The University of Colorado is offering a fantastic opportunity for people interested in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and discourse analysis to be brought up to date with the latest developments and trends in 4 short weeks.

This is part of the Linguistic Institute 2011 in Boulder (see below), which offers a wide range of interdisciplinary courses in the study of language and social interaction. Courses cover a broad selection of topics including language, gender, sexuality, and race (Barrett; Bucholtz and Hall; Chun), sociolinguistic variation (Campbell-Kibler; Queen; Mendoza-Denton and Meyerhoff; Di Paolo and Yaeger-Dror), language contact and change (Toribio and Bullock; Baptista; Tagliamonte; Croft and Blythe), conversation analysis and interactional linguistics (Mandelbaum; Couper-Kuhlen, Fox, Hayashi, and Sorjonen; Cienki and Müller), and others.

For a complete list of classes, please visit https://verbs.colorado.edu/LSA2011/courses-areas.html.

This is also a great opportunity to explore related fields such as diachronics (Preston) and endangered language documentation and revitalization (Bradley, Bradley; (England, Mateo-Toledo).

These courses are open to anyone, and you can register as an affiliate if you do not need transfer credit. The courses meet twice a week, so it would be possible to take a full load of 4 courses by attending just two days a week.

There are also some very good workshops covering language and interaction, sociophonetic methodologies, and using ELAN transcription software that are open to Institute participants. A list of Institute workshops can be found here at https://verbs.colorado.edu/LSA2011/events-calendar.html#workshop

It’s an extraordinary networking opportunity, with small classes and lots of institute-wide events.


The Linguistic Institute 2011 will take place July 7-August 2 on the campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder, with major sponsorship by the Linguistic Society of America and the university. Courses are being taught by over 100 outstanding international visiting faculty members. In addition, more than 20 affiliated workshops and conference meetings will be held during Institute 2011.

The theme of the 2011 Linguistic Institute is Language in the World, and the focus is on interdisciplinary, empirically based approaches to language. In keeping with this theme, a large suite of courses target language documentation and description, as well as processes of language endangerment and appropriate responses. The Institute not only continues a vital tradition in the field but also showcases the outstanding research and teaching activities at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The 79 one-credit hour courses include many courses on sociolinguistics, field methods, typology, syntactic/semantic/pragmatic theory, cognitive science and computational linguistics.

Registration is open until July 5, so please consider taking advantage of this one-time opportunity. Enrollment costs for students are $375 per course (less than the normal CU summer school fee). The Institute website is located at http://verbs.colorado.edu/LSA2011/. CAMPUS HOUSING RESERVATIONS CAN BE MADE THROUGH JUNE 13, 2011.