Urban Sociolinguistics (S Lange SoSe 2024)

If we agree that William Labov is the founding father of Sociolinguistics, then New York City is its cradle: the study of how specific linguistic features acquire social meaning and then come to be used to mark prestige within an urban speech community was pioneered in New York, but has been replicated and refined in many other contexts. Today, the communicative space in large cities is increasingly marked by multilingualism as a consequence of different aspects of globalization, giving rise to concerns beyond the original sociolinguistic focus – for example language(s) and identity, language policy and planning, sociolinguistics of globalization, or superdiversity, to name but a few. We will first (re-)acquaint ourselves with basic sociolinguistic notions by studying Labov’s original work in New York City. We will then move on to urban communicative spaces that have been in the linguistic limelight (but some more so than others) such as London, Singapore, and Dublin, but also to Berlin and others.

When: WED 3.DS

Where: HSZ 0E/01