CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

This volume brings together a collection of 18 papers that look into the expression of modality in the grammars of natural languages, with an emphasis on its manifestations in naturally occurring discourse. Though the individual contributions reflect a diversity of languages, of synchronic and diachronic foci, and of theoretical orientations — all within the broad domain of functional linguistics — they nonetheless converge around a number of key issues: the relationship between 'mood' and 'modality'; the delineation of modal categories and their nomenclature; the grounding of modality in interactive discourse; the elusive category 'irrealis'; and the relationship of modal notions and categories to other categories of grammar.

The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes constitutes a comprehensive introduction to the study of World Englishes. Split into six sections with 40 contributions, this Handbook discusses how English is operating in a wide range of fields from business to popular culture and from education to new literatures in English and its increasing role as an international lingua franca. Bringing together more than 40 of the world’s leading scholars in World Englishes, the sections cover historical perspectives, regional varieties of English from across the world, recent and emerging trends and the pedagogical implications and the future of Englishes. The Handbook provides a thorough and updated overview of the field, taking into account the new directions in which the discipline is heading. This second edition includes up-to-date descriptions of a wide range of varieties of English and how these reflect the cultures of their new users, including new chapters on varieties in Bangladesh, Uganda, the Maldives and South Africa, as well as covering hot topics such as translanguaging and English after Brexit. With a new substantial introduction from the editor, the Handbook is an ideal resource for students of applied linguistics, as well as those in related degrees such as applied English language and TESOL/TEFL.

Indonesia's policy since independence has been to foster the national language. In some regions, local languages are still political rallying points, but their significance has diminished, and the rapid spread of Indonesian as the national language of political and religious authority has been described as the 'miracle of the developing world'. Among the Weyewa, on the island of Sumba, this shift has displaced a once vibrant tradition of ritual poetic speech, which until recently was an important source of authority, tradition, and identity. But it has also given rise to new and hybrid forms of poetic expression. This first study to analyse language change in relation to political marginality argues that political coercion or cognitive process of 'style reduction' may partially explain what has happened, but equally important in language shift is the role of linguistic ideologies.