Course Description
Language production varies, as it surely does, no matter how one’s theoretical background models that variation, it is just as surely the case that language regard (i.e., folk linguistics, perceptual dialectology, language attitudes and ideologies) also vary. This course will first briefly review proposals that detail the cognitive foundations of variation in production and then move on to the consideration of variation in language regard, beginning with social psychological proposals accounting for variation in language attitude responses and then looking at models for such variation in language regard in general–e.g., Eckert’s “indexical field” ( 2008) based on Silverstein’s “indexical order”(2003); Niedzielski’s and my “folk linguistic triangle” (2000) and my “attitudinal cognitorium” (2010). Discussion will focus on the details of such models and more recent ones, and participants will be asked to design some or part of a similar model of their own, taking into consideration their own interests and expertise
Area Tags: Sociolinguistics, Variation, Perception, Cognitive Science
(Sessions 1 & 2) Tuesday/Friday 10:30am – 11:50pm
Location: ILC S413
Instructor: Dennis Preston
Dennis R. Preston is Adjunct Professor at the University of Kentucky and emeritus Regents Professor, Oklahoma State and University Distinguished Professor, Michigan State. He directed the 2003 LSA Institute and was President of the American Dialect Society (2001-02). His is a sociolinguist/dialectologist, a fellow of the LSA & ADS, and holds the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Poland. Recent Book-length publications include, with Jennifer Cramer (eds), 2018, Changing perceptions of Southernness” American Speech 93:3&4, Fall-Winter 2018; with Alexei Prikhodkine (eds), 2015,Language attitudes, John Benjamins. He established, with Nancy Niedzielski, the area of Folk Linguistics (Mouton de Gruyter 2000) and revived Perceptual Dialectology (1989 Foris).
