If you are a student of English Philology at the University of Helsinki and find DYLAPS topics interesting, you might join one of the courses taught by DYLAPS members during the academic year 2012-2013.

Minna Nevala
Sociolinguistics (ENG241), Autumn 2012

This course will introduce the basic principles of sociolinguistics and language variation, including issues such as how different varieties and features of language spread, change or disappear; how norms, attitudes and standards arise; and how they affect language behaviour and society. We will also be taking a look at the historical development of research on language variation, e.g. traditional dialectology and early sociolinguistic research (Labov, Trudgill, etc.), and learn about the relationship between language variation and social (e.g. social class, age, sex, geography), contextual (style, audience, topic, register) and linguistic (phonological, morphological, syntactic and discourse) factors.

Minna Palander-Collin
Language Attitudes (ENG241),  Autumn 2012

“Standard English is the best”; “Children can’t speak or write properly any more”; “Brummie accent makes you sound stupid”. What is the basis of such attitudes to languages, features of a language, accents, and so on? Why do people tend to love some and hate others? Is it because their inherent qualities are somehow better or is it due to their social connotations? In this course we’ll explore attitudes to language from the perspective of Englishes, focusing on themes like standard language ideology, good and bad English, language laws and policies, language myths, and language attitudes in professional contexts (e.g. education, law). You will learn to recognize and make sense of language attitudes and their impact on the level of individuals and as a broader societal issue of power and dominance.

Minna Palander-Collin
Seminar in Sociolinguistics (ENG320), Spring + Autumn 2013
See WebOodi for details

Minna Palander-Collin
Methods in Linguistics (ENG310a), Autumn 2012

This course will provide theoretical and methodological tools needed in writing a master’s thesis on a linguistic topic. The course will be oriented towards sociolinguistic and pragmatic research tasks. The topics include more general issues dealing with the research process, writing a scholarly paper and research ethics as well as specifics of data gathering and analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis (and combining them) will be dealt with. The aim of the course is to formulate a research question for your master’s thesis and to set up a research frame for answering this question.

Minna Nevala
Media Discourse (ENG331), Spring 2013

This course will focus on the language and discourse of written media such as newspapers and magazines, as well as such audio and visual media as advertisements, documentary and dramatised television programs, music videos, film, and the internet. Focusing on popular media, particularly in advertising, information, and entertainment, the course aims at the understanding of the nature of rhetoric in its varied roles in popular discourse; the comprehension of various media and their interaction with their audiences; and the close examination of specific language features in written, audio, and visual media.

Minna Nevala & Anni Sairio
Public Identities (ENG331), Spring 2013

In this course we will be dealing with issues concerning how and why (group) identities are built and how they are reflected in written and spoken language use and its innovations. We will concentrate on the diachronic aspects of expressing identification and constructing identities in a public sphere, for example, in wider social groups such as different social classes and ethnic groups, as well as in more specific areas such as literary communities and online communities of practice. We will examine traditional sociolinguistic research and its recent developments, particularly the ‘third wave’ of sociolinguistics and queer linguistics.

Sorry, the courses will admit English Philology majors and minors only.
See WebOodi for course details. Registration in WebOodi.