LN270      One Unit
Society and Language: Linguistics for Social Scientists

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

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The course will introduce students to key linguistic and sociolinguistic concepts (semantic and pragmatic meaning, discourse, register, genre, dialect, idiolect, sociolect) employed in the analysis of language use as a social process. Students will explore the reciprocal relationship between language and specific social contexts, identities and structures (class, gender, ethnicity), and study the role that language plays in the creation, maintenance and change of social relations and institutions. The use of language for academic purposes will be explored, as will be language use in digital contexts, including computer-mediated communication, social media discourse, and the sociolinguistic implications of emergent AI technologies. Special attention will be given to Large Language Models and their impact on language variation, linguistic authority, and the evolution of communicative norms across different speech communities.

Topics in the second term include situations of language contact, multilingualism and the role of translation in intercultural and international communication. Important themes are changing language attitudes, the prestige afforded to particular languages and language varieties as well as language policy and planning. The implications and consequences of the emergence of English as the dominant global lingua franca will be considered.

10 hours of seminars and 10 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.
10 hours of seminars and 10 hours of classes in the Winter Term.
1 hours of seminars and 1 hours of classes in the Spring Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

Seminar presentations will introduce key themes, debates and theories. Classes will focus on structured discussion of readings and material presented during the seminar. They will include student presentations in the WT. There will be revision workshops in week 11 of the WT and week 1 of the ST.

Formative assessement consists of a research proposal, literature summaries and essays. 

A full guided reading listed is available on the Moodle course website and via LSE reading lists.

Edwards, John (2013). Sociolinguistics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Mesthrie, Rajend (ed) (2011). The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics, Cambridge University Press.

Mooney, Annabelle  ;Betsy Evans (2023). Language, Society and Power. An Introduction, 6th ed. Routledge.

Ottenheimer, H. J., & J. M. Pine (2018). The Anthropology Of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, 4th ed. Cengage.

Wodak, Ruth et al (2011). The SAGE Handbook of Sociolinguistics, London: SAGE.

Yule, George (2022). The Study of Language, 8th ed. Cambridge University Press.

Oral examination (40%)

Research project (60%)

The research project includes an oral presentation of the project (10%, 500 words) in the Winter Term and a project essay (50%, 4000 words) submitted during the Spring break. The oral exam will be conducted during the Spring Term.