Undergraduate - UnitATS3673 - History and sociolinguistics of English

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	Linguistics
Offered	Clayton First semester 2015 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Professor Kate Burridge

Synopsis

This unit will survey the history of English (origins, development, diversification, recent convergence, etc; including the origins and development of the key features which distinguish the main varieties of the language), and the relevant basic aspects of theoretical historical linguistics and philology. It will also deal with the main sociolinguistic facts and issues associated with the statuses and functions of the English language as it exists today and of the key varieties of English in the various societies in which they are used.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit students will be able to:

Describe the major structural changes in the history of English.
Identify the sociohistorical context for these changes.
Discuss the effects of language contact on English.
Analyse language data with respect to the evolution of sounds, vocabulary and grammar.
Explain the major processes of language standardization, focusing on the development of Standard English.
Illustrate the effects of globalization and e-communication on current-day English.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 70%
Exam: 30%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.