Faculty of Translation and Interpreting Course syllabus Year 2015­2016 Cases' Study: Languages and Society (20652) Degree/studies: ​
Bachelor's Degree in Applied Languages Year: ​
first Term: ​
first Number of ECTS credits: ​
6 ECTS Student dedication time: ​
150 hours Course type: ​
Core Plenary session teacher: ​
Montserrat González Language of instruction: ​
Catalan 1. Course presentation This course's goal is learning to manage language studies in real communication and language community situations. We will work on theoretical subjects of the study of the relationship between language and society through practical situations of the speaker's language(s) use. The course is an introduction to the Languages in social environments specialisation profile of the graduate student in Applied Languages, more specifically to sociolinguistics. The course's program will be addressed from the wide approach of sociolinguistics in multilingual situations. We will deal with real cases of situations in which there is contact between different languages and linguistic variation with a mostly inductive methodology. Thus the students will become aware and will reflect on the course's contents by way of the observation of two study cases. The goal of this methodology is that the students achieve general skills on formulating questions, argumentation from real situations and data collection, analysis and interpretation. The connection between language and its use in the social context will be done through case resolution, following the "problem­based leaning" approach (ABP for its initials in Catalan). The student will learn to share, discuss and explain the acquired knowledge for the group resolution of the cases and will learn how to apply this knowledge into the problem resolution context. The course will be divided in two parts in which two cases will be presented and solved. The first part will be focused in the connection between language and social context and it will give a wide vision of what a sociolinguistic, pragmatic and ethnographic language approach means (presentation and discussion of Case I in the Seminars). The second part will deal with the connection between language and the language community. Specifically the social situations in which there is contact between languages and code switching (presentation and discussion of Case II in the Seminars). 2. Competencies to be attained: Competencies appropriate to this course, as planned in the framework program of all the cases' study courses: Specific and general competencies 1. Situation analysis and problem solving 1.1. Identifying and analysing the problem 1.2. Specifying the decision criteria 1.3. Proposing and evaluating alternatives 1.4. Drawing up, if necessary, a work plan and implementing it 2. Team work and individual work skills. 1 2.1. Individually selecting and organising relevant information. 2.2. Evaluating the resources available. 2.3. Negotiating the decision making processes. 2.4. Jointly elaborating an intervention plan. 3. Recognition and understanding of cultural diversity and multiculturalism. 3.1. Attaining basic linguistic sociology notions (bilingualism, diglossia, slang, creole, code switching, interference, linguistic exclusion, etc.) 3.2. Identifying and analysing linguistic actions that intervene in the integration of social groups and linguistic communities. 4. Acknowledging the role that languages have in building individual, social and cultural identities. 4.1. Identifying situations of minorisation, discrimination and exclusion for language reasons. 4.2. Analysing linguistic processes and mechanisms than intervene in the building of identities. 3. Contents FIRST PART Language and use Functional approximations to the study of language. Theories and methods of sociolinguistic analysis. Linguistic anthropology. Communication ethnography. Ethnomethodology. Conversational and variationist analysis. Pragmatics. ●
Case study (I)​
: Language community, standard language and varieties, standard language and social variation, prestige and language use. Data collection: sociolinguistic interview Difficulties (ABP): ​
They don't understand me! SECOND PART Connections between language, community and individual. Code switching: Bilingual and multilingual situations. Code switching in social situations of language contact: functional variation, diglossia. Loans and interferences. Elaborated code and restricted code. Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT)​
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Case study (II)​
: Code switching and interpersonal relations, linguistic minorisations. Conversational strategies and transmitter positioning. Data collection : sociolinguistic interview Difficulties (ABP) : ​
Why? When? How? 4. Organisation and Methodology: training activities 4.1. Organisation ●
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10 one hour and a half long Plenary Sessions (PS) with all the students and 9 one hour long Seminars (S) with small groups of students. Participation of two teachers throughout the term. Division of the course in two modules (5 weeks each) in which we will work in two cases. Plenary Sessions: ➢ Preparatory readings previous to each session (Aula Global). ➢ Teacher's presentation of the session's core subjects. Discussion of the readings. Illustration with real cases parallel to the ones mentioned in the Seminar. Seminars (group work): 2 ➢
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Presentation, discussion and closing of the cases following the steps of the problem­based learning methodology. Oral presentations (group) of the cases Written submission (individual) of parallel cases. 4.2. Methodology The course will follow the seven steps of problem­based learning (ABP for its initials in Catalan); 1) Terms and concepts explanation. 2) Definition of the problem. 3) Suggestion of explanations (brainstorming): hypothesis. 4) Structuring the explanations suggested. 5) Drawing up learning goals (work plan). 6) Research of learning resources (established in the work plan)​
[autonomous study] Ideas' pooling, group discussion, knowledge abstraction and evaluation of the knowledge acquired. 4.3. Student's role (Seminars) ●
Active involvement in the group with several tasks: moderating, coordinating, writing, editing, preparing events, etc. ●
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Research, selection and management of the information. Individual study. Cooperative learning: Jointly sharing and discussing the new acquired knowledge. Presentation of the acquired knowledge and application in the problem context. Drawing up a group work plan. 4.4. Student's activities (Seminars) Group tasks: ● 2 oral presentations (following and discussing the work done) Individual work: ●
2 written presentations (parallel cases) 5. Evaluation and reassessment Evaluation Reassessment Evaluation activity Percentage of the final mark Can it be reassessed? Reassessment type Oral presentation (group) Topic 1 15 % No Report (group) Topic 1 35 % Yes Written report on the same subject Oral presentation (group) Topic 2 15 % No Written report ​
(individual)​
Topic 2 35 % Yes Written report on the same subject 5.1. Mandatory requirements to pass the course: This course's methodology requires continuous assessment, attendance and participation. In order to pass the course, the students must: ●
Attend both (all the plenary sessions and all the seminars; the teacher will montior the student's attendance) 3 ●
Carry out all the student's activities (4.4.) 6. Basic course bibliography PART I ­ Case study (i) Boix, Emili. 1998. ​
Sociolingüística de la llengua catalana. ​
Barcelona: Ariel. Dijk, Teun. A. Van. 2000. ​
Estudios sobre el discurso. Vol. I ​
i ​
II​
. Barcelona: Gedisa. García Marcos, F.J. 1999. ​
Fundamentos críticos de sociolingüística. ​
Almeria: la Universidad. Montoya, Brauli. 2006. ​
Normalització i estandardització​
. Alzira: Bromera. Payrató, Lluís. 1988. ​
Català col·loquial​
. València : Universitat de València. Pradilla, Miquel Àngel. 2004. ​
Caleidoscopi Lingüístic​
. Cardona: Edicions Octaedro, S.L. Pueyo, Miquel i Turull, Albert. 2003. ​
Diversitat i política linguística en un món global​
. Barcelona: Pòrtic­UOC. Romaine, Suzanne. 1996. ​
El lenguaje en la sociedad: una introducción a la sociolingüística​
. Barcelona: Ariel. Ruíz, Francesc. 2001. ​
Diccionari de Sociolingüística. ​
Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana Silva­Corvalán, Carmen. 2001. ​
Sociolingüística y pragmática del español​
. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Trudgill, Peter. (ed.2007). ​
Diccionario de Sociolingüística. ​
Madrid: Gredos PART II – Case study (ii) Auer, Peter. 1998. ​
Code­switching in conversation: language, interaction and identity​
. London: Routledge. Gumperz, John. 1982. Conversational code switching, in ​
Discourse Strategies​
, by J. Gumperz. Pp. 59­99. New York: Cambridge University Press. Heller, Monica (ed.) 1988. ​
Codeswitching. Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Berlin/New York/Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter. Milroy, Lesley and Muysken, Pieter (editors). 1995. ​
One speaker, two languages: cross disciplinary perspectives on code­switching​
. Cambridge/New York : Cambridge University Press. Moyer, Melissa G. 1993. ​
Analysis of code­switching in Gibraltar​
. Bellaterra: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Ed. Microfotogràfica Vila i Moreno, Francesc Xavier. 1993. ​
Transmissió dels idiomes en les parelles lingüísticament mixtes. ​
Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de Cultura. Vinagre Laranjeira, Margarita. 2005. ​
El Cambio de código en la conversación bilingüe: la alternancia de lenguas​
. Madrid: Arco Libros. 4