This unit introduces students to sociolinguistic factors which influence the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a language development program. Students are enabled to identify and describe the language attitudes of a given language community and the vitality of a language, and to work with members of ethnolinguistic communities in strategic planning and implementation of language development activities, including Bible translation and literacy. Topics: • What is Sociolinguistics? • Language and worldview • Language variation: defining languages, dialects and varieties; standardisation • Language and identity and social interaction: register and style, social position and politeness, role of gender • Cultural differences and values in communication • Multilingual speech communities: multilingualism and diglossia, language attitudes and language use, code switching and code choice • Function and status of languages, pidgins and creoles • Language viability: EGIDS (Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale); factors in language maintenance, spread, shift, and death • Language planning and policies: reversing language shift, SUM (sustainable use model), and participatory methods. • Overview of sociolinguistic survey purposes, tools, and procedures • Introduction to participatory methods At each point, emphasis is given to the application of the principles to the type of cross-cultural ministry situations in which graduates will typically be working.