What is Canadian English? (How) does it differ from coast to coast? How does it compare to American (U.S.) English? to British English? What is the relationship between our speech and our sense of national and regional identity? Is Canadian English changing? How have immigration patterns affected our language? How is data regarding these questions collected and analyzed?

These are some of the questions to be addressed in this course. Please note that you will be contributing your own knowledge of Canadian English to the course; this is NOT A COURSE FOR LANGUAGE LEARNERS -- it is also not a course for improving/changing your own accent or for learning English. It is intended for students with a strong working knowledge of Canadian English and a familiarity with Canadian life.

Prerequisite: You must have completed LIN 100 or LIN 200 to take this course. This prerequisite is essential to provide the background material in linguistic theory that you will need for this class. In particular, you should review phonetics (especially the International Phonetic alphabet), phonology and sociolinguistics.

Syllabus & assignments for the current semester | Course requirements