The materials below were developed for a course at UW–Madison on Language and Immigration in Wisconsin, Linguistics 237, taught in the Spring. You are welcome to use them for teaching or self-study. We would welcome any feedback on these materials. If you develop related materials, we’d be very happy to post them here for others to use. Contact Joe Salmons.
Course Description
Migration from abroad and other parts of the US has brought and brings many languages and dialects to Wisconsin. How and when did newcomers and their descendants learn English? When and why did they begin to speak only English? How have they shaped English spoken here? We’ll do hands-on research to answer these and other questions about languages past and present in Wisconsin. We’ll examine social and historical issues and linguistic structures, drawing on many different sources.
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Course Syllabus
There are two syllabus files, each containing different information:
· Course syllabus, including learning goals and more (Spring 2019)
· Course schedule, including weekly readings and assignments (Spring 2019)
Questions for Reading
Wisconsin Talk: Chapter-by-chapter discussion questions
· Introduction (Thinking about language and Wisconsin English)
· Chapter 1 (The Native languages of Wisconsin)
· Chapter 2 (Older Immigrant languages)
· Chapter 3 (Immigrant languages and education)
· Chapter 4 (The non-Wisconsin sound of Southwest Wisconsin)
· Chapter 5 (Words used in Wisconsin)
· Chapter 6 (Standard English)
· Chapter 7 (Ethnicity and language)
· Chapter 8 (Hmong in Wisconsin)
· Chapter 9 (Spanish in Wisconsin)
Other discussion questions
· ‘Ordeal of immigration’ and response
· Why don’t they just learn English?
· National Heritage Language Resource Center
· Somali
Homeworks and Test Preview
· HW 1 Introductory homework (statement of interests and motivations)
· HW 2 Mini-survey
· HW 3 Linguistic diversity
· HW 4 Basic community profile
· HW 5 1910 Census homework
· HW 6 Full community profile
· HW 7 Scholarly article evaluation
· HW 8 Evaluation of “Do You Speak American?”
· HWs 9-10 Draft and final paper guidelines
· Test 1 preview
