Note: This is a draft syllabus. Readings and content are subject to change. Syllabus: Sociolinguistics of Computer-Mediated Communication LING 79300/SPAN 80100 Fall 2020 City University of New York, Graduate Center Departments: Linguistics and LAILAC Tuesdays, 4:15-6:15 p.m. Classroom: Instructors: Matt Garley [email protected] ​ Office hours: Tuesday 2:00-3:00 and by appointment, room 7210 Cece Cutler [email protected] ​ Office hours: Tuesday 3:00-4:00 and by appointment, room 7208 Course Description: This course examines recent quantitative and qualitative sociolinguistic research on language use, attitudes, ideologies, and practices in computer-mediated communication (CMC) with a special focus on Spanish language data. It explores research on topics such as multilingualism, creative orthography, script choice, language play, stance-taking, expressions identity and other topics across various CMC platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, online fora, blogs, microblogs, YouTube, SMS/texting, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The course will provide students with the chance to collect a small corpus of data and analyze it using sociolinguistic methods and frameworks. Learning Objectives: Students in the course will... 1. Gain an appreciation of emerging trends in the sociolinguistic study of language in computer mediated communication. 2. Learn basic techniques for gathering a corpus of data from various online platforms (e.g. Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, etc.) 3. Identify relevant units of analysis in the corpus and gain familiarity with a range of pertinent frameworks for analyzing the data. 4. Identify implications of findings for the field of sociolinguistics and connect findings to larger social, economic, and political trends. Required texts: Course readings are listed in the course schedule and will be provided by the instructors. Course Technologies: ● CUNY Commons: The course website (including this syllabus) and blog posts will be available through CUNY Academic Commons. ● Blackboard: Blackboard will host a link to this syllabus and formal research assignments will be submitted to Blackboard. Grades and instructor feedback will also be available on Blackboard. ● Note: Google Drive/OneDrive may be used for assignment submission and feedback per instructor request. Blog / Discussion sign-up sheet: Link will be provided at the beginning of the course. Breakdown of grading (assignment descriptions below): ​ 10% Contribution to class discussions and in-class participation 10% Blog entry (500 words) 10% Discussion leader: Lead class discussion on the readings assigned for one week and prepare a handout of up to 3 pages. 10% Research proposal with literature review (ca. 3 pages) for your research paper (due Nov. 6). 10% Brief presentation of your research paper data (10 minutes) either on Dec. 6 or Dec. 12 50% Research paper (ca. 15+ pages) on some data you have gathered (Due Dec. 12) Brief description of assignments: Blog entry: Students will be responsible for writing a blog entry on the course’s CUNY Commons site of about 500 words. Students will select one of the weekly course topics on which they are not leading discussion, and comment on the readings for that week in a holistic way. Students are encouraged to bring in links and other content which address thematic, argumentative, and/or theoretical issues and themes in the articles assigned for a given week. Discussion leader and handout: Once per semester, students will be responsible for preparing a discussion handout (no more than 3 pages) and leading the course discussion of the articles and course topic for a particular week. Discussions should be about 45-50 minutes long (including class and instructor participation). The discussion should include a brief summary (~5 min) of each article, followed by a discussion focused around several provocative questions (at least one per article, and one overarching question addressing all of the week’s articles). The handout should relate 3-5 key points of each article, a brief (1-2 sentence) critical evaluation, and contain the discussion questions (at least one per article and at least one overarching question).For guidance on leading a good discussion see http://uvic470ecology.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/4/4/12445281/470_howtoleaddiscussi on.pdf. Depending on course enrollment, this may be done with a partner. ​ Research proposal with literature review (3-4 pages): This document should outline the topic and research question(s) of your proposed research project (~1 page), contain a literature review discussing at least four relevant sources (~1-2 pages), and outline your proposed methods for data collection and analysis with reference to the methods and theories we have discussed in the course. (~1 page). Research paper: The course will culminate in a research project analyzing computer-mediated communication data through a sociolinguistic lens. Topics will be proposed by the students and approved by the instructors. The research project will constitute a research paper of 12-15 pages and an accompanying presentation with slides. Students will be responsible for identifying research questions of interest, and investigating those questions through the sociolinguistic analysis of linguistic data. The research project should include an introduction, a review of relevant literature, an overview of methodology and/or theoretical orientation, an analysis, and a discussion/conclusions section. The research paper assignment grade includes the on-time submission of a topic and research question, submission of a draft for instructor (and possibly also peer) feedback, and submission of the final research paper. Students will present their research in the last two course meetings (including the final examination week meeting), using a visual presentation aid (e.g. Powerpoint or Google Slides presentation). Schedule (Readings pertaining to Spanish or Portuguese language and/or culture are ​ shaded for your reference): ​ DATE THEME ASSIGNED READINGS (subject to revision) 1-Sep Course introduction 7-Sep NO CLASS: Labor Day (observed) 13-Sep Development of the Baron, N. S. (1984). Computer mediated communication as a study of CMC: An force in language change. Visible Language 18.2, 118 ​ ​ overview Androutsopoulos, J. (2006). Introduction: Sociolinguistics and computer-mediated communication. Journal of ​ Sociolinguistics 10.4, 419-438. ​ Herring, S. C. (2018). The co-evolution of computer-mediated communication and computer-mediated discourse analysis. In P. Bou-Franch & P. Garcés-Conejos Blitvich (Eds.), Analysing digital discourse: New insights and ​ future directions, 25-67 ​ 19-Sep Methods for Deumert, A. (2015). Chapter 1: Media Sociolinguistics. analyzing language Sociolinguistics and Mobile Communication. ​ and communication Bolander, B., & Locher, M. A. (2014). Doing sociolinguistic online: Old research on computer-mediated data: A review of four frameworks or methodological issues. Discourse, Context & Media, 3, ​ ​ ​ ​ new? 14-26. Androutsopoulos, I. (2013). 14 Online Data Collection. In Mallinson et al. (eds.) Data collection in sociolinguistics: ​ ​ Methods and applications. 236-250. ​ 25-Sep NO CLASS: Classes follow a Monday schedule 1-Oct Doing ethnography Androutsopoulos, J. (2008). Potentials and limitations of online: discourse-centred online ethnography. Ethnographic Language@Internet 5 methods for CMC Lopez-Rocha, S. (2010). Nethnography in context: research Methodological and practical implications of virtual ethnography. International Journal of Interdisciplinary ​ Social Sciences 5.4, 291-301. ​ 7-Oct Digital Orality: How Androutsopoulos, J. (2013). Participatory culture and CMC approximates metalinguistic discourse: Performing and negotiating F2F communication German dialects on YouTube. Discourse, 2, 47-71. Cutler, Cecelia. "“Ets jast ma booooooooooooo”: Social meanings of Scottish accents on YouTube." English in Computer-Mediated Communication: Variation, Representation, and Change 93 (2016): 69. 13-Oct Orthography, CMC, Sebba, M. (2007). Chapter 2: Orthography as social practice. and enregisterment Spelling and Society, 26-57. ​ Sebba, M. (2007). Chapter 5: Between language and dialect: orthography in unstandardised and standardising vernaculars. Spelling and Society, 102-131. ​ ​ Squires, L. (2010). Enregistering internet language. Language ​ in Society 39.4, 457-492. ​ Ilbury, C. (2019). “Sassy Queens”: Stylistic orthographic variation in Twitter and the enregisterment of AAVE Journal of Sociolinguistics 24.2, 245-264. ​ 19-Oct Multimodality - Kress, G. (2013). Multimodal discourse analysis. In The ​ analyzing semiosis Routledge handbook of discourse analysis (pp. 61-76). ​ in digital spaces Routledge. Spitzmüller, J. (2015). Graphic variation and graphic ideologies: A metapragmatic approach. Social semiotics, 25(2), 126-141. Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Towards a semiotics of typography. Information design journal, 14(2), 139-155. 25-Oct Language attitudes, De Fina, A. (2016). Storytelling and audience reactions in language ideologies, social media. Language in Society 45, 473-498. ​ ​ and participation Lee, W. & Su, H. (2019). ‘You are in Taiwan, speak Chinese’: online Identity, language ideology, and sociolinguistic scales in online interaction. Discourse, Context, and Media 32 31-Oct Identity, Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2017). Unsettling race and language: raciolinguistics, Toward a raciolinguistic perspective. Language in Society, transracialization, 46(5), 621-647. and language Flanagan dissertation chapter 5 (TBA)