Black Widget.jpg Buttercup Gizmo.jpg Glow in the Dark Widget.jpg Lime Doodad.jpg Course Description: What is the role of language in the transformation of ethnicity in the US? This course introduces students to the diversity of experiences with English (and native or immigrant languages) that has shaped individual and group identities and had a significant impact on the cultural, educational, and political fabric of the nation. We study the language histories of the principal ethnic and racialized groups in the U.S., with particular attention to intra-group differences and inter-group comparisons, to understand how particular languages, dialects, and ways of speaking are involved in the construction of privileged or stigmatized identities. In particular, we address the assumption that "the language problem" is at the root of many of our nation's ethnic tensions, and we discuss the repercussions of personal and institutionalized responses to the increasing linguistic and ethnic heterogeneity. Important themes include the implications of linguistic discrimination for the survival of minority languages and cultures, the educational success of children, equity in the workplace, and inter-racial/ethnic conflict. Study guide: Introduction to Linguistics: a. What language is? Arbitrariness of language. b. What linguistics does and what are its modules? c. Descriptive vs. prescriptive approaches to language grammar. d. Descriptive and prescriptive rules in language. e. Idea of language change. Introduction to Sociolinguistics: a. Languages and dialects, mutual intelligibility. b. Idiolects. c. Sociolinguistics studies language variation. d. Shibboleths. e. Examples of sociolinguistic variables: class, ethnicity, gender, region. f. Standardization of language -- its pros and cons. g. Idea of Mainstream US English (MUSE). h. Concept of accent: L1 vs. L2 accents, sound-house metaphor. History of English: a. How to use glosses and what they are: linguistic data. b. Three main periods in development of English: Old, Middle, Modern. c. The concept of a loanword/borrowing. d. Old English brought by Anglo-Saxons to British Isles in 5th century AD, brought a lot of Germanic words and is the beginning of English. e. Middle English began with Norman Invasion (French) in 1066 AD, and borrowed a lot from French. f. Concept of case: in Old English nouns used to change depending on their function in the sentences (Subject vs. Object), in the same way pronouns change in Modern English (I vs. me). In Modern English case only exists on pronouns, and completely lost on nouns. g. Change in verbs: in Old English verbs used to change depending on the subject (in Modern English there is only one change: -s is added if subject is he/she/it). h. Word order was flexible in Old English: "John killed the dragon", "John the dragon killed", "Killed John the dragon" were all grammatical. i. Modern English spelling often reflects Old English pronunciation: for example, kn and ...

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Buttercup Gizmo.jpg
Glow in the Dark Widget.jpg
Lime Doodad.jpg
Course Description: What is the role of language in the
transformation of ethnicity in the US? This course introduces
students to the diversity of experiences with English (and native
or immigrant languages) that has shaped individual and group
identities and had a significant impact on the cultural,
educational, and political fabric of the nation. We study the
language histories of the principal ethnic and racialized groups
in the U.S., with particular attention to intra-group differences
and inter-group comparisons, to understand how particular
languages, dialects, and ways of speaking are involved in the
construction of privileged or stigmatized identities. In
particular, we address the assumption that "the language
problem" is at the root of many of our nation's ethnic tensions,
and we discuss the repercussions of personal and
institutionalized responses to the increasing linguistic and
ethnic heterogeneity. Important themes include the implications
of linguistic discrimination for the survival of minority
languages and cultures, the educational success of children,
equity in the workplace, and inter-racial/ethnic conflict.
Study guide:
Introduction to Linguistics:
a. What language is? Arbitrariness of language.
b. What linguistics does and what are its modules?
c. Descriptive vs. prescriptive approaches to language grammar.
d. Descriptive and prescriptive rules in language.

2. e. Idea of language change.
Introduction to Sociolinguistics:
a. Languages and dialects, mutual intelligibility.
b. Idiolects.
c. Sociolinguistics studies language variation.
d. Shibboleths.
e. Examples of sociolinguistic variables: class, ethnicity,
gender, region.
f. Standardization of language -- its pros and cons.
g. Idea of Mainstream US English (MUSE).
h. Concept of accent: L1 vs. L2 accents, sound-house metaphor.
History of English:
a. How to use glosses and what they are: linguistic data.
b. Three main periods in development of English: Old, Middle,
Modern.
c. The concept of a loanword/borrowing.
d. Old English brought by Anglo-Saxons to British Isles in 5th
century AD, brought a lot of Germanic words and is the
beginning of English.
e. Middle English began with Norman Invasion (French) in 1066
AD, and borrowed a lot from French.
f. Concept of case: in Old English nouns used to change
depending on their function in the sentences (Subject vs.
Object), in the same way pronouns change in Modern English (I
vs. me). In Modern English case only exists on pronouns, and
completely lost on nouns.
g. Change in verbs: in Old English verbs used to change
depending on the subject (in Modern English there is only one
change: -s is added if subject is he/she/it).
h. Word order was flexible in Old English: "John killed the
dragon", "John the dragon killed", "Killed John the dragon"
were all grammatical.
i. Modern English spelling often reflects Old English
pronunciation: for example, kn and gh in "knight" were all fully

3. pronounced.
j. The concept of The Great Vowel Shift
k. British settlements in the Americas -- 4 waves of colonization
l. Approximate number of speakers of English in America at
different stages
m. Loanwords in the American English
IPA:
a. Problems with English spelling system.
b. Idea behind IPA -- why it is necessary for pronunciation
descriptions, main principles (one symbol <-> one sound).
c. English consonants and their IPA representations.
d. English vowels and distinctions
between monophthongs and dipthongs (no need to memorize all
distinctions between English vowel sounds).
American vs. British English:
a. Lexical differences - just a few examples
b. Phonology: Intervocalic /t/, postvocalic /r/, /a/ vs. /æ/
on half, past, etc.
c. Syntax: Collective noun agreement, questions and negative
sentences with have.
d. Spelling: The most notable patterns
Research on Dialects:
a. DARE, ANAE -- the purposes of these dictionaries, how are
they created
b. Sources of variation in AmE: settlers from different parts of
British Isles and different countries
c. Isoglosses, dialect boundaries
d. Major US regional dialects
e. Grammaticality vs. Social Acceptability (in Lectures 6-7,
after the discussion of Appalachian English)
US Regional Dialects:
a. New England: low~back merger (cot~caught), r-lessness, /a/-
fronting
b. North: ON line, AWY line, Northern cities shift (no need to

4. remember exact pattern, just the concept of cyclical vowel shift)
c. Midland: low~back merger (cot~caught), positive anymore,
need/want/like+Past Participle construction
d. South: pin~pen merger (only before nasals - n, m, and η),
southern drawl as triphthongization, /w/~/hw/
difference, monophthogization (first state of Southern Vowel
Shift) /aɪ/ -> /a:/, double modals, multiple negation, a-prefixing
(why we did survey about it? what did we show by its results?)
e. Outer Banks (NC, SC) and Coastal Maine: /aɪ/ -> /ɔɪ/
f. West: basic ideas of California Vowel Shift (no need to
remember the pattern, just remember a lot of fronting), hella as
a divider between South and North, mainly not a regional
distinction, but a group distinction:
hippies/professionals/entertainment/Hispanics/etc.
g. New York: /r/-lessness, intrusive /r/, short a-raising, /ɔ/-
raising (particular "nasalized" pronunciation
of coffee, thought, dog), absence of low-back merger, evolution
of NY dialect (younger people tend to use it less and less),
concept of linguistic insecurity
Social Varieties:
a. sociolects
b. external vs. internal factors
c. ethnicity, class
d. examples of syntactic and phonological variables
e. stigmatized and prestige variaties
f. social stratification, examples
g. Labov’s NYC department store study, results
African American English, Ebonics
a. what is AAE, speakers of AAE
b. the origins of AAE: dialectalist/creolist/unified views; idea
of pidgins and creoles
c. the slave trade
d. phonology: consonant clusters reduction and plurals (desk -
> des -> deses), interdentals(/θ,ð/➝/t,d/), monophthogization
e. syntax: habitual be, remote past bin, completive done, copula
drop (and: am doesn't drop), negative inversion, embedded

5. questions, usage of come (she come tellin’ me), absence of 3rd
person -s, usage of steady
f. social variation, some examples (copula absence, agreement)
- no need to remember numbers, just the idea!
g. ebonics controversy: reasons for the resolution, content of
the OSB resolution (year:1996), response to it, LSA response,
linguistic validity of the resolution, discussion
Multilingual communities:
a. language vitality, factors affecting vitality
b. bilingualism, its benefits
c. examples of multilingual communities (Pennsylvania Dutch,
etc.)
Creoles and Pidgins:
a. pidgins vs. creoles, superstrate (lexifier) and substrate
languages
b. origins of creoles
c. Gullah: place, origin (Sierra-Leone), basic structure (no
verbal conjugation, abundance of tense and aspect markers)
d. Louisiana: people moving from Maine to Louisiana,
difference between Cajun French and Louisiana Creole, copula
absence, no change in pronouns (no difference
between I and me forms), absence of verb conjugation, tense-
aspect markers — no need to remember French words, just the
concepts.
e. Hawai’i: difference between Hawai’ian and Hawai’ian Creole
English (HCE), history of Hawai’i and HCE, decreolization,
attitudes to HCE, reaction, discussion, HCE in the courtroom,
phonological features (th as [t,d], /r/-lessness), usage of stei for
locations,copula absence, fo used for purpose statements, tense-
aspect markers
f. Haitian Kreyol: based on French, official language of Haiti,
one of a few written creoles, orthography is not French, but its
own!
g. Jamaican Creole: based on English, all standard features of
Creoles are there.

6. h. General features of creoles: fewer case distinctions on
pronouns (me instead of I), lack of morphology(conjugations,
plurals.), Tense-Aspect-Mood markers, copula drop, limited
vocabulary
Native American (NA) Languages:
a. the largest tribes/languages
b. areas in US where Native American languages are currently
spoken
c. language loss: number of NA languages
d. boarding schools
e. factors causing language death
f. the Native American language act (1992), language
revitalization
g. basic grammar: varying phonologies; noun classification; a
lot of morphemes marking: different objects,
tense, evidentiality; polysynthesis; direction in NA languages
(north/south/east/west, etc. instead of left/right)
h. the idea of linguistic relativity
Spanish:
a. heritage languages - definition
b. demographics (states, areas, most dominant groups overall
and in NYC)
c. history of Spanish in the US/Southwest (major Spanish-
speaking areas, approximate timeline)
d. Hispanics and Lations
e. bilingual education, Proposition 227 and Proposition 58 in
California
f. most popular groups in NY and around the US, racialization
g. mock Spanish
h. five types of Latin American Spanish, two types of
peninsular Spanish
i. yeismo, seseo
j. Spanish-English contact: code-switching: inter-sentential,
intra-sentential, Spanglish (no need to memorize
words/constructions)

7. k. Chicano English: who speaks it, it’s not necessary to be a
speaker of Spanish to speak Chicano, basic features: z → s, v →
f at the ends of words, v → b, θ, ð → t, d, going/talking
pronounced as goween/talkeen, same pronunciation of feel and
fill, multiple negation
Asian Americans:
a. who are Asian Americans
b. basic statistics (no need to remember precise numbers):
which areas have more and which areas have less, top states,
socio-economic difference (marital status,education,
occupation, income -- enough to remember where Asian
American stand with respect to average Americans: higher
income, higher education, etc.)
c. survey of Asian Languages: most popular languages in the
US, states where the languages are spoken the most (see maps)
Chinese:
a. languages in China (Mandarin is the official language, many
others), Sino-Tibetan language family
b. Chinese in the US (immigration - three waves, current
situation in NY, languages spoken by immigrants, Chinese
exclusion act)
c. writing system - logographic
d. basic grammatical properties: tones, word order SVO,
isolating language (lack of morphology), complicated system of
classifiers, lack of articles
Korean and Japanese:
a. Altaic Language Family -- Korean, Japanese, Turkish
b. Korean: writing system (Hangeul, Sejong the Great), the idea
behind Hangeul (no need to know Hangeul!), Konglish and
code-switching, phonology (/r/ vs. /l/, no consonant clusters at
the beginning/end of words, lack of certain sounds which exist
in English, substitutions of sounds)
c. Japanese: orthography (Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana),
phonology (absence of consonant clusters, /r/~/l/), loanwords
and their phonology (no need to remember the exact rules - just

8. what can and cannot be a Japanese word).
d. Grammar of Japanese and Korean: SOV, no articles,
honorifics, postpositions.
ASL and Deaf Community:
a. Plains Indian Sign Language
b. invented vs. natural sign languages
c. Bioprogram -- importance of sign language - we can watch
how language appears and see if humans have innate capacity
for language.
d. American Sign Language: number of speakers, where it is
spoken, no relation to spoken English
e. history of ASL (roots in OFSL, middle of 19th century, 1960s
– recognition of ASL)
f. oralism vs. manualism vs. ASL (both oralism and manualism
are based on English language, not on ASL)
g. learning English is hard, lip reading is inaccurateh. grammar:
cheremes, features of cheremes (no need to remember any
movements/positions/handshapes/etc!), iconic (transparent and
translucent) vs. arbitrary signs, pronouns (pointing to a point in
the personal space), tense (usage of adverbs such as yesterday,
markers as finished, etc.), fingerspelling
i. manual and non-manual signs (those which are produced by
eyes, lips, etc.), importance of non-manual signs for meaning
(questions are formed by simultaneous eyebrow movement)
j. variation in ASL (dialects, ethnolects, registers)
k. cochlear implants controversy
Adolescent language:
a. adolescence (no precise definition)
b. jocks vs. burnouts: multiple negation use (burnouts > jocks),
burnouts use more vernacular features
c. like: filler, quotative, hedge, focus
d. slang: what is it, it's role

9. Homework1.Discussion: please write around200-300 words
discussion by using your own words.
Topic-Official language:
US does not have an official language. Do you think the US
government should change that, i.e. should English become the
official language of the USA? If you think it should, discuss
why. What consequences will that have? If you think US does
not need an official language, give your arguments. What would
you say to politicians advocating for making English an official
language? You may review the mission statement given by
ProEnglish proenglish.org. Do you agree with their guiding
principles? Does their agenda match their stated principles? Do
you support their call to President-Elect Trump to repeal
executive order 13166?
Homework2.Please write about 500 words essay about how the
course changed your views. There are course description and
study guide, use something from them when you write it.
write an essay on if and how this course changed your views.
The questions to touch on in your essay are listed below. If
there are some other issues you want to discuss, feel free to do
that in this assignment. Please write about 500 words.
Have your language attitudes towards any language variety
(language, dialect, etc.) changed during the course of taking this
class? If so, how? If not, which attitudes do you think you still
hold that you always did and what factors contribute to them?
Please take a critical look at your own language attitudes and
discuss whether you think knowing more about different
dialects or foreign accents changes how you feel about them, or
whether your language attitudes are just a reflection of your
social attitudes and thus aren't changed based on information
about the language varieties themselves.
Homework3.
Please write about 500-700 words
If you could make a movie on a language-related topic that
would be viewed by every single American, what topic would

10. you choose? Please explain what information you would try to
convey in the video, why you chose that topic over all others,
and what changes you hope it would make in society for
everyone to become more informed about that topic. Be creative
-- don't just state the topic, but let us know how you will
communicate it and what you will shoot. Notice, the movie
doesn't have to be documentary, it can also be a fiction.