This course provides students from diverse majors with a general overview of the connections between language and society in Korea and investigates how the language has reflected the dynamics of Korean society throughout its history. In particular, we examine language use in broad social, cultural and historical contexts and discuss how the language interacts with recognized social variables, including age, class, educational background, gender, socio-economic status, and occupational/familial roles. We also compare and contrast the range of sociolinguistic practices in Korea with other linguistic communities, such as Canada, Japan, US, etc. The course combines lectures with group discussions on assigned readings from the textbook and supplemental materials provided electronically, along with various genres of resources, such as TV/newspaper commercials, serialized television programming (“drama”) clips, movies, songs and so forth.
