Ling 590
Seminar
Social
Meaning
Fall 2016, Wed 5:30-8pm
Dr. Chris Koops ([email protected]) With the Third wave of research in quantitative sociolinguistics (Eckert 2005)1 the question of the social meaning of linguistic variation—often referred to as indexicality—has re-­‐emerged as a central concern. However, as sociolinguistic variables come to be construed as semiotic devices in their own right, rather than primarily as the exponents and by-­‐product of socially distributed change-­‐in-­‐progress, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the concept of social meaning itself remains under-­‐theorized. Here, the meaning-­‐centered perspective of the functional-­‐
cognitive paradigm in linguistics holds potentially useful analytic tools. In fact, connections between the two research traditions are growing ever more obvious, e.g. in the idea of social meanings as structured through indexical fields, extended though orders of indexicality and potentially constructed though iconicity. This seminar will explore these emerging connections through a survey and critique of approaches to social meaning, from classic work in language ideology and cognitive semantics to recent experimental work in sociolinguistics and sociophonetics. 1 http://web.stanford.edu/~eckert/PDF/ThreeWavesofVariation.pdf