11 | Holiday: Veteran's Day |
| make-up class (TBA) | Cultural differences and intercultural pedagogy DQ: | |
| @Kubota, R. 2004. The politics of cultural difference in second language education. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 1, 21-39. Byram, M. 2008. The intercultural speaker: Acting interculturally or being bicultural. Ch. 4 (pp. 57-73) in From foreign language education to education for intercultural citizenship: Essays and reflections . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. @O'Dowd, R. 2003. Understanding the "other side": Intercultural learning in a Spanish-English e-mail exchange. Language Learning & Technology 7, 118-144. |
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| Nov 13 | Co-constructing cultural difference: Interactional sociolinguistics |
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McKay, S. & Bokhorst-Heng, W. 2008. Interactional sociolinguistics. Ch. 6 in International English in its sociolinguistic contexts . New York: Routledge. |
| Discussion Leaders: |
| Week 13 | Nov 18 | Interactional Sociolinguistics: Constructing cultural difference DQ: |
House, J. 2003. Misunderstanding in intercultural university encounters. In J. House et al., (eds.) Misunderstanding in social life. Discourse approaches to problematic talk (pp. 22-56). London: Longman (Pearson). @Axelson, E. 2007. Vocatives: a double-edged strategy in intercultural discourse among graduate students. Pragmatics 17, 95-122 . |
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| Nov 20 | DQ: Naho @Mori, J. 2003. Construction of interculturality: A study of initial encounters between Japanese and American students. Research on Language and Social Interaction 36, 143-184. |
| Week 14 | Nov 25 | In-class practice with microanalysis - a very important day! |
| Nov 27 | Holiday-Thanksgiving | |
| Week 15 | Dec 2 | Culture, politeness and language DQ: |
| Cook, Haruko. 2001. Why can't learners of JFL distinguish polite form impolite speechstyles? In K. Rose & G. Kasper (eds.) Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 80-102).Cambridge. @Liddicoat Anthony J. 2006. Learning the culture of interpersonal relationships: Students' understandings of personal address forms in French. Intercultural Pragmatics , 3, 55-80. | ||
| Student Presentations: 1. | ||
| Dec 4 | The sociopolitics of TEIL DQ: | |
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McKay, S. & Bokhorst-Heng, W. 2008. The sociopolitics of teaching EIL. Ch. 7 in International English in its sociolinguistic contexts . New York: Routledge. |
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| Student Presentations: 2. 3. | ||
| Week 16 | Dec 9 | Student presentations |
| 4. 5. 6. | ||
| Dec 11 | Student Presentations | |
| 7. 8. |
Final draft of Paper 2 due by email by December 12