Language and Society

The course applies sociolinguistic approaches to media language. The relationships between language, society and (mass) communication are examined to illustrate how media discourses represent social phenomena (ideologies, practices, attitudes, personal and group identities etc) and in what ways they influence media writing. Topics included are: language and (traditional or new) media, language and the Internet, language and politics, language and ethnicity, language and youth, language and gender, language and class, language and identity. Moreover, special attention is given to Modern Greek diglossia (Katharevousa vs. Dhemotiki), since stylistic variation in the media over the last four decades -at least- can be partly interpreted in the light of the attitudes adopted by journalists and experts towards the ‘high’ and ‘low variety’, the standard (and official) language and the everyday language, which embodies many dialect elements.

Objectives

not available

Prerequisites

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Syllabus

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