An Introduction to Sociophonetics

Instructor(s): Marianna Di Paolo and Malcah Yaeger-Dror

Description:
Sociophonetics is an interdisciplinary area of linguistics, which brings to bear a state of the art analysis of phonetic and phonological variation to the language of casual conversation. Dating from about 1972 with the publication of Labov, Yaeger and Steiner's A Quantitative Study of Sound Change in Progress, sociophonetics is one of the most popular areas of sociolinguistics in North America today. The LSA, ADS, ICPhS, and LabPhon meetings regularly have sessions focussed on sociophonetic questions concerning language variation and on-going change, speech style and accommodative issues. The number of researchers interested in engaging in sociophonetics continues to grow in spite of the increasingly wide range of knowledge necessary to work in this framework. This course will introduce graduate students to the data gathering methods and analytical techniques necessary to work in this research area. The text for the course will be Sociophonetics: A student's guide (Di Paolo and Yaeger-Dror, eds.).

Prerequisites:
The students must have had two courses at the graduate level: an introduction to sociolinguistics and at least one phonetics course.

Textbook (Available at CU Bookstore):
Title: Sociophonetics: a student's guide
ISBN: 978-0-415-49879-1
Author/Editor: Di Paolo, Marianna and Malcah Yaeger-Dror
Edition: 2011
Publisher: Routlege