This course focuses on variation, a crucially important aspect of linguistics. How and why is language different in different contexts? What causes variation, how do we study it, what challenges does it pose and how should we deal with it as language professionals? Following an introduction to the main concepts, we will look at a number of registers in detail. With case studies ranging from academic articles and short stories to political speeches and online newspapers, we will get to know specific contexts of text production and examine the variation they give rise to in language. The course will make moderate use of corpus linguistic methods, but no prior knowledge of corpora is required. Course work includes regular attendance and participation, homework assignments, a presentation in class and a final paper on a related topic.