What is ethnicity? Is there a 'white' way of speaking? Why do people sometimes borrow features of another ethnic group's language? Why do we sometimes hear an accent that isn't there? This lively overview, first published in 2006, reveals the fascinating relationship between language and ethnic identity, exploring the crucial role it plays in both revealing a speaker's ethnicity and helping to construct it. Drawing on research from a range of ethnic groups around the world, it shows how language contributes to the social and psychological processes involved in the formation of ethnic identity, exploring both the linguistic features of ethnic language varieties and also the ways in which language is used by different ethnic groups. Complete with discussion questions and a glossary, Language and Ethnicity will be welcomed by students and researchers in sociolinguistics, as well as anybody interested in ethnic issues, language and education, inter-ethnic communication, and the relationship between language and identity.

This book discusses the linguistic reflection of ethnicity using as an illustration informal speech patterns in the bi-ethnic Afrikaans speech community. Its theoretical outlook is based on variationist studies and discourse studies on the processes shaping ethnicity. Two areas of language variation come into focus, namely Afrikaans morphosyntax and Afrikaans-English code-switching. Coloured and White speech norms are quantitatively reconstructed on the basis of a corpus of informal speech. This forms the point of departure for a qualitative reconstruction of strategies of ethnic identity negotiation. It is shown that quantifiable trends of linguistic convergence are not incompatible with enduring ethnic differentiation in speech norms.

This book, addressed to experienced and novice language educators, provides an up-to-date overview of sociolinguistics, reflecting changes in the global situation and the continuing evolution of the field and its relevance to language education around the world. Topics covered include nationalism and popular culture, style and identity, creole languages, critical language awareness, gender and ethnicity, multimodal literacies, classroom discourse, and ideologies and power. Whether considering the role of English as an international language or innovative initiatives in Indigenous language revitalization, in every context of the world sociolinguistic perspectives highlight the fluid and flexible use of language in communities and classrooms, and the importance of teacher practices that open up spaces of awareness and acceptance of --and access to--the widest possible communicative repertoire for students.

Part sociolinguistic, part ethnographic, this book takes up the neglected question of how ethnic division interacts with variation and change in Northern Irish English. It identifies an idealised folk model of harmonious communities, in spite of the social divide and open conflict that have long affected the region; this model affects daily life and sociolinguistic studies alike. A reading of sociolinguistic studies from the region reveals ethnolinguistic differentiation. Qualitative analysis of material from (London)Derry shows people often stressing tolerance in their community, while accounts of their activities contain evidence of ethnic division and strife. Quantitative analysis charts six changes in (London)Derry English. Variation correlates to varying degrees with age, ethnicity, class, sex and social network. The ethnic dimension, while not the most important parameter in all cases, plays a role in relation to all the changes examined.

This anthology emphasizes dialects of American English and language variation in America. The editors present original essays by today's leading investigators, including articles by some of Europe's best dialectologists, obtained expressly for this work.Important topics featured in Dialect and Language Variation include:**Dialect theories: linguistic geography, structural and generative dialectology, and language variation.**The nature of social dialects and language variation, with attention to women's speech.**Overview of regional dialects and area studies.**The nature and study of the relationship between ethnicity and dialects, including Black, Italian, Irish, Chicano, and Jewish ethnic groups.**The application of dialect studies to education.**Of special interest to dialectologists, sociolinguists, and English language educators and specialists, this work provides original insight into**a general background and history of dialect theory**an overview of regional geography and area studies**the principles of social dialects and language variation from several perspectives**an exploration of the relationship between ethnicity and dialects o explanations of the relationship between historical and language change**a section on how dialects and language variation can contribute to effective language instruction.

The most comprehensive overview available, this Handbook is an essential guide to sociolinguistics today. Reflecting the breadth of research in the field, it surveys a range of topics and approaches in the study of language variation and use in society. As well as linguistic perspectives, the handbook includes insights from anthropology, social psychology, the study of discourse and power, conversation analysis, theories of style and styling, language contact and applied sociolinguistics. Language practices seem to have reached new levels since the communications revolution of the late twentieth century. At the same time face-to-face communication is still the main force of language identity, even if social and peer networks of the traditional face-to-face nature are facing stiff competition of the Facebook-to-Facebook sort. The most authoritative guide to the state of the field, this handbook shows that sociolinguistics provides us with the best tools for understanding our unfolding evolution as social beings.

Language labelling us explicitly -- Ways of speaking -- Preference for the linguistically similar -- Linguistic diversity -- Culture hidden in the language -- The effects of language on cognition -- Let there be a nation -- Creating nations and languages -- Consequences of national languages -- More consequences of national languages -- Language and nationality, a hasty equation.