128141 FS FS Research Seminar I (2016W)

English is all around us, even in Austria where it has traditionally been regarded as a foreign language. In combination with German and possibly other languages, we use it for work, for leisure activities and, of course, also for studying. In other words, English has entered the Austrian ‘sociolinguistic arena’, but in which ways and to what degree? Who uses English for what purposes and how regularly? How do they see and evaluate their own use of English? It is questions like these that we will approach in this research seminar. By adapting sociolinguistic research designs developed and tried out in different, but comparable settings, students will undertake sociolinguistic studies in various contexts, dealing with issues such as attitudes to the use of English and other languages, self-evaluations of English language proficiency levels, or ‘code-meshing’ in texts, drawing on English, German and potentially other languages.

Participants will learn about relevant research areas (e.g. folk linguistics, Extramural English, code-switching) and empirical research methods (e.g. opinion surveys, proficiency measurement (esp. vocabulary testing), computer-mediated multimodal discourse analysis). By undertaking empirical studies in small groups, they will gain informed insights into a specific sociolinguistic research question concerning English in Austria.

This research seminar course combines mini-lectures, on- & offline assignments, reading-based group work and discussions, and group research work leading to a project report and a presentation.