This course focuses on the interface between language and culture from a socio-cognitive linguistic perspective, i.e. Pragmatics. Pragmatics studies both how culture permeates every linguistic choice we make when we engage in communication and how culture is the filter through which we interpret discourse. The importance of culture in communication becomes even more evident when two people with dissimilar cultural backgrounds try to communicate with each other. The course will conclude with a revision of attitudes towards language variation and social and geographic dialects in the USA. (This course fulfills the Applied Linguistics requirement for English majors).