UC Berkeley offers online course on Armenian and sociolinguistics
BERKELEY, Calif. — This summer, UC Berkeley’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures will offer an upper-division course titled “Language in Its Social Context: The Case of Armenian.” The six-week course runs July 6-Aug. 14, 2026, meeting on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 3:30 p.m. Pacific time. Conducted entirely via live online instruction, the course is open to participants globally. No prior knowledge of Armenian or linguistics is required.
Students will be introduced to foundational concepts in sociolinguistics and historical linguistics, using the unique trajectory of the Armenian language as their primary case study. The curriculum covers themes including language ideology, language vitality, dialect variation and multilingualism. Through a series of short, hands-on projects, students will explore the role language plays in their own lives and engage with contemporary debates in the field. To learn more or to enroll, visit https://classes.berkeley.edu/content/2026-summer-armeni-122-001-lec-001.
The course instructor, Julianne Kapner, is a Ph.D. candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of Linguistics with specializations in sociolinguistics and minority languages. As director and founder of the Armenian Language in the Bay Area (ALBA) undergraduate research team, Kapner collaborates with the Armenian Studies Program, (armenian.berkeley.edu, on campus to mentor students in linguistic fieldwork. To date, the ALBA team has conducted 63 interviews with diverse Armenian speakers, documenting how the language varies across time and social identities. Students who have worked under Kapner’s direction praise her for fostering an immersive, supportive research environment that bridges undergraduate study and graduate-level scholarship.
Enrollment details
The course serves as an elective for Armenian Studies or linguistics majors and minors, and it fulfills UC Berkeley breadth requirements. It offers transferable credit for visiting students and is open to the public through UC Berkeley Summer Sessions. Approximate enrollment costs are as follows:
UC Berkeley undergraduates: $1,800
Other UC undergraduates: $2,000
Non-UC affiliated U.S. residents/students: $2,500
International students: $3,000
