Prescribed Reading: 
Bell, Allan, Harlow, Ray and Starks, Donna.  2005.  Languages of New Zealand.  Wellington: Victoria University Press

Assessment:
60% coursework, 40% final examination

Course description:
The course provides an overview of New Zealand’s linguistic resources and how New Zealanders make use of these to express their identity.  The first part of the course looks at the notion of identity.  The next concentrates on multilingual New Zealanders.  It considers the role of Maori, Pasifika, Asian, European and New Zealand Sign languages and the importance of these as symbols of cultural identity.  The final part of the course focusses on how New Zealanders express their identity through New Zealand English.  It describes how slight differences in pronunciation may be used to signal the age, ethnic identity, gender and social class of the speaker, and demonstrates how speakers modify their speech to reflect the multiple ways in which they identify themselves to the outside world. 

Linguist 205:    Language and Identities in New Zealand