Language and Society

The first year curriculum for all students in the European Languages and Cultures program includes two courses in Linguistics (Language & Society A, and Language & Society B). Part A introduces students to basic concepts about language structure and change, providing insights into the languages being learned in the program, while Part B focuses on how language is part of our social identities and societies, how it is learned and processed.

If you choose Language & Society as your profile, you will follow a series of five courses which will introduce you to many sub-fields of linguistics. The courses in this profile are:

Profile course 1 - Plurilingualism and multilingualism: This course offers an introduction to topics in linguistics particularly relevant to multilingual speakers and communities. Topics such as minority language politics, code switching, ethnolinguistic vitality, communication between speakers of European languages and language attitudes are covered in detail. You also learn about different approaches to language planning and discuss questions regarding language policies particularly aimed at multilingual communities. 

Profile course 2 - Structure and Variation: This course introduces you to the basics of language structure. How do (European) languages work? What do they have in common and where do they differ? We discuss their sound systems, their morphology (i.e. how words are formed from smaller units) and their syntax (how sentences are formed from words). By the end of this course you will understand why English speakers pronounce key, ski, car, and scar all with different "k" sounds, or how Dutch speakers can form ridiculously long words like kindercarnavalsoptochtvoorbereidingswerkzaamhedencomitéleden.

Profile course 3 - Language Learning: We are all language learners! Be it as children when we learn our first language(s) or when we learn another language after that. But how does that work? What are the mechanisms behind this process, and how does our learning differ from that of other species? Also, we will discuss how this relates to what your language teachers do in class, and you will learn what makes language learners more successful.

Profile course 4 - Research Methods: You will get introduced to the differences and similarities of qualitative and quantitative research and everything in between, learn to formulate better research questions and hypotheses, and get an introduction to corpus linguistics and questionnaire design, allowing you to answer questions such as: how are men and women talked about in current American TV shows? How do you measure someone’s attitudes reliably? And, finally, how do we evaluate quantitative results using basic statistics? 

Profile course 5 - Language in the Mind: This course will introduce you to the world of psycholinguistics. Psycholinguistic research is concerned with the question of how our minds process language. We will discuss recent theories of how Language is organized in the brain and familiarize ourselves with some of the methods that are frequently used to explore language in the mind.

For all profile courses, the lectures are held in English and you have a choice to attend the small seminar group in English or Dutch.

There is also elective space in the program, and if you choose to fill this with the Language & Society Profile Plus courses, these include:

Language in History: How, and why, do languages change?  For instance, what can we learn about language and society from studying the introduction of gender neutral language in a cross-linguistic perspective? This course will examine language change on all levels of language structure, with a focus on how societal power structures and multilingualism, in addition to linguistic processes, influence language variation and change.

Language and Power: Are dialects really bad for languages? Do women really talk more than men? Do young people really deteriorate language?  Are there really grammar nazis and snowflakes? Why do we use those terms? What do they reflect about our society? This course addresses and debunks a series of widely accepted stereotypes about minority groups and explores the discourse found in the media that shapes our ideologies and reflects power relations.

In the Language & Society Profile Plus, you also have a choice from over a dozen other linguistics and communication courses taught in other programs, which are taught in either Dutch or English.

If you do not choose the Profile Plus, you have the following options to fill these 20 ECTS of elective space:  a second profile, a second language (only for Language and Society profile students), or the Language Learning & Teaching Elective. 

As a student in the ELC program, you will also take courses within the profile in your major language in the second semester of your second and third years. These courses look at topics in linguistics specific to the language, looking at local dialects and global varieties of languages, including their histories and their contemporary developments.

At the end of the program, students also write a Bachelor Thesis on the topic of their choice; some examples from past topics include:

• “Gendered and Genderless Languages: Differences in Identity Formation in Bilingual Non-Binary Individuals”

• “Language Attitudes Towards and Use of Frisian by Native Frisian Youth”

• “Un análisis comparativo de los procesos de revitalización lingüística del euskera y del catalán”

• Samiskans vitalitet: attityder, medier, och internet

• Könsneutrala pronomina i Sverige och Nederländerna: användning och attityder

• De hijo de puta a klootzak. Un estudio comparativo sobre las connotaciones culturales de las palabrotas en español y neerlandés

• Analyzing the death of the subjunctive. The emergence of neo-standard Italian

• „Begriepst mi?“ - Die gegenseitige Verständlichkeit zwischen Gronings und Ostfriesisch

• Cross-Linguistic Influence on Lexical Retrieval in Dutch-Spanish Multilinguals: a tip-of-the-tongue study

• Assoziationen im Bilingualismus: Über das konzeptionelle Denkvermögen von bilingualen Sprechern

Want to find out who teaches in this profile? See the Language and Society staff here.

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