Multilingualism: Individual and societal perspectives on language contact (2026/2027: Semester 2 – Spring)

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Cursusdoel

After completing this course students are able to:
  1. Interpret multilingualism and language contact related phenomena in the appropriate social context.
  2. Explain advanced literature (both theory and case-studies) in the field of multilingualism and language contact.
  3. Deliver oral presentations and written work designing and justifying academic research on a topic within multilingualism and language contact.
  4. Understand, critique, and interpret data from a variety of suitable research methods and techniques.
  5. Read in a reflexive and critical manner.
Relationship between assessment and course goals

The assessment components in this course form a complementary set of tasks that foster the course goals. For the student-led sessions, students work in groups to teach a full class session on a predetermined topic, with guidance on lesson planning and effective long-format presentation skills (goals 1, 2, 4, 5). The small assignments in this course comprise stepping stones towards the papers and final poster presentation. Paper 1 is a qualitative analysis, requiring students to interpret, compare, and contrast language contact experiences from primary sources, and to situate these within the appropriate social and theoretical context (goals 1, 2, 4, 5). Paper 2 is a research proposal on a topic of students choice relating to multilingualism and language contact. Students choose an appropriate research methodology and justify the research question and methodology by situating these in the appropriate literature (goals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). For the presentation, students present their proposals in poster format in a small conference setting – imitating how academic work in progress in the field is presented at academic conferences (goals 2, 3).

Vakinhoudelijk

The course treats the linguistic processes in language contact situations and how these relate to both societal and individual aspects of multilingualism. The first part of the course introduces the concepts of sociolinguistics that are needed to address issues of multilingualism and language contact, while the last part of the course develops this interdisciplinary perspective further by treating as a case study the island of Aruba, where multiple languages are spoken by overlapping linguistic communities.

Societal structures and linguistic structures each play a role in the consequences of language contact. In some contact situations, a language undergoes a process of language shift, while in others, a language maintains its form and position in society. The processes of language shift and language maintenance are subject to societal and political factors, including the ways in which a government gives direction to linguistic developments via language planning measures, and these will be one focus in the first portion of the course. A second focus will be the individual and linguistic consequences of language contact. Examples of such consequences include the influence of languages in contact on each other lexically, phonologically and grammatically; language mixing, including code-switching (the use of more than one language in a conversational setting); the emergence of new languages and ‘foreigner talk’, the way in which native speakers of a language attempt to make themselves more understandable to less fluent speakers. Also relevant are the outcomes of second language acquisition and the consequences for education of language contact.




Werkvormen

UCU hum 3 course

Toetsing

Participation & professional attitude

Verplicht | Weging 10% | ECTS 0,75

Assignments

Verplicht | Weging 30% | ECTS 2,25

Opdracht(en) 1

Verplicht | Weging 10% | ECTS 0,75

Paper 1

Verplicht | Weging 20% | ECTS 1,5

Paper 2

Verplicht | Weging 25% | ECTS 1,88

Presentation

Verplicht | Weging 5% | ECTS 0,38

*midterm FEEDBACK*

Niet verplicht

Ingangseisen en voorkennis

Voertalen

  • Engels

Competenties

  • Interdisciplinariteit
  • Kritisch lezen
  • Onderzoeksvaardigheden

Cursusmomenten

Gerelateerde studies

Tentamens

Er is geen tentamenrooster beschikbaar voor deze cursus

Verplicht materiaal

  • BOEK
    Wardhaugh, Ronald, and Janet M Fuller. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. 7th edition, Wiley Blackwell, 2015. (available online as e-book via UU Library, https://utrechtuniversity.on.worldcat.org/oclc/905565563) Articles available via UU library

Aanbevolen materiaal

Er is geen informatie over de aanbevolen literatuur bekend

Coördinator

dr. J.C. Ballantyne J.C.Ballantyne@uu.nl

Docenten

dr. Y.Z. White Y.Z.White@uu.nl
dr. J.C. Ballantyne J.C.Ballantyne@uu.nl

Inschrijving

Let op: deze cursus is niet toegankelijk voor studenten van andere faculteiten, bijvakkers mogen zich dus niet inschrijven.

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