Special topics and current issues in language variation and sociolinguistics.

Survey of issues and theories in second language acquisition and examination of current research in the acquisition of Spanish as a second language. Critiques of both theoretical and applied studies and collection and analysis of empirical data. Given in Spanish.

The techniques of recording and analyzing a foreign language by working directly with a native speaker.

Topics and issues in French linguistics. Possible offerings include Old French, French dialectology, French sociolinguistics, and French semantics and pragmatics. Given in French.

Special topics and current issues in historical linguistics. 

Human language from a computational point of view; algorithms and techniques for computer understanding of human-language input.

Intensive investigation of synchronic and diachronic variation in German. Taught in English.

This course provides an overview of the extra-linguistic factors that either promote the maintenance of a minority/heritage language, or effect the shift towards the majority or hegemonic regional or national variety. Specific emphasis is placed on the methods and data sources for conducting qualitative and quantitative sociolinguistic analysis.

From a theoretical perspective, the course focuses on Verticalization – a model based in community theory – and will use Josh Brown’s edited volume as a primary text. Primary data concerns contact varieties of Finnish, Norwegian, West Frisian, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Eastern Band Cherokee. Discussion will center around the model’s application in the American context, and applications of the model beyond an English-majority setting. Additional case studies examine Somali, Swedish, and Low German in North America; and on Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Hunsrück and Bernese Swiss German in South America, in majority Spanish and Portuguese contexts.

Additionally, papers students write for the course could be turned into an abstract submission at the beginning of the summer for WILA 15 (Workshop on Immigrant Languages), which will be hosted by UGA in Fall of 2024.

Intensive investigation of a subject or topic in German linguistics. Taught in English.

Phonology and grammar of the language, with extensive readings in the prose, epic, and lyric poetry of the Middle High German era.

Morphology, phonology, and history of the Gothic language based on extant texts. Emphasis on the development of earlier stages of the language and on its later language forms. Taught in English.