2020-21

The course deals with the basic concepts of sociolinguistics. It deals with language in relation to the social context in which it is spoken, developed and changed. Interest focuses on the analysis of language as social practice in monolingual and multilingual communities. The course is divided into two parts: the first includes an introduction to basic concepts of sociolinguistics, such as diglossia, individual bilingualism, dominant language, language competence, language maintenance, linguistic sexism, code switching and minority language.

The various units of the course deal with the period from the end of the First World War to the fall of Communism. The units of the first half of the course examine ideological, political and socio-economic clashes during the interwar period, the rise of democracies and dictatorships and the consequences of the economic crisis, the birth and enormous expansion of totalitarian regimes and the Second World War.

The course acquaints students with the various forms of contemporary rituals found in Greek folk culture and with the basic social and ideological parameters that inform the functioning and formation of these rituals.  It also gives them an understanding of the meaning of the evolution and of the handling of older forms of tradition and the ways in which these forms function.  The course also acquaints students with the functioning of phenomena, such as secularization, the introduction of cultural prototypes, folklorism and cultural globalization in practice, which it does through the use o

The course starts with a summary of education in Classical antiquity and in Hellenistic and Roman times.  It then deals with the fate of ancient Greek literature in early Byzantium.  The course examines the primary and secondary education system of the Byzantines, the organization of the university of Constantinople (AD 425), the Magnavra Scholē (mid 9th c.), the state Law School (mid 11th c.) and the Patriarchal School of Constantinople (12th c.).  The course both introduces students to the study of Byzantine education and acquaints them with the various literary forms that developed in th