社會語音學

Sociophonetics is a field combining the methods of sociolinguistics and phonetics. Some socio- phoneticians apply sociological concepts to research on why and how certain linguistic features become popularised and eventually dominant; some sociophoneticians instead apply phonetic analysis to social issues, uncovering micro-social and psychological mechanisms through investi- gating linguistic behaviours. In this course, we will discuss both types of sociophonetic research. This course is for students who are interested in sociophonetics, students who aim to pursue a career in variationist sociolinguistics, and students who plan to add some social components to your phonetic study but haven’t had a chance to read sociolinguistic stuff. While we will also introduce basic sociolinguistic theories, this course puts its focus on sociophonetic methodologies and potential social factors that may empirically influence linguistic variation. Students who are interested in advanced sociolinguistic theories (such as enregisterment, language ideology, orders of indexicality, etc.) are encouraged to take “seminar on sociolinguistic theories” after completing this course. This course includes workshops where required knowledge of acoustic phonetics will be introduced and students will need to perform acoustic analysis on Praat. So, if you don’t have any idea what Praat is, you are suggested to download it and learn the basics of it before the first workshop. This course is taught in Mandarin, while readings are written in English.

This course requires basic knowledge of phonetics. Students can refer to Thomas (2017) for the phonetic knowledge that may be required for understanding sociophonetic research.

1. Questions for the required readings (12%) 2. Leading class discussion (20%) 3. Lab assignments (20%) 4. Research meeting (10%): You are required to meet the instructor at least once to discuss your final project 5. Final project (40%): Write a 4000-word essay on topics relevant to sociophonetics (with an introduction (500 words), research questions (500 words), methods (500 words), data analysis & findings (1500 words), and discussion (1000 words)), or you can also make a YouTube video or podcast.

Thomas, E. (2017). Sociophonetics: An introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing. [This textbook covers phonetic knowledge that is useful for understanding sociophonetic research. We will not cover it in the lecture, but you can always refer to it to review important phonetic concepts] Please refer to the course schedule for weekly readings.