Spring 2025-2026
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alper Kumcu Email | Website

Course Description and Content

The course begins with an overview of the distinction between micro- and macro-linguistics, introducing the shift from the internal structure of language to language in use. It then examines how language varies across social groups and regions, focusing on issues of identity, style, prestige, and power. Topics such as multilingualism, bilingual development, diglossia, and language contact are explored alongside mechanisms of language change and the impact of innovation in contemporary communication contexts. The course further investigates the relationship between language and culture, including cultural categories and linguistic relativity. In the second half of the semester, attention turns to language acquisition and cognition, addressing first and second language acquisition processes, the mental organization and processing of language, and the relationship between language and the brain. The final week introduces computational linguistics and digital humanities, highlighting how large-scale language data, corpus methods, and digital tools are used to analyze variation, change, discourse, and multilingual practices in contemporary societies. The course concludes by integrating social, cognitive, and technological perspectives into a comprehensive macro-linguistic framework.

Objectives & Outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Explain key concepts in macro-linguistics, including social and regional variation, multilingualism, language change, and language policy.
  • Analyze how language constructs identity and reflects social power relations.
  • Describe the processes involved in first and second language acquisition and distinguish between them.
  • Discuss how language is represented and processed in the mind and localized in the brain, drawing on neurolinguistic evidence.
  • Evaluate the role of language in shaping culture, worldview, and social interaction.
  • Interpret basic findings from corpus-based and computational approaches to language, and understand how digital tools and large-scale language data contribute to the study of linguistic variation, change, and discourse.
  • Integrate social, cognitive, cultural, and technological perspectives to develop a holistic understanding of language as a dynamic human and societal phenomenon.

Weekly Schedule

Week Date Topic Related Reading (George Yule, 8th ed., 2023)
1 February 17, 2026 Course Introduction Preface (pp. 24–25); Overview of Chapters 1–20
2 February 24, 2026 From Micro to Macro Linguistics Chapters 3–11 (overview of internal structure); Chapters 12–20 (overview of language in use)
3 March 3, 2026 Language and Identity Chapter 19 – Social Variation in Language; Chapter 20 – Language and Culture (social categories, gender, address terms)
4 March 10, 2026 Language and Power Chapter 19 – Social Variation in Language (prestige, accommodation, vernacular)
5 March 17, 2026 Multilingualism and Bilingualism Chapter 18 – Regional Variation in Language (diglossia, bilingualism, pidgins, creoles); Chapter 14 – Second Language Acquisition (becoming bilingual)
6 March 24, 2026 Language Change and Language in the Digital Era Chapter 17 – Language History and Change; Chapter 19 – Social Variation in Language (slang, register, innovation)
7 March 31, 2026 Language and Culture Chapter 20 – Language and Culture (culture, categories, linguistic relativity)
8 April 7, 2026 Midterm Exam –
9 April 14, 2026 First Language Acquisition Chapter 13 – First Language Acquisition
10 April 21, 2026 Second Language Acquisition Chapter 14 – Second Language Acquisition
11 April 28, 2026 Language in the Mind Chapter 12 – Language and the Brain (language processing, slips, mental organization)
12 May 5, 2026 Language and the Brain Chapter 12 – Language and the Brain (brain areas, aphasia, lateralization)
13 May 12, 2026 Computational Linguistics and Digital Humanities –
14 May 19, 2026 Holiday –
  • Burdick, A., Drucker, J., Lunenfeld, P., Presner, T., & Schnapp, J. (2012). Digital humanities. MIT Press.
  • Crystal, D. (2004). The stories of English. Penguin.
  • Crystal, D. (2005). How language works. Penguin.
  • Crystal, D. (2011). Language and the Internet (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  • Edwards, J. (2013). Sociolinguistics: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
  • Grosjean, F. (2010). Bilingualism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
  • Holmes, J. (2013). An introduction to sociolinguistics (4th ed.). Routledge.
  • Jurafsky, D., & Martin, J. H. (2023). Speech and language processing (3rd ed. draft).
  • McCulloch, G. (2019). Because Internet: Understanding the new rules of language. Riverhead Books.
  • McEnery, T., & Hardie, A. (2016). Corpus linguistics: Method, theory and practice. Cambridge University Press.
  • Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct: How the mind creates language. William Morrow.
  • Salzmann, Z., Stanlaw, J., & Adachi, N. (2014). Language, culture, and society: An introduction to linguistic anthropology (6th ed.). Westview Press.

Requirements and Evaluation

  • To be considered successful in the course, a student must receive at least 50 out of 100 on the final exam. Any student who scores below 50 out of 100 will fail the course.
  • Attendance is mandatory. Students exceeding the limit will automatically fail (F1).
  • Missing the final exam results in automatic failure (F2).

Pre Feedback